Snow globes

We will be doing a Science/Language Arts activity next week using snow globes.  If you have one or more snow globes that you can send to class for a week, it would be much appreciated!  We are very careful with them BUT please do not send anything irreplaceable just in case :-)  

Thank you.

Scholastic

Scholastic came home today (Thursday).  I will be sending the order out on Wednesday, so please return forms by then.  This will be the LAST order before Christmas.  If you are ordering Christmas gifts, please let me know by email or a note on your forms so that I can give the books to you directly.

Cheers!

Family Pictures

In anticipation of themes around Christmas time, it would be wonderful if everyone could send a family picture to school ASAP.  Ideally, this would be a print, however, I know that many of you may only have digital copies and that is also fine.  You can email those to me at lmaclaren@sd44.ca  

Pictures will be returned home in a couple of weeks time.  Please understand that, although we will take care to ensure that pictures are not damaged, STUFF happens in Kindergarten.  Please do not send your only copy or anything that can not be replaced.  

Thank you

Christmas gift/Absence

We will begin working on our TOP SECRET Christmas gift beginning the week of Nov. 28...gifts to come home on Dec. 16th.  If your child will be absent for an extended period of time in that window, please let me know ASAP so that I can plan accordingly to ensure that they get one completed and home for Christmas.  

Thank you!  

Reading

Some of you will have had little booklets come home this week (all of you by tomorrow) that your child can read to you!  We have not yet begun tracking with fingers or pointers, so all that you should expect is that your child can recite the story to you.  In doing so, they are using the reading strategies of recall, retelling, and using picture cues to infer meaning.  This is about building confidence before we move onto other skills.

They are also bringing home other tools to help them retell the story of The Mitten by Jan Brett.

Happy reading :-)

Scholastic/Christmas

Scholastic order forms came home yesterday.  I will be sending the order out on Tuesday.  If you would like to use your order as Christmas gifts, please email me or put a note on the order form and I will deliver the books to you directly once they arrive.

FYI, there will be one more chance to order before Christmas.

Book Exchange

Library book exchange is taking place on Thursdays.  You may keep the books until the following Thursday.  There will be a limit of 2 books that can be checked out at one time so that means if they do not return their book(s) by Thursday, they will not be able to check any more out that day.

Squamish Nation Elder Dance #2

This is a video of the Dance of the Deer.

Squamish Nation Elder

Today we were so lucky to be able to welcome Dallas to our classroom.  Dallas is an Elder from the Squamish Nation, Coast Salish peoples, and a local resident living in the Capitano reservation.  What an amazing cultural experience to hear ancestral stories, dance traditional dances, and hear about local legends.

These are some of the things we learned:

• People of the Squamish Nation are called, "people of the water" because they lived on the beach.
• Totem poles represent history through story-telling.  The story begins at the bottom and ends at the top.
• The Squamish Nation logo is the Thunderbird - a mythical creature.  You can identify a thunderbird in totems and other art as the bird with feathers sticking up at the back of its neck.
• First Nations people did not identify each other by surnames historically.  They used clans instead.   A bear carving outside a home, told others that someone of the bear clan lived there.
• Siwash Rock at Stanley Park is part of a legend that reminds parents to live a healthy lifestyle for the sake of their children.

The video below is the "Welcoming Song."  Each group of dancers has been assigned a clan animal and asked to dance as that animal would.

Enjoy :-)