December 15-19

 Hello Families,

This was an eventful week full of anticipation, joy and cold, cold weather!  This week we saw a full blizzard come through town from our classroom window- how exciting and unexpected.  Thank you families for sending your children all bundled up. They are doing absolutely fantastic preparing themselves for our cold temperatures, getting on all of their layers and zipping up.  I am so impressed!

I wanted to say a big "Thank You" to all of the Kindergarten (and McKenzie Towne) Families for all of the sweet, thoughtful and unexpected gifts, snacks and warm wishes this week that I received.  It was so kind of you.  I am so lucky to have such a wonderful group of students and families.  Thank you. 

This week we joined the whole school to participate in Christmas carolling.  We loved singing along with the big kids in the school and a bunch of us were able to spot our big brothers and sisters and our Big Buddies in the crowd. We also worked really hard in our classroom creating special surprises to share with our families this holiday.  There was lots of planning, cutting, gluing, painting, and crafting involved this week as we did our best to create gifts that we can give to people we love to show kindness and care.  I can assure you that the Kindergarten students put their hearts into their special surprises and can't wait to share them with you.  

We continued to learn about patterns, read more versions of The Gingerbread Man, and listened to other funny stories about snowmen, blizzards and snow! We also had lots of fun playing in our Candy Cane Cafe, creating an indoor obstacle course, building humongous train tracks and magnet cities, painting, making cards and playing lots and lots of board games.  We also had lots of fun in the gym exploring new "North Pole" centres, and delivering our "mail" around the school to friends and teachers.  We also learned how to wrap presents this week at our "Wrapping" centre.  We can use tape, scissors, wrapping paper, bows, ribbons and gift tags to wrap up almost anything.  And we tried! I am pretty sure almost every item in our classroom was wrapped this week! And then we'd take turns opening it.  
What a mess- but also so much fun.  At the end of this week, both classes had a great time wearing pjs and watching Frosty the Snowman this week.  It was very cozy.

I hope that you all have a wonderful, safe and restful holiday break, full of joy and peace.  I look forward to seeing all of the Kindergarteners in the New Year.  I know we will all be excited to be back together then:) 

Merry Christmas, Happy Everything, Happy Holidays!

Here are some pictures from our week:

  

December 8-12

 Hello Families,

We are moving through December at lightning speed and our classroom has become especially festive over the last week.  Our letter of the week was letter C!  We practiced making the letter C, we know what sound it makes and we can identify words that begin and end with the /C/ sound.  We loved singing along to an old classic "C is for Cookie!" and spent the week reading different versions of "The Gingerbread Man".  We even journaled about our favourite version so far.

We talked all about sequencing this week as well- looking at beginning, middles
and ends of stories and identifying how different tasks and activities follow a certain order.  We know that we get ready for the park or to go outside by following a sequence.  We practiced completing sequencing pictures and then solved a "sequencing puzzle" to plan out the steps of making a cookie- like the Gingerbread cookie.  The PM Kindergarten students followed the same sequence when we made salt-dough ornaments and gingerbread men this week.  The AM students will get to participate in this activity next week

In math, we continued to work in our number journals representing numbers up to five and reviewing our subtilizing skills on 10 frames.   We also jumped into more pattern exploration.  We went on a pattern walk and found over 20 different patterns in our school.  We noticed that so many people wear patterns on their clothing. We also know that patterns always repeat.  We used our understanding of patterns to create patterned paper chains.  

In centre time we have opened our own Kindergarten Post Office with a mailbox, envelopes, stamps and fancy paper.  We have been writing letters to our friends, making cards for family and getting really excited for "Mail Time" when we deliver mail to other classrooms or to each other in our classroom.  

We also have a cozy holiday cabin and Candy Cane Cafe for our dramatic play centre.  We have been "making cocoa", "buying and selling snacks" and "decorating our pretend house" this week.  It's been a lot of fun.  We have also been crafting, painting, building, playing board games and looking at Christmas books and story books together.  

Important Dates to Remember:

Please return library books this week. We will continue our regular library day on Tuesdays in January.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16:  AM Class ONLY - Caroling at 9:00am 

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 18:  PM Class ONLY - PJ Day and Caroling at 1:00pm

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 19: AM Kindergarten Day - PJ Day for AM Students

DECEMBER 22- JANUARY 2: Winter Break (No School)

 

Additional Updates from MTS:

The Magic of Christmas

Every Christmas Eve, The Magic of Christmas loads up Calgary Transit buses that are magically transformed into “reindeer buses”, with hundreds of gifts and volunteers dressed as Santa and his elves.  Then they deliver Christmas spirit into the homes and hearts of those who need it most. 

From now to December 18, students and staff can bring in a new, unwrapped donation items (not food) and place them in the boxes located in the front foyer.  

Please see the attached wish list for ideas of items to donate. 

For more information or to make a monetary donation, please visit:  www.themagicofchristmas.org/donate 

Thank you for your support!

Food Support

Did you know that the Breakfast Club of Canada has shared research demonstrating that 40% of Alberta’s children experience food insecurity?  This means that 4 out of 10 children do not have access to food when they are hungry. 

If your family is experiencing challenges with providing food for your children you can find help at Brown Bagging Calgary. 

Complete this form for support and they can deliver lunches to McKenzie Towne School for your children. https://go.bb4ck.org/l/858913/2024-01-15/38fdbw You can also find out more information on their website https://bb4ck.org/

Brown Bagging for Calgary's Kids

 

Here are some extra pictures from our week:

December 1-5

 Happy December!

It's hard to believe we are in the last month of 2025.  The Kindergarteners were very excited to see the calendar change over to December- as we know there are lots of exciting days and celebrations ahead.  This last week has been a chilly one, and we are continuing to become more and more independent in dressing ourselves to play outside. 

 Thank you families for sending your children in layers, with hats and mitts and boots.  I can tell lots of children have been practicing doing up the zippers and getting ready on their own.  They are doing fantastic.  We had lots of fun playing outside in the snow, sliding around, making snow angles and testing out the slide that seems more slippery than ever.

This week inside the classroom we learned about 2 new letters- Ss and Ii.  S for snow and I for ice- which was pretty fitting.  We practiced printing the letter, identifying words that begin with these letters and making the different letter sounds.  We read stories about snow and ice, and stories about animals that live in cold places.  In our journals we did writing about what we love to do in the snow and we created our own unique snowflakes with paint on watercolour paper.  

In math we completed our number 4 math journal work and learned about the number 5.  We read a story about penguins (and learned a little bit about penguins too).  We practiced subtilizing, writing the number 5 and representing it different ways.  We also went on a classroom number hunt to practice our counting and recording skills.  We are currently working on our own Penguin Counting book.  We will bring it home to share with you next week.  We also began to explore patterns! We know that a pattern is something that repeats again and again.  We spent some time engaging in Pattern centres- copying, extending and creating patterns with our classmates.

In the classroom we have been building with big blocks, stacking mini cups, playing board games and cards, exploring the new sugar bin sensory centre and doing lots of colouring and painting.  a big thank you goes out to our super parent volunteer who made us some lovely red and green playdoh!  We love to play with play doh in our classroom- and we definitely could use some help keeping up our play doh supply through the year.  If this is something that you could help with- please let me know.  I can even provide a recipe if needed.   

In the next 2 weeks we will be setting up a post office and package wrapping centre along with our pretend "Candy Cane Cafe".   If you have any extra envelopes, cards, wrapping paper, tape, ribbons or bows- please feel free to send them in.  We would love to use them for our dramatic play.

On Monday there will be photo retakes.

This week is our last book exchange before Winter Break

Thank you for all of your support.  Here are some pictures from our week: