Halloween With Division 14!

Here are some Halloween pictures, finally!  Thank you to all the parents who sent carved Jack-O'lanterns, treats, and kids in costumes.  We had a great day!

Digital scrapbook customized with Smilebox

Magical Pumpkins

On Friday, we had a special event.  The magical pumpkins arrived! 




The Kindies had so much fun running around trying to find their pumpkins.

We also had some scarecrows that surprised the Kindies.  They were frozen still for quite a while, but once we ventured into the garden and tempted them with the statement, "You are not real!", it was too hard for the scarecrows to resist.  They showed the Kindies that in fact they were real.

 I haven't seen so many shocked and happy faces in a long time!

After running around in the rain, we spent the afternoon with our grade 5 buddies and did some scientific observations of our pumpkins.

 I hope you enjoyed or will enjoy carving these special pumpkins at home!

 

The James Ardiel Harvest Hoedown 2012

It's the James Ardiel
Harvest Hoedown time,
A promenade around with a friend of mine,
Swing my friend and then we stand, 

Stompin' our feet and clappin' our hands 

We stomp, stomp, stomp and we clap, clap, clap, 

We turn turn turn and we stomp again,

We stomp, stomp stomp and we clap, clap, clap 

We turn turn turn, and we get a new friend!

 First off here are some sample singing from the 2012 Harvest Hoedown.

listen to ‘Sample Songs from the 2012 Harvest Hoedown’ on Audioboo

If you haven't heard your child singing these songs yet, ask them to, I'm sure they'll put everything down to do so and then proceed to sing all the others!  This Wednesday was our annual Harvest Hoedown.  Mrs. Hibbert has been working with your child since their first music class practicing and learning all the songs that go with this event that everyone looks forward to.  It was exciting to see the Kindies participate in their first Harvest Hoedown as students of James Ardiel Elementary. Thank you to Mrs. Hibbert for the songs and all the choreography and thanks to Mugs for spending many mornings setting up and decorating the gym.

I'll now let the all of these photos speak for themselves!

Thanksgiving Sharing Feast

For this past week we have been learning about what Thanksgiving is and what we are thankful for. My heart fills with how your children talk about the things that they are thankful for, especially when they thoughtfully respond about how thankful they are for their families. As well, we have to talk about turkey.
Here is a funny song that the kids love to sing called "I Heard Mr. Turkey Say".

"I Heard Mr. Turkey Say" song, Click Here.

On Friday we had our Thanksgiving sharing feast.  What a wonderful way to celebrate Thanksgiving.  We had a wide variety of food to eat and nice conversation.  Thanks to Mrs. Petersson and Ms. Frost for helping to organize and thanks to the families who came through and brought an incredible amount of food to share.

Here is a slide show of the event. I have to admit, I did shed tears after watching this one.  Get some tissues, if you do not have any close at hand!  The photos of your children, remind me at how far they have come in just a month of school!

I hope you have a great Thanksgiving.  Love to you and your family.

Grape Jelly

Today we talked about the colour purple and tasted some grape jelly that my family made with grapes from our garden. Here are some thoughts after the taste test.

http://audioboo.fm/boos/986435

iPads and 21st Century Learning

This week we experimented with our school's new iPads!  We had so much fun with our Grade 5 buddy class.  They showed us how to use the camera, video camera, Drawing Pad, and ToonTastic.  We created some funny photos, drawings and cartoons, including one of me in a larger than life pose. I hope that one was deleted soon after!

I will be sending home a permission form outlining some of the things that we will be doing in the class involving technology.  I am on the technology committee this year and it will definitely a big part of my teaching.  If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me at any time.

I understand it may be a scary thing for some of you, but technology is becoming a more essential part of our learning and social lives.  I believe that if we do not accept technology in our schools many children will continue to slip through the cracks.  Recently, I found this video and it hit me that schools are using teaching strategies that are not reaching our students. This video is a few years old and American, but the message is clear. Children are not being engaged in their learning at school.  Technology can help students to develop skills like critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration. Kindergarten isn't too early to experiment with technology! How can we afford not to try?

Terry Fox Run

On Friday, our school held a Terry Fox run fundraiser for cancer research.  

 In the afternoon, all the Kindergartners had fun running  around our school's grass field. But, before we ran, we spent a morning with our new grade 5/6 big buddies and learned about Terry Fox.  So, now you know why stories about foxes with no leg may have came home! 

The Terry Fox run is a powerful way for the school to emphasize lessons of corage, hope, 

and dedication.  As the Kindies were running around, some of them "resting" along the way were reminded about how Terry Fox pushed through his pain, his sickness, his negative thoughts and just kept going.  Great lessons for the beginning of the year!

 Thank you to those parents who came out and helped and who donated money to this important cause.