Library Books Due In

Our Library Technician, Mrs. Fruwirth, has asked that all library books be returned to the school by Friday, June 1st. This is so she can get them all sorted for the fall. If you have lost your book, you will receive a long, thin slip of paper with the name of the book and it's replacement cost. Please send in the money with a note or the slip.  You will then get a receipt, so that if you find the book later you can return it and be reimbursed. Thank you for your help with this process!
We will still visit the library each week to enjoy the books, but we will not be bringing any more library books home until the fall.

School in Hot Weather

The school is not air conditioned and our classroom faces south, so it can get very hot in here. Please send your child with a refillable water bottle so we can help them to stay hydrated. We are also learning about heat safety outside, so please give them a sunhat and put sunscreen on them before they come to school if you think they need that as well. Finally, we have found that some children trip and get injured wearing flip-flops, so please send them in shoes or more sturdy sandals with velcro straps so they can move freely and safely. Thank you for your help!

Last Day of our Book Celebrations

Friday is our last day of our Books and Authors unit, but of course we will continue to celebrate reading and books. Starting next week our theme is Camp Kindergarten.

 The children will have turns playing in a tent, using toy camping tools, playing at the camp nurse's station, playing rainy day board games and reading camp and nature stories. We will do some camp crafts and sing lots of silly songs.

 Our circle time is now held around our (tissue paper and papier mache) campfire. We are singing songs like Fire's Burning and Down by the Bay and others.

We are using our imaginations to pretend to be going on canoe trips and other wilderness adventures. If your camper would like to bring in a sleeping bag or flashlight or bug net, they are very welcome. At the end of the month we will invite you to visit us at our cabin and watch us sing our songs and celebrate the end of our first year at school. Date to follow soon.

Franklin, Frances and Bill and Pete

Yesterday we enjoyed a Franklin book, Franklin Fibs, by Paulette Bourgeois, illustrated by Brenda Clark. We learned that Franklin will soon be on a Canadian stamp! (Pretty funny to have a turtle on a snail mail stamp.)    http://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/personal/collecting/stamps/2012/2012_april_franklin.jsf            Today we are having a great time with Frances, reading Best Friends for Frances,
by Russell Hoban


 illustrated by his wife, Lillian Hoban.





 She also wrote a great series of early readers about a monkey called Arthur.


Tomorrow the fun continues with Tomie de Paola's Bill and Pete.

  

Please Send in a Dad T-Shirt

Dear Moms;  (Dads, please stop reading this post and go to another site!) 

    We are making a secret surprise for Father's Day. We need a DARK COLOURED T-SHIRT of Dad's. It should be in very good shape. It should be one that can be changed a bit without Dad being upset. It should be PLAIN, not patterned. Finally, it should have Dad's and your child's name on it on the neck tag in permanent marker or pinned onto the shirt on a piece of paper. So that is:
Dark Coloured
Dad's Shirt
Plain, not patterned
OK to change this shirt
Labelled with Dad's and Child's names on it (so you will get the right shirt back again!)

   We promise it will be a really great surprise. If you haven't got a shirt or would prefer, a plain cloth bag would also work well. Or a blank canvas. Thank you for your help to make a wonderful gift for our wonderful dads!

The Twenty-Fourth of May

We learned a little poem today which the children will try to recite for you. Since they might not have it down cold yet, here it is:

   The twenty-fourth of May
   Is the queen's birthday.
   If you don't give us a holiday,
   We'll all run away.


We discovered that this goes very well with the tune for The Farmer In the Dell, so we can sing it too!
Happy Long Weekend!

More Fabulous Books

We have been meeting lots of great authors since the last blog post. We have read Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, by Kevin Henkes: http://www.kevinhenkes.com/ 



Then we read Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak:   http://www.harpercollins.com/author/microsite/?authorid=12708




Then it was Dr. Seuss's Cat in the Hat: http://www.seussville.com/ 



Today it was plasticine artist and author Barbara Reid:  http://www.barbarareid.ca/home.html



Tomorrow will be another great Canadian author, Marie-Louise Gay: http://www.marielouisegay.com/

 As  you can imagine, we are having a WONDERFUL time!

Today' Special Author

Today we learned about Jann Brett, who has hundreds of  millions of books in print. Some of her books are The Mitten, Hedgie's Surprise, Daisy Comes Home, Gingerbread Baby and a lovely version of Beauty and the Beast. She travels the world to get ideas for her books and illustrations, accompanying her husband, who plays for the Boston Symphony orchestra. So we learned that writing books can be a wonderful adventure. We talked about the idea of detail today and looked at some of her illustrations to see all the things she puts into each page. She has a fabulous website with many, many games, reading readiness activities, cards, colouring pages and mazes. You can find it here: http://www.janbrett.com/index.html. The children are really enjoying the books and are reading more excitedly each day.


Jan Brett at Stanley Camp in Botswana, Africa

Book Bonanza

The Book Bonanza is a very ancient tradition at Broadview PS and a wonderful celebration of literacy and books. Your child will be visiting the book sale on Thursday, May 10th. Each children's book costs 50 cents during the day. They can also come after school hours with you if you like. Children are allowed to spend up to $5 each at the sale. If you would like your child to participate, please send in some money in a baggie for that day. Please tell them how many books that money will buy and write it on the side of the baggie for them. If they don't know numbers yet, please put the right number of dots and they can count. We are all very excited about going book shopping right at school. It's wonderful to see the children choosing and buying their very own books.

There is also a contest between the classes to see who brings in the most used books. Here are the guidelines for that:
Bring in your book donations up until tomorrow, May 9th. This is the Book Drop part of the Bonanza. They are also looking for clean boxes large enough to hold 15 books. The boxes should not be flattened. Music cds but NOT computer game cds are also requested. DVDs but NOT VHS are also needed, as are Wii games, PSP games, Nintendo DS and Xbox games. Books earn 1 point each, boxes 2 points, cds  and dvds 5 points and games 10 points. The class with the most points can win some great prizes that involve things like popsicles and free books. The points are averaged out by dividing by the number of students, so even a small class can win.
*PLEASE BRING YOUR DONATIONS IN TO THE INTAKE COUNTER NEAR THE LARGE GYM.*   Precounting the number of books is also very helpful.
The book sale begins for the public after school on Thursday, May 10th. It is open again on Friday evening and on Saturday in the morning. Thank you for your donations and participation and happy reading!!!

Another new face

We have just heard that Hiba is not returning to the morning class and we hope we will see her next year. In her place we have a new student, Hudson, who has come from Burlington. Welcome, Hudson!

Mercer Mayer and Little Critter

We began our celebration of books with a look at Mercer Mayer, who has written and illustrated 300 books! We also learned from his life that you have to keep trying if you really want something, because Mercer eventually had to throw away all of his art portfolio and start drawing some new, better pictures before anyone would publish his work. We listened to his song Alligator Under the Bed, which you can find at http://www.littlecritter.com/, along with lots of colouring and game pages. Then we read three of his books and laughed and laughed at his funny stories and pictures. Some of us like to find the mouse or the spider hiding in the picture. We love Little Critter.

Book Celebrations

In the coming weeks we will be celebrating different children's authors and illustrators. I will also be presenting my book-in-progress and showing the children how to get ideas for stories and pictures. We will then be making our own little books, with the help of our Reading Buddies. Please send in your child's favourite book for them to share with the class. The girls will do their sharing times May 7th to 11th and the boys from May 14th to 21st.
Also, please remember that the Broadview Book Bonanza is coming up. We need donations of books and volunteers to help make everything run smoothly. Thank you for all your help!