Welcome!

This year Amherstburg Public School is proud to be embarking on a new adventure by initiating the province's Full Day Early Learning Kindergarten Program. The purpose of the program is to provide children a strong start in school. The Early Learning Team (ELT) consists of a teacher (Mrs. McLennan) and an Early Childhood Educator (Mrs. Oshar), who will collaborate to create an environment where our youngest learners can engage in activities to help them develop physically, emotionally, socially, and intellectually.  This will be accomplished through a balance of teacher-guided and child-centered activities. Play-based learning will be our primary method of instruction.

Our program will be integrated - this means that each classroom will consist of both Junior Kindergarten and Senior Kindergarten children. Integrated classrooms have many benefits: they help build self-esteem, self-confidence, and risk-taking while developing problem-solving strategies in children. Younger learners have more models to imitate and benefit from practising skills in a safe and supportive environment. Older learners have the opportunity to build on what they already know and refine their knowledge and abilities while developing leadership skills.

Some important information for you as we begin our kindergarten journey together:

1.  Clothing: Our program is a very active learning environment for young children. They will paint, cut and paste, climb, jump, run, and work with sand and water. Messiness is a sign of hard work in kindergarten. Please dress your child so that they are in comfortable play clothes that can get dirty.

2.  Supplies:  Please send your child to school with the following: a backpack, a pair of indoor running shoes to be left at school, an extra set of clothes (shirt, pants, underwear, socks) to be left at school, and a lunch bag. Please label all items that come to school including jackets, shoes, boots, etc. We appreciate donations of the following items: package of thick colouring markers, package of coloured pencils, package of crayons, package of glue sticks, and a box of kleenex.

3.  Mail Bag: Every child will bring home a plastic communication bag each day. This bag will be used to send information back and forth from school to your home. Please ensure you check this mail bag each day for important notes home and your child's work. If you have any notes for us please send them in the mail bag and remind your child in the morning to hand the bag into us by placing it in our mail bag bin.

4.  Changes in Routine:  We will be asking each family to provide names of any emergency contacts who have permission to pick your child up from school. Children will not be sent home with any person not on our list. Unfamiliar faces will be asked to show I.D. to a teacher before a child is released to them.  Please ensure you contact the school if a change in pick-up is anticipated. If your child will not be attending school due to illness, please ensure you contact the school to let us know at 519-736-2189. Your child's safety is our first priority. Thank you for your cooperation with this.