Staying Safe and Healthy.

Hello New Room 9 Parents and Students and Welcome Back to our returning students, who are now in Senior Kindergarten and will be the leaders and mentors for our new JK Students. 

We wanted to give you a bit of a preview of how we are keeping safe and healthy this year. 

Your teachers will be Ms. Brown and Ms. Emerson. 

This is Ms. Brown! We will be giving the students a photo of Ms. Brown and Ms. Emerson (without masks) on the first day of school.....

School will look a bit different this year. We are sorry that the parents will not be able to visit or see inside of our classroom. We will post many pictures of the classroom and a video walkthrough as soon as the classroom is ready. 

We have a washroom in our classroom (with a toilet and sink) and another sink for handwashing. 

Your child will have their own hook to hang their backpack and coat on. 

We are hoping to play and learn outside as much as possible this year! We do not have to wear our masks outside, but we will still maintain distance between our friends.  

Inside:

We must wear masks. Please practice putting on and taking off the mask independently. If your child forgets their mask, we do have some cloth masks to give to them (to keep). The children can wear masks that are cloth (reusable) or disposable masks. The teachers must wear the masks that are provided by TDSB. (more about masks tomorrow!)

We will wash our hands regulary throughout the day. We will use hand sanitizer when we are outside. If your child cannot use hand sanitizer for any reason, please email us and let us know!

We will each have designated tables and chairs this year. Even Ms. Brown and Ms. Emerson! At Ms. Brown and Ms. Emerson's tables, we have two extra chairs so we can work with small groups of students, or individual students -- all while keeping a metre apart :)

We will read stories or have large group lessons -- with half of the class at a time. To maintain 1 metre in between students, we can't fit everyone at the large-group area!

Students will sit at opposite ends of tables to maintain at least a metre distance in between students. We will do our best to sit them near their close friends, so if you know that your child has a friend in our class, please let us know! (We will move students to to other tables throughout the weeks so they get a chance to meet new friends)

 We will be playing with most of the same activities as we did last year -- duplo, lego, snap cubes, straws and connector building, etc, and will play with our own sets of items -- but still able to see and talk to our friends while we play. When students are finished with their items, they will wash them in soapy water and set them on the drying table. There will be opportunity to play with duplo and larger items on the carpet area -- we are taping lines to show everyone where they can play. All toys and tools will be washed in between students.

Each child will have their own set of crayons, a pencil, some playdough and, later, some math tools. They will have a bin of books which will be switched weekly. If they want to play with their playdough and use some tools (extruder, rolling pin, cookie cutters, etc, then they will pick a bin, use it , and then wash it. 

We will be doing large and small group literacy and math activities that will be reinforced with individual bin activities.

We have markers on the floor to create distance when lining up, and tape on our group seating area to show where to sit. We have placed tape on one carpet to divide it up into play areas - 6 children can play "together but apart" with their own bin of materials. 

Outside:

 We will be able to play at the front of the school, in the two playgrounds. We call them the Playscape Playground and the Nature Yard. One class is allowed to play in the playground at a time. The children will not have to wear masks outside and they will be able to play near each other, but not touch each other. We are excited to learn that we will be able to use the play structures in the Playscape area! Hopefully the construction on the yards will be finished by next week.

Please, if you have any questions about any health and safety protocols, email Ms. Brown (if you have not received a welcome email from us yet, please leave a message here on the blog)