What's Happening in December?

Theme - Christmas

Personal and Social Responsibility
- continue to work on following classroom routines and behaviour expectations. Review Kindness Counts lessons and Superflex with the Unthinkables.

Early Literacy
- continue name printing practice, Jolly Phonics program to learn letters (Dec: L, F, E, P, T, I, H, I, U. Use center activities to practice letter formation, sounds and begin to hear these sounds  at the beginning of words)
- Morning Messages were introduced this month. Tracking print with fingers was modelled and your children are looking for sounds they know in the message to review the sound, action and songs that come from the Jolly Phonics Program.
A link to a video of the the Songs can be found in the 'Ways to Help at Home'.
- We continue to work on rhyming by distinguishing between words that rhyme and don't rhyme.
- We are tried a new process of reading the story called Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett. We will only read a couple of pages every few days so we can focus on interpretation of the pictures and  improve our prediction skills. Your child has drawn a lot of pictures to show their understanding of the story and dictated sentences to go with them. 

Early Numeracy
- begin ABC patterns,
- recognizing 3D shapes in the environment, folding, sorting, describing and tracing shapes.
- During calendar, we are dressing for the weather, understanding weekdays and weekends, practicing ABC patterns, sorting concepts as well as counting forwards to 10. 

Physical Skills and Well Being in the classroom
- encouraging and strengthening pincer hand grasp (using large tweezers, placing marbles on tees, placing buttons/gems in a line formation), and scissor use
- identifying healthy choices for morning snack.

Hello from the gym team.  

In the last month the students have played many throwing and catching games.  We’ve had some special days when the students participated in games, fun centers and we used the gym mats for supports and balances. We also did Go Noodle and played games on scooters!  

In December we plan to do many Festive games. While playing these games we will learn team skills and how to play fair!

The Gym Team!

Creative Expression
- We made many Christmas themed crafts and practiced for our Christmas Concert.
- Thank you for coming to our Christmas Concert. Your child was so excited when they saw you.

Environment and Community Awareness
- We participate in a variety of centers that not only encourage fine motor control but also help us to learn the objects, make plans about how to use the material without wasting and sharing the objects or learning to working along side others.
-  The materials available to your child: many types of building tools (such as blocks, magnetic shapes, lego, Makedo (usable screws/screw drivers and saws for cardboard - donations of cardboard are welcome :), playdough, sand, water play, fake snow, pretend play (dress-up, house, fire station, kitchen, tools and bench)

Citizenship and Identity
- Our Star of the Week projects continue until May.
- This month we enjoyed projects from Sophia and Deh'kyaa.
Thank for your support with this!
The overview note for this project is found in the ways to help at home.

What's Happening in January?

Theme - Community and Winter

Personal and Social Responsibility
- continue to work on following classroom routines and behaviour expectations. We will be looking into more about what makes a Community great, working together and helping each other, and creating classroom jobs.

We will develop a Classroom Mission Statement:

Early Literacy
- continue name printing practice, Jolly Phonics program to learn letters (Dec: L, F, E, P, T, I, H, I, U; Jan Goal: O, Q, G, S, J, D, B; R; A, N, M, W)
A link to a video of the the Songs can be found in the 'Ways to Help at Home'.
- We will work on generating rhyming words.
- We are trying the new process of reading with the story called The Mitten by Jan Brett. We will a page or 2 a day using pictures to help us with predicting the story then reading to see if we are right and noticing patterns.
- We will continue work with our morning message circling the sounds we know and practicing the sounds and song.

Early Numeracy
- We will begin to focus on numbers 1-5, understanding the numerals and representing them in different ways.
- We continue to talk about 3D shapes in the environment, folding, sorting, describing and tracing shapes.
- During calendar, we are dressing for the weather, understanding weekdays and weekends, practicing ABC patterns, counting backwards and forwards to 10, and reviewing sorting concepts. 

There will be a mid year update going home by the first days of February. It will let you know about your child's progress with letters, rhyming, number and patterns.

Physical Skills and Well Being in the classroom
- encouraging and strengthening pincer hand grasp (using large tweezers, placing marbles on tees, placing buttons/gems in a line formation), and scissor use.
- identifying healthy choices for morning snack.

Creative Expression
-We sing many songs to welcome everyone, learn our letters, and transition through our day.
 - We have dramatic play within our Community and Winter themed items.
- Art is accomplished through letter, community and winter themed crafts. 

Environment and Community Awareness
- participating in a variety of centers to explore properties of materials (such as sand, water, playdough, building items, etc.) and using a them safely and properly. 
- During our Community Unit, we discussed important jobs in our community. We built our town and added streets, signs and cars while we played.

Citizenship and Identity
- During our community Unit, we will discuss what a community needs to have.
- We will enjoy Star of the Week presentations from Mackenzie, Malek, Fiona and Karter.
It is great finding out how we are similar and unique. Thank you for coming in to talk to us!
The note is saved "Ways to help at home" if you would like to refer to it.

Link to the
Class Monthly Calendar