Halloween!

 

Report Cards/Class Placements

Hi parents,

Report cards go home today! You don't have to sign and return anything. I just wanted to let you know that these reports were written awhile ago, when I still thought I'd be teaching your child for the year, so please excuse the language on the report card, as it doesn't reflect what's currently happening.

I also wanted to mention (not that anyone has complained/said anything) but any class placements for Tuesday were not made by me. They were made by our principal. Just a heads up!

Don't forget to bring your "party in a bag" tomorrow!

Start Date Clarification

Hi parents,

Sorry for the confusion- your child's last day in my class will be Monday, not Friday. On Monday, we are supposed to have supply teachers in to cover all 17 teachers who have been affected by this change. They will spend the Monday in my room, and then on Tuesday they will move to their new classroom. I will show them their new classrooms this week and hopefully find time to introduce them to their new teacher. On Tuesday, the ECEs will meet you by the gate and ask you whose class they are in and will take them to their new classroom.

I received information from the board yesterday that I will be teaching remote Kindergarten, and I will get to do it from Gatestone, so I will still be in the building to check on these guys <3 Seems crazy that I'm leaving in class Kindergarten to do online Kindergarten at the same school, but that's how it works with our seniority.

Chat soon,

~ Miss Pliura

Sad News

Dear Parents,

It is with great sadness to inform you that I will no longer be your child's teacher. Due to a massive re-organization of staffing that has happened within the HWDSB, I have been surplussed to online, remote teaching. In addition to that, our small, perfect class has been closed. Your child will be placed in one of the other three Kindergarten classes.

At Gatestone, a large number of student have switched from in-class to online learning, meaning we have a lot less students in the building. This means that we now have too many teachers in the building for the amount of students we have (although ideally we would get to stay to keep class numbers low). There were a total of 5 teachers surplussed from Gatestone, and I'm one of them... even with 9.2 years of seniority with the board. There is a chance that I will get to come back once the pandemic is over, but we will have to wait and see.

It was a hard day on Wednesday to be called into the office and be told the bad news (lots of tears). I would always tell people how fortunate I was to have such a small, well-behaved class. We were able to socially distance and have fun in a safe learning environment. Now, we will have 3 Kindergarten classes in rooms that are much smaller than mine, with 23 students in each of them. Students in my class will be separated from each other and placed with a new teacher. If that wasn't bad enough, the other 3 Kindergarten teachers (Mrs. Vinall, Mrs. Schmidt, and Mrs. Nighswander) were surplussed too. Teachers from grades 1, 3, and 5 have been moved to teach Kindergarten for the rest of the year. This is hard news to hear, I know. I have spoken with the principal and gave suggestions of where to place my students so that the transition to their new classroom will be less difficult. My last day with your children will be Friday, October 30th. The board has given us Monday, November 2nd to move our stuff, and they will begin their new classes Tuesday. This is going to be a difficult and bumpy change. There are still a lot of kinks, lots of unknowns, and we're receiving new information daily. What I do know, however, is that I adore your children and will miss them dearly. This has hit me really hard.

On Tuesday, October 27th, you will receive a letter that will state who your child's new teacher will be. On Wednesday, I will tell your children the news. It is up to you whether you want to tell them first. I have started packing up the classroom so they know things are changing, but I will explain what's happening on Wednesday.

Please connect with me after school if you have any questions, or send me an e-mail. I will chat with you all very soon <3

One Final Video

Oct 20th Update

Here are some pictures of us during our play time and art time! 

During our morning match circle, we are learning how to count on. What that means, is instead of counting from 1, we count on from a certain number, like 6.... 7, 8, 9. You can play a simple game with verbal counting and say a number between 1 and 10, and then they have to count up from that number. We're using it to count objects. It's faster, and it's also a stepping stone to adding. Watch our video below!

Counting On

Just to clarify, the reason our friends stay out in the morning when the other classes don't: 

a) This was a decision made by the principal to limit the number of parents staying on the property in the morning

b) The other classes go inside with their classroom's ECE who supervise them. Because I don't have one, they wouldn't be supervised inside, and I can't because I'm not on supervision.

Hope that clarifies!

Patterning!

We have been working on extending patterns! Students seem to have an easy time extending an AB pattern (i.e., blue, white, blue, white), but some are struggling a bit with an ABB (blue, white, white, blue, white, white) or ABC pattern (blue, white, green, blue white, green). We are going to continue to practise this during class, and I will work individually with students who are struggling with the more difficult patterns. Feel free to practice at home with toys, sounds, anything! We will work on creating our own patterns soon :)

Halloween/Progress Reports

Hi parents, 

Here's an update on Halloween for school!

• Students may wear costumes to school as per prior years practice (e.g., no weapons, no costume masks that might impede vision, no inappropriate images, etc.).
• Student costumes must be able to safely accommodate a face covering as per COVID requirements
• Parades, in-person assemblies, etc are not permitted at this time
• No sharing/distributing food or drink
• Maintain safe practices including physical distancing, hand hygiene, mask wearing, etc.
  
• Teachers may choose to celebrate Fall themed activities in their classroom on the Friday before Halloween. 

If you want your child to wear a costume, you can send your child to school with their costume on. This year, please try to keep costumes easy to put on/take off, as we will probably take them off sometime during the day. Please make sure it's labeled, and keep accessories and stuff at home. We will celebrate Halloween with our "party bags"- I will send these home soon.

Also, I'm currently working on progress reports... these will go home October 29th. I know a lot of you are probably wondering how they're doing and to hear some updates from me. Let's start with these reports going home, and then we can plan phone calls to talk more in depth about your child :)

Oct 15th Update

Today I was brave enough to do some finger painting with these guys! We sure had a lot of fun! We ran out of yellow paint, so we couldn't mix colors together to make new ones, but that didn't stop us from experimenting!

Watch this video of us painting!

Finger Painting Video

Oct 13th Pictures

Oct 8th Update

Hi families!

Here's a video from the other day during our play time :)

We have been learning about the letters of the alphabet! We've practised singing our ABCs and are currently working our way through Leapfrog's Letter Factory. We are learning that every letter makes a sound! The Letter Factory is on Netflix :) We've been practising saying words that start with that letter sound, and have been working on our letter booklets. We are excited to learn about the rest of the alphabet!

For math, we have been practising our counting to 10, verbally, and with objects. We learned that when we count objects, we say one number every time we touch an object, and that the last number that we say is how many there are all together. We need to keep practising though, since when we play "What Time is It Mr. Wolf?", some friends are taking eight steps when they count to 5 :P We will keep working on it! 

Oct 2nd Update

 Hi families!

I forgot to mention that for some reason on the mobile version of this website, the video clips don't show, so you have to scroll down to the bottom where it says "view web version", and you can watch it there. Or, if you view the website on your laptop, the videos will work. I'm not sure why it doesn't show on the mobile version! I'll look into it.

Here are some pictures from our day! We did an independent math activity, learned about corn, and started our corn craft!

Happy weekend! <3