Hello everyone,
Can you believe this week marks the beginning of December?! Where is the year going? Where, I can't tell you...except maybe to that place where the socks from the dryer migrate; but, how it's going is something for which I can definitely vouch. From a teacher's perspective on student learning, classroom cohesiveness, citizenship and life skills, the year is going very well! We have a group of little people who are embracing some big concepts, from peace and mindfulness to place value and literacy skills. I invite all of you to visit us for a morning or an afternoon to observe the growth and discovery I am privileged to witness and enjoy every day!
There is a lot of information to present in this correspondence, so please read it in its entirety. Also, be sure to address any questions or concerns as soon as possible so we may clarify things for you quickly. Before launching into the body of the writing, though, I want to thank ALL of you for working with your children at home to learn the words to our Christmas Concert song. The children sound wonderful, they are animated and excited and we hope you will please sing along with us on December 10!
Before getting into specifics about the calendar, there are three important situations I would like to address:
1. There is a fundraising event at school this week, "Santa's Workshop - Shopping Event" that Mrs. Gysen and I have discussed at length to determine whether or not Kindergarten participates. We have elected to opt out of taking our classes to this event, as we would prefer to leave the matter of spending money on material items to you, as parents, to discuss and supervise personally with your children outside school. We are focusing on other elements of the holiday season and spending lots of time handcrafting individual items for our families. If you feel strongly about having your child attend this event, please contact me to arrange a time you can take your child.
2. An annual tradition in our class and now my household is the writing of Santa letters with Grade Five/Six buddies and the delivery of personalized replies to your home from a Henneberry family member elf! I thought my tough 22 year-old army daughter was going to cry last year when I suggested that perhaps it would be too much to fit into the schedule, so it remained in place and is now firmly ensconced in our family holiday plans! If your family does not celebrate Christmas, please contact me and let's discuss another alternative for letter-writing and receiving a reply, whether from a family member or even me, so we may continue the tradition of personal responses to children's thoughts during this magical time of year. Naomi arrives home on Friday, December 18 and we are planning our letter deliveries to people's homes that evening or on Saturday, December 19. Please let me know if you will not be home for the holidays (or at another address in the area) so we may make arrangements to get your child's reply to him or her in a timely fashion...HO HO HO!!!!!
3. This is a sticky one, which usually goes out in a separate letter; however, you are are being bombarded with a tremendous amount of correspondence, so I thought it would be better to embed this request with the other information.
We began focusing on the theme of "Peace" in November to have it coincide with Remembrance day, but also to have the foundation of the concept in place to carry forward into the holiday season (and the rest of the year, for that matter). The children are exhibiting a solid understanding of what this concept is about and I am really impressed with their thinking! A huge part of the peace we discuss is how good we feel when we are kind and do things that make others feel good; hence, the phrases "fill your bucket" and "pay it forward" that you may have heard from your child this year.
I truly believe amidst the commercialism and stress during the holiday season, we are also given a perfect vehicle with which to promote peace and well being in our little ones by teaching them about and modelling reaching out to our greater community, whether it is a neighbour who needs an extra smile, a visit, or assistance with shovelling snow, or a donation to the food bank, Santa's Anonymous, the Stollery Hospital Foundation, or any number of charities or community projects in which you believe. While I know it is important for children to display their appreciation, I encourage you to consider fostering the understanding of the importance of community with your child this year through action in lieu of teacher gifts. Perhaps instead of chocolates (don't get me wrong, they're great, but someone needs something else more than I need those!), you could discuss and select an act of kindness to perform as a family, photograph your child participating in it or note it in a card, and we can display those accounts of good deeds on our classroom tree. I have all I need in the way of material things...and I enjoy the gift of spending my days at a job I love. I would appreciate your family's efforts to do something for another family or group who needs more support. If an item is a must, a child's handmade drawing or card is more than enough...thank you for taking time to consider this.
Moving on...
As you are aware, Helen Whitehouse contacted everyone regarding volunteering in the classroom between November 30 and December 18. She has informed me that many of you will be in to assist with projects and classroom activities and I can't wait to see you! We will be working on handmade gifts for our Grade Five/Six buddies as well as gifts for families, so we really do need your helping hands and hearts! These projects include many curricular elements as well as make our time together a lot of fun.
Week of November 30-December 4:
Our classroom Christmas tree will be bare on Monday, November 30, and it will fill to capacity as we make ornaments to send home in large gift bags on Friday, December 18.
We will be completing our Spirit Spirals on Monday, which consist of beads threaded in patterns onto pipe cleaners and "spiralled" using pencils. These will be adorned with a feather and hung with wire hooks on the tree.
We will also be making water colour snowflakes with coffee filters, so be sure to wear paint friendly clothing when you come in, just in case this becomes your project!
We will be completing our dragon masks for the Christmas Concert, which will require assistance with painting wooden sticks, gluing them to the masks, adorning the sticks with gold decorations and affixing ribbons to the decorations.
If printing and card making is to your liking, we will also be recycling old Christmas cards to make new greetings and decorations, so please prepare to help children with printing and do send your old cards for us to use, if you wish.
I will be sending a package home on Tuesday, December 1, outlining a family "Peace Feels Like..." project for you and your children to complete and return to school by
Friday, December 11. Our main theme for November and December, "Peace", will culminate in the completion of this project and its presentation as a class book.
There is a staff meeting on Wednesday, December 2, so there will be no Kindergarten.
We have our regular Library Day on Thursday, December 3.
We have a field trip to the St. Albert Public Library on Friday, December 4, from 12:45-3:00. We are asking parents to make arrangements for our morning-only students to attend school in the afternoon instead of the morning on this day. We will be taking a bus to the library and back to school, and we have room for all of our adult volunteers on the bus! Each child needs to bring 1-2 cups of candy that can be used to decorate a gingerbread house, such as Smarties, peppermints, Skittles, etc., in a Ziploc bag on Friday. Our parent volunteers will be making the houses while the students are listening to a story, then helping us decorate houses. We will gather to hear another story before we leave the library. We have large plastic boxes and plastic bags in which to bring the houses back to school and in which to send them home.
We will be Kindercooking on Friday, December 4, in the morning.
Week of December 7-11:
We will be making pine cone decorations for our Grade Five/Six Buddies and for our families. These will require lots of adult supervision so be prepared!
We will also be making picture frames.
Mrs. Henneberry will be away Tuesday, December 8.
Wednesday, December 9 is Christmas Concert dress rehearsal day at school. Parent volunteers will be asked to assist with our classes' practice in the gym, as well as activities in the classroom.
Thursday, December 10 is Library Day and it is Christmas Concert day at school! There will be two concerts in the gym, one in the afternoon at school at 1:30 and the other in the evening from 6:30-7:30 at school. We encourage all children to participate in both concerts, if possible. The evening concert is often more crowded, so families attending the afternoon concert is encouraged. Our class performs close to the end of the concert, so we only enter and exit the gym once - hurray! This is logistically much easier than multiple entrances and exits. We will remain in the gym after our song is performed in order to participate in the finale. Please have your child at school by 5:45 on Thursday evening. Children will remain in their classroom until it is time to perform. We will enjoy a movie and quiet activities together during this time! :-)
We will be Kindercooking on Friday, December 11.
Week of December 14-18:
Monday-Thursday, December 14-17, caroling in the gym during the regular day (mornings M/W, afternoons T/Th).
The last day of school before the Christmas Break, Friday, December 18 is a full, regular school day this year. Kindergarten children will be wearing pyjamas to school and making their own pancakes as a Kindercooking activity in the morning from 9:30-10:30, rather than participating in the school pancake breakfast with food from McDonald's. We will be having time with our Grade Five/Six Buddies from 11:15-12:15, during which we will exchange our handmade items and spend time reading stories the buddies have written for us!
We will enjoy festivities in the afternoon with a movie and a classroom celebration from 1:00-3:00.
We will dismiss at 3:20 until we see you on Monday, January 4, 2016!
Finally...Please remember to continue sending outdoor clothing for our adventures to various neighbouring parks and trails throughout the winter season!!!!!!
This has been a lot of material to absorb, so please reread it and feel free to contact me with questions and concerns. Also, please find attached to this correspondence our classroom directory. Should you notice any misinformation in your contacts, please forward corrections to me as soon as possible!
Here's to a joyous December, everyone!
Love and hugs,
Mrs. Hollyberry
Can you believe this week marks the beginning of December?! Where is the year going? Where, I can't tell you...except maybe to that place where the socks from the dryer migrate; but, how it's going is something for which I can definitely vouch. From a teacher's perspective on student learning, classroom cohesiveness, citizenship and life skills, the year is going very well! We have a group of little people who are embracing some big concepts, from peace and mindfulness to place value and literacy skills. I invite all of you to visit us for a morning or an afternoon to observe the growth and discovery I am privileged to witness and enjoy every day!
There is a lot of information to present in this correspondence, so please read it in its entirety. Also, be sure to address any questions or concerns as soon as possible so we may clarify things for you quickly. Before launching into the body of the writing, though, I want to thank ALL of you for working with your children at home to learn the words to our Christmas Concert song. The children sound wonderful, they are animated and excited and we hope you will please sing along with us on December 10!
Before getting into specifics about the calendar, there are three important situations I would like to address:
1. There is a fundraising event at school this week, "Santa's Workshop - Shopping Event" that Mrs. Gysen and I have discussed at length to determine whether or not Kindergarten participates. We have elected to opt out of taking our classes to this event, as we would prefer to leave the matter of spending money on material items to you, as parents, to discuss and supervise personally with your children outside school. We are focusing on other elements of the holiday season and spending lots of time handcrafting individual items for our families. If you feel strongly about having your child attend this event, please contact me to arrange a time you can take your child.
2. An annual tradition in our class and now my household is the writing of Santa letters with Grade Five/Six buddies and the delivery of personalized replies to your home from a Henneberry family member elf! I thought my tough 22 year-old army daughter was going to cry last year when I suggested that perhaps it would be too much to fit into the schedule, so it remained in place and is now firmly ensconced in our family holiday plans! If your family does not celebrate Christmas, please contact me and let's discuss another alternative for letter-writing and receiving a reply, whether from a family member or even me, so we may continue the tradition of personal responses to children's thoughts during this magical time of year. Naomi arrives home on Friday, December 18 and we are planning our letter deliveries to people's homes that evening or on Saturday, December 19. Please let me know if you will not be home for the holidays (or at another address in the area) so we may make arrangements to get your child's reply to him or her in a timely fashion...HO HO HO!!!!!
3. This is a sticky one, which usually goes out in a separate letter; however, you are are being bombarded with a tremendous amount of correspondence, so I thought it would be better to embed this request with the other information.
We began focusing on the theme of "Peace" in November to have it coincide with Remembrance day, but also to have the foundation of the concept in place to carry forward into the holiday season (and the rest of the year, for that matter). The children are exhibiting a solid understanding of what this concept is about and I am really impressed with their thinking! A huge part of the peace we discuss is how good we feel when we are kind and do things that make others feel good; hence, the phrases "fill your bucket" and "pay it forward" that you may have heard from your child this year.
I truly believe amidst the commercialism and stress during the holiday season, we are also given a perfect vehicle with which to promote peace and well being in our little ones by teaching them about and modelling reaching out to our greater community, whether it is a neighbour who needs an extra smile, a visit, or assistance with shovelling snow, or a donation to the food bank, Santa's Anonymous, the Stollery Hospital Foundation, or any number of charities or community projects in which you believe. While I know it is important for children to display their appreciation, I encourage you to consider fostering the understanding of the importance of community with your child this year through action in lieu of teacher gifts. Perhaps instead of chocolates (don't get me wrong, they're great, but someone needs something else more than I need those!), you could discuss and select an act of kindness to perform as a family, photograph your child participating in it or note it in a card, and we can display those accounts of good deeds on our classroom tree. I have all I need in the way of material things...and I enjoy the gift of spending my days at a job I love. I would appreciate your family's efforts to do something for another family or group who needs more support. If an item is a must, a child's handmade drawing or card is more than enough...thank you for taking time to consider this.
Moving on...
As you are aware, Helen Whitehouse contacted everyone regarding volunteering in the classroom between November 30 and December 18. She has informed me that many of you will be in to assist with projects and classroom activities and I can't wait to see you! We will be working on handmade gifts for our Grade Five/Six buddies as well as gifts for families, so we really do need your helping hands and hearts! These projects include many curricular elements as well as make our time together a lot of fun.
Week of November 30-December 4:
Our classroom Christmas tree will be bare on Monday, November 30, and it will fill to capacity as we make ornaments to send home in large gift bags on Friday, December 18.
We will be completing our Spirit Spirals on Monday, which consist of beads threaded in patterns onto pipe cleaners and "spiralled" using pencils. These will be adorned with a feather and hung with wire hooks on the tree.
We will also be making water colour snowflakes with coffee filters, so be sure to wear paint friendly clothing when you come in, just in case this becomes your project!
We will be completing our dragon masks for the Christmas Concert, which will require assistance with painting wooden sticks, gluing them to the masks, adorning the sticks with gold decorations and affixing ribbons to the decorations.
If printing and card making is to your liking, we will also be recycling old Christmas cards to make new greetings and decorations, so please prepare to help children with printing and do send your old cards for us to use, if you wish.
I will be sending a package home on Tuesday, December 1, outlining a family "Peace Feels Like..." project for you and your children to complete and return to school by
Friday, December 11. Our main theme for November and December, "Peace", will culminate in the completion of this project and its presentation as a class book.
There is a staff meeting on Wednesday, December 2, so there will be no Kindergarten.
We have our regular Library Day on Thursday, December 3.
We have a field trip to the St. Albert Public Library on Friday, December 4, from 12:45-3:00. We are asking parents to make arrangements for our morning-only students to attend school in the afternoon instead of the morning on this day. We will be taking a bus to the library and back to school, and we have room for all of our adult volunteers on the bus! Each child needs to bring 1-2 cups of candy that can be used to decorate a gingerbread house, such as Smarties, peppermints, Skittles, etc., in a Ziploc bag on Friday. Our parent volunteers will be making the houses while the students are listening to a story, then helping us decorate houses. We will gather to hear another story before we leave the library. We have large plastic boxes and plastic bags in which to bring the houses back to school and in which to send them home.
We will be Kindercooking on Friday, December 4, in the morning.
Week of December 7-11:
We will be making pine cone decorations for our Grade Five/Six Buddies and for our families. These will require lots of adult supervision so be prepared!
We will also be making picture frames.
Mrs. Henneberry will be away Tuesday, December 8.
Wednesday, December 9 is Christmas Concert dress rehearsal day at school. Parent volunteers will be asked to assist with our classes' practice in the gym, as well as activities in the classroom.
Thursday, December 10 is Library Day and it is Christmas Concert day at school! There will be two concerts in the gym, one in the afternoon at school at 1:30 and the other in the evening from 6:30-7:30 at school. We encourage all children to participate in both concerts, if possible. The evening concert is often more crowded, so families attending the afternoon concert is encouraged. Our class performs close to the end of the concert, so we only enter and exit the gym once - hurray! This is logistically much easier than multiple entrances and exits. We will remain in the gym after our song is performed in order to participate in the finale. Please have your child at school by 5:45 on Thursday evening. Children will remain in their classroom until it is time to perform. We will enjoy a movie and quiet activities together during this time! :-)
We will be Kindercooking on Friday, December 11.
Week of December 14-18:
Monday-Thursday, December 14-17, caroling in the gym during the regular day (mornings M/W, afternoons T/Th).
The last day of school before the Christmas Break, Friday, December 18 is a full, regular school day this year. Kindergarten children will be wearing pyjamas to school and making their own pancakes as a Kindercooking activity in the morning from 9:30-10:30, rather than participating in the school pancake breakfast with food from McDonald's. We will be having time with our Grade Five/Six Buddies from 11:15-12:15, during which we will exchange our handmade items and spend time reading stories the buddies have written for us!
We will enjoy festivities in the afternoon with a movie and a classroom celebration from 1:00-3:00.
We will dismiss at 3:20 until we see you on Monday, January 4, 2016!
Finally...Please remember to continue sending outdoor clothing for our adventures to various neighbouring parks and trails throughout the winter season!!!!!!
This has been a lot of material to absorb, so please reread it and feel free to contact me with questions and concerns. Also, please find attached to this correspondence our classroom directory. Should you notice any misinformation in your contacts, please forward corrections to me as soon as possible!
Here's to a joyous December, everyone!
Love and hugs,
Mrs. Hollyberry
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