Quote of the week

Last night we ran into one of Nate's park friends at DQ. Nate was talking to the mom and told her he was going to French school.

She asked him: Parles tu le français?

He replied with a nice big "Yup!"

My afternoon in Kindergarten

Yesterday I got to volunteer in Nate's Kindergarten class. I was a few minutes late, and when I got there, Nate was just leaving the class to take the attendance to the office. He was the special helper for the day. The kids all sat on le tapis (the carpet) and sang songs while the teacher played guitar and sang with them. And Nate got to sit up on a bench, since he was the special helper. Later, they went to music class, where they practiced for their upcoming musical, The Littlest Reindeer. After practising all their songs, they go to do some dancing. Nate had tons of fun, even if he didn't always remember what moves they were doing.

After music class, they washed up and had their snacks, and then had free play for awhile. They have all kinds of activity centres, from kitchen to computers. Nate coloured for a bit and helped me with a project I was given by the teacher. I was making covers for the kids's art portfolios. Each one had the student's name and picture, so Nate found everyone's picture for me.

It was a great day in Kindergarten, and Nate was pretty good, so I'll be back again in the new year.

Fun with Food

For the last few weeks, Nate's class has been learning about food. They started with vegetables. One day they made pictures of faces using vegetables. Another day, they had to bring in their favourite vegetable chopped into bite size pieces. Nate brought carrots. When they got to class, they used everyone's veggies to make a vegetable soup. Nate had 2 helpings!

Next they talked about fruit. They brought in their favourite fruit (Nate brought apples) and made a giant fruit salad! Two days later, they brought in more fruit (mini oranges) and made fruit skewers.

Last week, the teacher brought in a bunch of ingredients and asked the class what they thought these ingredients would become. Lots of guesses later, they found out they were making bread! Buns to be exact. She also had some ingredients for the kids to shake together and make butter. When asked what they thought they were making, one kid guessed bologna! Nate was pretty close, guessing cheese.

Today they had a super special treat. Byblos Bakery, known for their pitas, came to the school and the made pita sandwiches. The kids were encouraged to try some new ingredients, so Nate added black "onions" (olives) and mushrooms to his ham and cheese. He says he really liked it.

And the people from Byblos brought bags of pitas for all the kids to take home! So generous :)

Quick quotes 2

Today Nate was playing a computer game that taught him about money. Coins specifically. He told me the names of some of the coins. Nickel, loonie and toot!

Quick quote

Today Scott handed Nate a navy and white striped shirt to wear.
Nate: A jail shirt! Why are you giving me a jail shirt?!

Halloween

I think it's safe to say Nate had a great Halloween this year. He dressed up as the Alien from the Toy Story movies. It was his second year wearing the costume, but hey, if the costume fits....

On Friday our community had a Halloween event at the Towne Hall. We met up with Nate's friend, Evan and they had lots of fun decorating cookies, doing crafts, getting their palms read and just running around.

Monday, of course, was the big day. Nate got to show off his costume all over the place. First at the dayhome, where one of the girls brought caramel apples for everyone. Then at school, where they had a Halloween assembly, and a class celebration. And finally, the ultimate event....trick-or-treating!

We went out with Evan and his mom, and ran into quite a few other friends along the way. It was great to see them have so much fun getting candy and various other things. He got a couple of playdohs as usual, and one house was even giving out Hot Wheels! Nate kept saying he wanted to go home, but then he was right beside Evan at the next house, waiting for more candy. We finally called it a night after 2 hours, when Nate said he was tired and his feet were sore. Mine were too.

All in all, we got 2 full grocery bags full of munchies, so we're set for a few weeks at least!

Fall

Nate has been learning lots at school about nature and how the leaves change colour in the fall. He drew this picture to show different coloured leaves.

Hands

Here is some of Nate's art. The blue hand is from his first day of school. The teacher read them a story called The Kissing Hand and then they got to make one. In the centre of the hand is a heart.
The turkey is something I'm sure most people are familiar with. He made this one at the dayhome. The feathers are made by cutting out handprints.

A memorable day

Every day, when Nate and I are walking home from the school bus, I ask him "What did you do in school today?"

Today his response was "I dunno....Friday stuff!"

Naters goes to school

After two years of begging (and two weeks of changing his mind), Nate finally started school in September. He's in a french immersion school, and loving it! The very first thing he got to do in school was pick his coat hook.

Every week he sings me a new song in french. Sometimes it's a classic like Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, and other times it's a "Hello" song, or "snack song". I'll try to record him sometime soon and post it.

One of the boys from Nate's soccer team is also in the same class, and they ride the school bus together, so of course they are now best friends. It took Nate a few weeks to bother learning the other kids names, but they are all good friends now. One day when I picked him up after school, he got upset and started to cry. All the other kids came over wanted to know if he was ok and what was wrong. So sweet!

I don't usually pick Nate up from school, but that day was a special day....we got to bring Mirabelle home with us! Who's Mirabelle? Why the class guinea pig, of course! I'm not sure who was more excited about Mirabelle spending the weekend with us, me, Nate or Caper (our new dog for those of you who rely on this very poorly updated blog to get your info about us).

This week the class had their first field trip, to Fish Creek Park. They learned about nature, and how the leaves change colour in autumn. And they got to do some leaf rubbings and other fun things. Even though Kindergarten is just half days, this was an ALL DAY field trip. Not only did Nate get to be in the same group as his buddy, but they also got a ride to and from school together for extra fun!