This year we will be starting our year with a guided inquiry unit focusing on personal identify. We will be sharing lots of stories about ourselves and our families in our classrooms this September. Please help prepare your children by talking about things that they are proud of at home. Also talk about things that make them special and things that make your family different than others families. This unit will be part of a cross curricular unit where we will be covering social studies outcomes, Arts Education Outcomes, and Literacy Outcomes. Some of the outcomes that we will be emphasizing throughout this unit include but are not limited to:

Engage actively as listeners, viewers, and readers, as appropriate, to develop understanding of self, identity, and community

Recognize the importance of story in personal, family, and community identity

I will be sending home a paper bag that was decorated by your child. Please help them find things to bring in their bags that make them special or make your family special. Some ideas that they could put in their bag include but are not limited to pictures, special artifacts, trophies or ribbons from your child’s achievements, a favourite family recipe, and things that are important to them. Please try to avoid bringing toys to share as they tend to distract students from sharing their stories and their family stories in their excitement to share their toy.

Additionally, I also will be asking all student to bring a copy of their favourite family photo to share with the class. Please do not send one that you need to have back as we will be laminating them and hanging them on our family wall to have at school for the year. If you only have a digital copy of the photo feel free to email it to me and I will be happy to print it at school. Lastly we will be focusing on a lot of oral language and speaking and listening throughout this unit so anytime you have at home to talk about things that they will want to share at school. Also be sure to ask them about the things they learnt at school that week about their friends. Thanks for all of your assistance in this unit, I look forward to learning more about your families and working closely with your over the remainder of the year!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Ulrich

Welcome to Kindy Play, I’m so happy that you have discovered me. I started this page as an assignment for a course but also to document my journey into the Reggio Emilio inspired world. So often in teaching we see into our colleagues classrooms and worlds when they are already far along in their journeys. It reminds me of a quote that I find myself quoting often in my life. “Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle, or your middle to someone else’s end” ~ Tim Hiller. Remembering also that “comparison in the thief of joy” ~ Theodore Roosevelt. If you are like me and you are one of those people that look at those beautiful Reggio classrooms and get overwhelmed and discouraged this is the place for you. I firmly believe in show casing wins as well as fails because teaching is real life and we are all only human. With trying to change there is always going to be fails and this just like my classroom is where we try new things, make mistakes, and learn from those mistakes. Whether you have been in the classroom like myself for awhile and you are ready to make some changes or you are a brand new teacher feel free to follow along on my journey. This is also a place for families to follow along with us and see some of the things happening in our classroom!