Mindful Monday
Hello Parents and Guardians,
One of the things I love most about teaching Kindergarten is how the students' joy for life and enthusiasm can make even the most difficult day easier. Today was one of those days....
You should have received a message from the school yesterday about the loss our school community suffered this weekend. We had the Critical Incident Response Team at our school today to meet with teachers and offer support to students if needed. We were coached on what to say to students and how to have a discussion about what happened. In our Kindergarten classroom, we started our discussion reading Todd Parr's story "The Goodbye Book". We then talked about how our school is a community of students, staff and parents. Sometimes, like last week when we had our "Say Something" performances, our community comes together to celebrate. Sometimes, unfortunately, we have to connect for reasons that bring us sadness. Students were then presented the facts of what happened and were given an opportunity to share how they were feeling and ask any questions. We talked about how any emotion that we feel when something sad happens is ok. It's ok to be mad. It's ok to cry. It's ok to be confused. Students were/are encouraged to talk to me or you to help them sort out their feelings.
There was lots of sharing and lots of stories shared. All of us had experienced some degree of loss, whether it was a pet, a friend or a family member. It was a quiet and sombre conversation and I hope that it brought comfort and clarity during this difficult time. Thank you to those of you who had already had a conversation with your children prior to coming to school. Please let me know if your child has any questions or concerns that I should be aware of.
It always warms my heart to see what an amazing community we live in. The support that has been offered to the Ferrari-Allen family through a food rotation has been amazing. I also have appreciated the kind words and emails offering support. There is a table in the Learning Commons that is a place to share condolences with the family. There is also a basket for cards if you would like to include one for the family.
Today we celebrated being in school for 100 days. We looked at what the 100 dollar bill looks like, what the city of Calgary looked like 100 years ago, built with 100 cups and wrote about what we would do if we had $100. We also took some pictures (in the morning class) that we uploaded to the Aging Booth app to see what we might look like in 50 years. There were lots of laughs.
We were excited about being able to use the gym again and had fun running around playing some familiar tag games. We are working on our core strength by playing "Sole Mates tag" and "Dead Bug Tag". Ask your child what they have to do if they are tagged in one of these games.
Next week (Thursday and Friday) are Student-Led Conferences. This is a time for your child to lead you through their learning over the past 100 days. When bookings open on Wednesday morning at 8, you will be booking an hour block for you and your child to look through their work, play some games etc. You will be sharing the classroom with 3 other families who will also be sharing in their child's learning. You will also have the opportunity to talk with me during this time. Because this is a time for your Kindergarten child to shine and there will be multiple families in the classroom, I respectfully request that younger siblings do not attend. Their presence can often be distracting, taking the focus away from your Kindergarten child. Thank you!
It was wonderful connecting with all of you during our performance evenings last week. I was so proud of my Kindergarten students. We have worked hard to fine tune our performance pieces and the students loved performing. Can you believe that the afternoon class started singing "I have a voice" during snack time today? That song always brings a tear to my eyes ...
I was so busy during the performance that I was unable to get any pictures or videos. If you have any to share, please email them to me at sloveracker@cbe.ab.ca.
On Thursday this week, we will be making leprechaun traps with our buddies. We will be discussing making traps tomorrow. If you have any supplies of our traps (small boxes, string, gold coins etc), please send them in before our build on Thursday!
Hug your kids, enjoy the longer, lighter day and have a relaxing evening.
Ms. O.
One of the things I love most about teaching Kindergarten is how the students' joy for life and enthusiasm can make even the most difficult day easier. Today was one of those days....
You should have received a message from the school yesterday about the loss our school community suffered this weekend. We had the Critical Incident Response Team at our school today to meet with teachers and offer support to students if needed. We were coached on what to say to students and how to have a discussion about what happened. In our Kindergarten classroom, we started our discussion reading Todd Parr's story "The Goodbye Book". We then talked about how our school is a community of students, staff and parents. Sometimes, like last week when we had our "Say Something" performances, our community comes together to celebrate. Sometimes, unfortunately, we have to connect for reasons that bring us sadness. Students were then presented the facts of what happened and were given an opportunity to share how they were feeling and ask any questions. We talked about how any emotion that we feel when something sad happens is ok. It's ok to be mad. It's ok to cry. It's ok to be confused. Students were/are encouraged to talk to me or you to help them sort out their feelings.
There was lots of sharing and lots of stories shared. All of us had experienced some degree of loss, whether it was a pet, a friend or a family member. It was a quiet and sombre conversation and I hope that it brought comfort and clarity during this difficult time. Thank you to those of you who had already had a conversation with your children prior to coming to school. Please let me know if your child has any questions or concerns that I should be aware of.
It always warms my heart to see what an amazing community we live in. The support that has been offered to the Ferrari-Allen family through a food rotation has been amazing. I also have appreciated the kind words and emails offering support. There is a table in the Learning Commons that is a place to share condolences with the family. There is also a basket for cards if you would like to include one for the family.
Today we celebrated being in school for 100 days. We looked at what the 100 dollar bill looks like, what the city of Calgary looked like 100 years ago, built with 100 cups and wrote about what we would do if we had $100. We also took some pictures (in the morning class) that we uploaded to the Aging Booth app to see what we might look like in 50 years. There were lots of laughs.
We were excited about being able to use the gym again and had fun running around playing some familiar tag games. We are working on our core strength by playing "Sole Mates tag" and "Dead Bug Tag". Ask your child what they have to do if they are tagged in one of these games.
Next week (Thursday and Friday) are Student-Led Conferences. This is a time for your child to lead you through their learning over the past 100 days. When bookings open on Wednesday morning at 8, you will be booking an hour block for you and your child to look through their work, play some games etc. You will be sharing the classroom with 3 other families who will also be sharing in their child's learning. You will also have the opportunity to talk with me during this time. Because this is a time for your Kindergarten child to shine and there will be multiple families in the classroom, I respectfully request that younger siblings do not attend. Their presence can often be distracting, taking the focus away from your Kindergarten child. Thank you!
It was wonderful connecting with all of you during our performance evenings last week. I was so proud of my Kindergarten students. We have worked hard to fine tune our performance pieces and the students loved performing. Can you believe that the afternoon class started singing "I have a voice" during snack time today? That song always brings a tear to my eyes ...
I was so busy during the performance that I was unable to get any pictures or videos. If you have any to share, please email them to me at sloveracker@cbe.ab.ca.
On Thursday this week, we will be making leprechaun traps with our buddies. We will be discussing making traps tomorrow. If you have any supplies of our traps (small boxes, string, gold coins etc), please send them in before our build on Thursday!
Hug your kids, enjoy the longer, lighter day and have a relaxing evening.
Ms. O.
