• Story Telling and Picture Books
The Circus by Brian Wildsmith is the title of one of my favourite picture books. The story begins, “The circus comes to town” … and ends, “The circus goes away,” These are the only words in the book.
In Kindergarten, the stage one books from the Oxford Reading Series also tell a story without an emphasis on words. In the first weeks of Kindergarten, the teachers use books with few or no words to stimulate language development in children. Wordless books, such as ‘The Haircut’, allow children to enjoy following a plot without straining to decode words. The pictures free a child's imagination to interpret the author's ideas in their own way. If your child brings home a picture book, either from the classroom or the Library, encourage them to interpret the pictures to tell a story. The skills they use to infer, predict, or invent plot details will serve them well as they develop their reading skills.
In all of our grades, storytelling is a valuable teaching tool and a means for encouraging oral expression. Over the October holiday, I hope each of our students has exciting activities, which can lead to stories they can share with their classmates. Parents are encouraged to send their children back to school on the 25th with one or two well-rehearsed ‘October’ tales.
• Crazy Hat, Hair and Wig Day
On Friday, October 29, the Elementary School will hold a Spirit Day. The activity is being planned and led by the third grade. The third graders will use the Monday assembly time to present their ideas for students to design and wear their own hats or personalise their hair or a wig. (THIS IS NOT A DRESS UP DAY!) We hope to give parents an opportunity to watch a parade of children showing off their creations virtually at 8:30am. (We plan to have a couple of cameras and some student narrators in the Theatre.) The students will parade around the school one grade level at a time.
On Friday, students will be encouraged to contribute, through voluntary donations of £1 or more, to Unicef United Kingdom. In addition to contributing to Unicef, the teachers and students will also hold discussions in their classrooms about the work Unicef does around the world, especially for children.
On behalf of the third grade, I’d like to thank students and parents for their support to help to make the Crazy Hat, Hair and Wig Day a success.
Don Newbury
Elementary Principal
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