Surprise in the Mail!

Look what came in the mail today! What was inside? We invited the children to write their guesses on the box.

 

"What's inside?"

"Puzzles!"

"Books. Big Books!"

"An Xbox!"

"Butterflies!" (Our painted lady caterpillars arrived by mail last year.)

We examined the box at circle. It was big, heavy, rattled when shaken, and arrived from Newmarket. 

 

After discussing the children's many guesses we opened the box...

 

 

...and discovered it was a huge wooden train!

 

The children were so excited to open the box and build with this new toy. They had lots of ideas for how to share something that many wanted to use, and how to measure each friend's length of turn (e.g., create a sign up sheet, use the iPad timer).

 

Families, we were able to order this new resource using our bonus points from the Scholastic book order. We earn points with each order and can use these to acquire new resources for our children. As always, thank you for your interest and support of our children and program!

Mailing our Autumn Greetings

Thank you for sending in envelopes and stamps for us to use to mail our Autumn Greetings! The children were excited to put these in the mailbox outside our school this afternoon. 

Just as we were doing so, a Canada Post truck drove past, the driver honking his horn and giving us a thumbs up!  How exciting!

It's not too late! If your child has not yet returned his or her envelope we are planning on mailing more letters on Monday. 

Delivering the Mail

Just another day delivering the mail in the JK/SK classroom...

More Writing!

Thanks to the wonderful suggestion of one of our parents, we turned two shoe organizers into mailboxes for the children. After explaining that each child and teacher in our class had his or her own compartment for 'special deliveries' we encouraged the children to write cards and letters at the writing table and deliver mail to one another. Needless to say there was much interest and excitement by both the writers and receivers of mail!  The children used classroom resources (e.g., word wall, name cards, printed phrases at the card center) to help them write their messages. What fun!

Some Ontario Curriculum this activity fulfilled includes:

4.1 demonstrate an interest in writing (e.g., choose a variety of writing materials, such as adhesive notes, labels, envelopes, coloured paper, markers, crayons, pencils) and choose to write in a variety of contexts

(e.g., draw or record ideas at learning centres)

4.2 demonstrate an awareness that writing can convey ideas or messages (e.g., ask the teacher to write out new words for them)

4.3 write simple messages (e.g., a grocery list on unlined paper, a greeting card made on a computer; labels for a block or sand construction), using a combination of pictures, symbols, knowledge of the correspondence between letters and sounds (phonics), and familiar words

4.4 begin to use classroom resources to support their writing (e.g., a classroom word wall that is made up of children’s names, words from simple patterned texts, and words used repeatedly in shared or interac- tive writing experiences; signs or charts in the classroom; picture dictionaries; alphabet cards; books)