Tuesday 4 April 2017
April Newsletter
APRIL NEWSLETTER 2017
Dear Parents,
We “warmly” welcome
spring and hope that from now on the weather will be on our side.
The children enjoyed
our unit about senses last month. Our highlight was when we made popcorn in the
staff room and listened to the kernels, popping open in the microwave. As part of our taste unit we had each child
try a pieces of lemon. It was so funny to watch the sour expression on their faces.
At least, now they also know that most lemonade drinks taste sweet, only
because they contain lots of sugar!
APRIL SPRING
THEMES
BABY
ANIMALS
Spring is the season, when many baby animals
are born. Many of our books and table toy activities this month will evolve
around the topic “signs of spring” and “baby animals”. We will teach our
students some new German words, learn how to sing “Frühling (spring) ist hier”
and they will get to listen to the German version of the song “Mary has a little lamb” (“Mary hat ein
kleines Lamm”). One of our Brevoort Park
teachers will have an incubator in her classroom and we will be invited to observe
little chicks hatching from eggs.
EXPLORING
SPRING
Soon, we will start to take our children
outside again to explore the change of seasons. “Sensory walks” will help our little ones to sharpen
their 5 senses. We will be looking out for grass turning green, buds on the
trees, listen to the honk of returning geese in the sky, touching melting snow
and sticking our noses in the air to sniff the first signs of spring!!
Part of our daily April routine will be
sorting, counting and categorizing spring items, such as flowers, eggs, baby
animals etc.
LETTER ACTIVITIES
Our Tue-Thur 3 year old class will continue to
learn, trace and decorate a new letter of the Alphabet each week.
In our M-W-F 4 year old class (Kindergarten
readiness class), the majority of students already recognizes most letters of
the alphabet and is now able to print their name without help. We therefore
don’t focus too much on individual letters but rather on letter formation and printing
activities. Using the terms “long line”, “short line” and “curve” helps to
remember and print letters. Here is an example: ”R” is made of a “long line”,
”curve”, and “short line”. We are so proud to see many of our children getting
really curious and excited about printing letters and numbers. We hope this
excitement will last and help your child with a smooth transition to Kindergarten.
NUMBER
ACTIVITIES
Memorizing your phone number is a real and
important life skill and might be another way to play around with number
recognition. Try to have your child dial the numbers when you make your next
phone call. Don’t be surprised, we might even have them call you when we are in
class! J
If you would like to support your child’s
learning at home, you can play letter games (e.g. putting together letters of
their name), go on “I spy” tours around the house or look for letters (and letter
sounds) in their favourite books. Try to keep it fun and engaging! We will have
a little “sign in” poster in the hallway. This is a fun way to make them
recognize and/or print their name on a daily basis before they come into class.
OUTSIDE
PLAY
Once the grass has
dried a little bit more, we will start taking our children out to the park
again. Please make sure that from now on, your child is dressed in layers, and wears weather appropriate shoes for outside play. As much fun as it is, to jump in
the puddles, we want those little feed to stay dry. On days that we are going
outside, “show and tell” will also be outside.
Final dismissal will be in the boot room on those days.
SCHOOL
DOOR ACCESS PROCEDURE
Please remember that
all side and back doors will be locked from the
outside after 9:15 a.m.
If you are entering the building after that time, please use the front door! FYI:
For fire safety reasons, students, staff and parents will still be able to leave the building through all doors of
the school.
We had to say “ Auf
Wiedersehen” to Sherray, Olivia and Joe from our MWF class this month. In return,
we are welcoming our new student, Jacob in the MWF pm class!
DATES and REMINDERS
April
Wed, 5/6 Scholastic Book Orders due
Sat 8
2 - 2:30 p.m. English - German Family
Story Time: Saskatoon Public Library, Mayfair Branch (Frau
Hecker will be the storyteller that day)
Sun 9 Family Fun Day at German Cultural Center
with Easter Activities from 1-3 p.m.
Fri 14 Good Friday (no school)
April 17-21 Spring Break (no school)
April 24 School resumes
May
Wed
17 MWF am/pm class: Combined Field Trip to Mother Earth
Greenhouse
(9:15 am – 1:00 p.m.)
Please mark your
calendar for this field trip in May. It will be a combined field trip with both classes.
Class times will be different that day. Please try to make arrangements for
your chid!! Both classes will be
leaving at 9:15 am and returning at 1 p.m. that day. I will send out a separate
note later this month.
We will need many
parent helpers!!! A volunteer list will
be hanging in the hallway.
Happy Spring!
Uli Hecker, Larissa
Lorenz
Suanne Pachal, Samina
Roohi
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