Division 10's News of the Week

Good Morning,
I hope everyone has had a nice long weekend full of sunshine! Lets hope the sunshine continues! Have you seen the skies in the morning? They are such beautiful blues, pinks and purples and at night the colours as the sun is setting is also rich with the orange and red and dark blue colours. It has been a lovely way to end our November month! With these blue skies and no clouds, it has been very cold outside. Please make sure your child ha
s a warm jacket to put on to go outside in. We encourage as much outside play and fresh air as possible. If it's not raining we want them outside. Also important to note is to make sure you send your child with a healthy snack for recess. Some children are telling me that they do not have a snack and that they are hungry. On hot lunch days it is still important to send a little snack that you have put into their back packs. Sometimes they do forget that you have tucked it in, maybe show them a pouch that you regularly put their snack in, so that they know where to look. Thank you for that!

This last week:
On Monday Sarah came in again. We have been using the library space to do our drama exercises and activities. The children listened to Sarah read "Stellaluna" and then they made faces and expressions as the story was read. They then played some drama games. They played one very fun game where one child was the moth and one child was the bat and all the children in the circle were trees. The bat would make a noise and the moth would respond with a noise...as though the noise vibrations were bouncing off of it...echolocation. The children have been working on listening and responding to directions while doing movements and actions. They will continue to do drama and dramatical games with Sarah on Mondays throughout December.

On Wednesday we met Nikoo. Nikoo is from Spec (Society Promoting Environmental Conservation). We have worked with Spec for many years and with Nikoo for the last couple of years. Today Nikoo came in and talked about the importance of mulching. She brought in some different kinds of mulches (ask your child what mulching is for and what kinds she brought in) then with Jen's help (Ayana's mom) they collected some mulch and went to our garden and mulched. Meanwhile the children in the classroom worked on their mulching activity. We learned a lot today about the importance of mulching.

On Thursday we talked about how a bat fits the criteria of being a mammal. We talked about what makes a mammal a mammal. We looked at a bunch of pictures of animals and tried to sort them into yes, they are a mammal or no they are not a mammal by following the criteria. Ask your child if they can remember the five things that makes a mammal a mammal. In the afternoon on Thursday we also divided our group in half. Half the group went to the library and started their bat research with her. This group is all the grade twos and a few grade ones. They will be using the ipads to research a bat.The group inside the classroom also did a bat project...we began learning about the Vampire Bat and started a little project on them.

As you can see our three days were very full!

Important items:
1) We are collecting love items and gifts for our Family hamper. Our family consists of a mom, a 14 year old boy, a seven year old girl and a five year old boy. We have a short window of time to contribute to this Hamper. On Friday the box will be taken from our classroom to be delivered to the family. I am hoping that we will be able to give from our hearts to make another families Christmas very special. If you would like to wrap your gifts, that is great. I have a clipboard by the boxes if you want to write down what you have purchased so that we can avoid repeats (but it doesnt matter that much either). Also if you have a gift card that you are contributing, please give it to me and I will hold on to it as sometimes they go "missing".
Thank you in advance for your generosity!

2) On Wednesday Kins/Cobbs is coming in to do a nutrition workshop. During this workshop there will be a sample of a very healthy bread. The bread is baked in a bakery where there are nuts, however there are no nuts in the bread itself. If your child has a nut sensitivity or allergy let me know if you would rather your child not try a sample of the bread.

3) For next year we are looking for a lunch parent for Wednesdays. Jo (Casper's mom) has been volunteering as the lunch mom and will do so till the end of December but can no longer in January. If you would love to (or can) help out we would appreciate that help. The children definitely eat their food when they eat it in the quiet environment of the classroom rather than in the full, loud lunchroom. First come first serve..hahhaha..

With that,
I hope you have a great day and a great week.
Teri