Getting to Know You

Everyone was excited about getting jobs this week. We will rotate jobs at the beginning of each new week. By the end of the year everyone will have had 2 turns at each job. Our Lucky Duck gave us some great clues about the special item she brought in for Guess & Tell. Haydon guessed that it was a bunny on the last clue! It was very special to June because she has had it since birth. She kindly let everyone give Boppy bunny a pet and a snuggle.

This year we will be cycling through the alphabet as we learn the letters, phonetic sounds, and early literacy skills. To begin we are introducing a child’s name each day, revealing one letter at a time, singing a little tune about the name, building it and adding it to our Letter Wall. Your child’s name is usually the first word they can read and the most important (and exciting!) to them. The Yellow Ducks are very proud to come up and spell their names for us!

International Dot Day was on Tuesday. To celebrate we covered our room in sticky note dots and used dot markers at the easel! We also read the book, “The Dot”. Its beautiful message to children is that wherever they are with their art, it is a masterpiece. Just make your mark and remember to sign your masterpiece just like any famous artist would. We showed examples of different types of lines and shapes as inspiration. You can view their masterpieces in our hallway gallery!

We also drew the first in a series of self-portraits that we will do throughout the year. We talked about what makes each of us unique, then used sharpies on lamination sheets to trace photos of our faces and add details. We will save the portraits to keep in their portfolios to be sent home at the end of the year.

Our first math focus has been shapes. We took turns playing shape bingo this week. It was also an exercise in patience waiting for the specific colored shape on each game board to be pulled from the deck!

Our Yellow Ducks are getting the hang of the routines and expectations at school as well as navigating friendships. We talked about what makes a good friend and kindness in general. We have seen a lot of new friendships forming ❤️

Next week we will begin to have Chapel on Wednesday with Pastor Lee, and Music on Thursday with Miss Crysta-Anne.

Have a fantastic weekend with your sweet Ducks. Stay cool!

Miss Sue & Miss Carina

Our First Week

Hello Yellow Duck Families,

It was just wonderful to see our Yellow Duck friends together in our classroom this week. Each one of them did an amazing job of dealing with the big task of saying goodbye to their families and a new beginning with their teachers. Any first day nerves disappeared very quickly and each one of our Yellow Duck friends had a great time exploring their new classroom and saying hello to some new friends.

Classroom Jobs:

Each week every child will be assigned a job in our classroom. Our jobs help to build community and a sense of responsibility within our class family. One special job is to be the Lucky Duck. Each week the Lucky Duck will be invited to share what we call a Guess & Tell. On Mondays we will notify you if your child is the Lucky Duck for the week. They can bring in ONE item hidden in a bag or box (or a photo of the item in an envelope, if it is too large) on Tuesday. Help them think of 3 clues about the item (you can write them down to help your child remember). Your child will tell us the clues at circletime, and we will guess what they brought to show! This is a great exercise in public speaking that will help build your child’s confidence as well as bring them joy in sharing what is special to them!

Other jobs include line leader, door holder, wish well helper, prayer leader, calendar & weather helpers and more. Everyone will have a job, and they will rotate through the list 2-3x through the year.

This week our Yellow Ducks had fun making cakes and pretending it was their friends’ birthdays in the dramatic play center. They enjoyed rolling, squishing and cutting playdough & made duck pictures at the tables. At our math center we had tanagram shape puzzles. And the writing area was a big hit with pens and notepads.

After reading Pete the Cat Rockin’ in His School Shoes we graphed the colors of our shoes & did our 1st writing as we attempted to write our names to add to our own Guess Who’s Shoe book! (to be published next week 😉). We are learning our new friends’ names as we sing the Hello song each morning, and everyone decorated the 1st letter of their names to hang on the board in the hall by the office.

We hope you have a restful weekend with your little Duckies. It has been a busy week!

Miss Sue & Miss Carina

Welcome Yellow Duck Parents!

Thank you for coming to our playdate and orientation this week! It was so nice meeting everyone and putting faces to names. We are excited about the upcoming year in the Duck class and can tell there is going to be lots of energy and fun!

Here are the highlights from my Orientation Night presentation:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mfP6d3MEMXEfNp9EpSiccqT968M2KOaY/export?format=pdf

Save the PDF to reference throughout the year (it will also be accessible on the website by scrolling back to this blog post)!!

Each day you will be able to see new updated photos from our classroom. Just go into the CCP website, enter the password to the Parent Portal (CCP-26/27), go into the Yellow Duck class page & click the classroom photo button. Looking at these photos with your child is a great way of stimulating conversation about school, feelings and friendships. Alternatively, at the end of every blog that is sent to your email on Friday, is a “read on” button. PRESS IT! You will be able to see the blog in its entirety, including the photo link, that way.

Blog notes:

~ If you want to contact me through the emailed blog, please use the “click here to email Sue directly” button. If you don’t use that button and just hit reply, Ms. Shelly ends up getting the email and then has to forward it to us.

~Please always remember that some families have elected to not share their children’s image publicly. If you download a photo from our album or take photos during a school event that include children other than your own, please do not share it via social media or any other public venue. Please pass this information on to anyone you might privately share photos with (ie. grandparents). Thank you for respecting our families and their privacy.

We are looking forward to working in partnership with your family to make this a great school year for your little Duck!

Miss Sue & Miss Carina