Hi KA families, 

Mother Nature decided to turn our long weekend into an even longer one! Because we missed Thursday, we will go ahead with our Valentine’s Day party when we return on Tuesday. Students will have the opportunity to exchange cards then and are invited to wear red and pink. 

The KA class has been very interested in following Team Canada at the Milano-Cortina Olympics. Students are excited to cheer on our Canadian athletes and have been learning about different winter sports. We have also been graphing the medals won by Team Canada and hope to add more to that when we return next week. 

On Wednesday, we were invited to the 1/2Z class to learn about animals that each student researched. KA students were extremely respectful while visiting the other class and showed great interest by asking questions and listening to the grade one and two students. 

Our youngest authors have been working really hard on their writing. Students have been taking great pride in their attention to detail and in using new strategies. The two writing strategies that we have been practicing are stretching each word out and writing down the sounds that they hear (which ends up being mostly consonants at this point) and copying words found in their environment. 

Students continue to build up their decoding skills while reading. It’s so encouraging to see their pride while solving new words and being able to comprehend a story line. We will continue to build on their skills to increase confidence and fluency. 

On Wednesday we sent home papers in the homework bags with instructions on how to sign up for Parent-Teacher Interviews. A reminder that in KA the students will be leading their interviews so please sign up for a time that your child is able to accompany you. When you sign up online, it will give a 15min time slot. Our interview will last an extra 5-10mins beyond that and I have times blocked off so that KA parents can only sign up every 30mins. Please keep this in mind if you are scheduling an interview for a sibling after our time together. Also, if you would like to have a private chat with your child present, please let me know and we can arrange that as well. 

Lastly, but certainly not least: Thank you so much for all the support you’ve shown through our Home & School this staff appreciation week. As a staff we felt very appreciated 🙂

Next Week in KA:

Monday, February 16: Islander Day (NO CLASSES)

Tuesday, February 17, Day 5: Music and Red & Pink Day with Valentine’s Day Party

Wednesday, February 18, Day 6: Mrs. Mac & Phys. Ed 

Thursday, February 19, Day 1: Music

Friday, February 20, Day 2: Mrs. Mac,  Phys. Ed, Library and Winter Wellness Day

Enjoy the long weekend, 

Lisa 😊

Hello again everyone, 

This week we had half the class make the correct prediction about Groundhog Day. Shubenacadie Sam did not come out of his burrow this year due to the weather, so they counted it as a no shadow year. Even though this is a pretty silly tradition, it provided us opportunities to talk about weather patterns, seasonal changes and cultural traditions. 

We started learning about the Olympics this week and we will be following Canadian athletes over the next few weeks of the Olympics and Paralympics. We will be practicing our graphing skills while we track our medal count. We will continue to learn about the different winter Olympic sports and then the Paralympic sports as the games continue.  

We also started to learn about Black History Month and will be focusing on reading books featuring characters and authors from the Black community.

We continue with our daily learning centers in both numeracy and literacy. These centers are an excellent opportunity for students to practice previously taught skills. It also allows me an opportunity to work with small groups so that we can work together on a more personal level to help students with reading, teach more complex skills to a smaller group or complete assessments. 

This week we began writing, and the students were very proud to be considered official authors. The prompt was to write about their favorite winter activity and to draw a detailed picture portraying that activity. Students took great pride in listening to the sounds of each word and writing down the sounds that they heard. The goal with our first few writing pieces will be to build confidence and independence. As we progress, we will focus more on writing correct letters to match the sounds and hear all of the sounds in a word.

Next Thursday, February 12 we will have a small Valentine’s party in class. Students are invited to exchange Valentines as part of the party. Below you will find a list of all the first names of our class members for the Valentine cards. West Kent students are also invited to dress in red and pink for the day as well.

On Tuesday, February 10, the Grade 6 classes are hosting a Bake Sale to raise money for their year end activities. All West Kent students are invited to make a purchase and each item will be $1. If you would like to send money for your child to participate in the bake sale, please send the money labelled in their homework bag on Tuesday.

This Spring, KA will be participating in Student-Led Interviews. This is different from a traditional Parent-Teacher Interview and will take the place of the traditional interview. Your child will attend the interview with you and will show you some of the skills they have been learning. I will help your child along the process and will be contributing as well. This will take a little longer than traditional interviews, so when you sign up for your time (which will be made available online after February 17), it will be for a 30min slot. The goal is for the parents to be able to see what their child is learning, rather than just listening to me describe it, and for the students to feel a sense of pride and ownership in their abilities. If for any reason you would like a time to chat with me without your child present, please just let me know and we can arrange that as well.

Next Week in KA:

Monday, February 9, Day 1: Music

Tuesday, February 10, Day 2: Mrs. Mac, Phys. Ed, Library & Bake Sale

Wednesday, February 11, Day 3: Music

Thursday, February 12, Day 4: Mrs. Mac & Phys. Ed

Friday, February 13: PD Day (NO CLASSES)

Enjoy the weekend, 

Lisa 😊

Class List:

Stuart

Milla

Renn

Airlie

Leon

Kalina

Vos

Alexander

Piper

Peter

Hi KA grown-ups, 

We had a bit of an interrupted week here with the snow day on Tuesday and the early dismissal on Monday. I owe you all a debt of gratitude for Monday: that was the easiest/smoothest early dismissal that I have experienced in my career. Everyone followed the plan that was made in September and was right on time. It really makes everything at the school so much less chaotic when that happens. So, thank you!

On Thursday we had our Best Kent Assembly with the rest of the school, we celebrated those who demonstrated excellent skills in Encouraging Others (our last school-wide skill to focus on), and we had a presentation about Responsibility (our next school-wide skill). 

Even though our Dress Like our Favorite Book Character day was postponed due to the storm, we had fantastic participation and all students were able to talk about their favorite character. Many also talked about doing the literacy scavenger hunt at home on the snow. Thanks for helping promote a love of literacy that will carry your children far in life. 

This week we continued to strengthen our decoding skills to read books independently. Next week we will also add some writing center time and become authors! We are very excited to reach this next learning milestone! 

This morning we made predictions for Groundhog Day that is coming up on Monday. This helped us make a graph in order to organize and interpret data, and we will be able to compare the result against our predictions next week. In case the weather prevents us from checking on Shubenacadie Sam’s Prediction at school on Monday, this is the link that you can watch at home. 

The most exciting part of the week was the addition of our class member: Blue the Betta Fish! Blue was added to our class on Friday and students were very excited to meet him and to learn about him. His name was voted on by the class and they were very eager to introduce him to anyone who stopped by our class today. 

Next Week in KA:

Monday, February 2, Day 2: Mrs. Mac, Phys. Ed & Library

Tuesday, February 3, Day 3: Music

Wednesday, February 4, Day 4: Mrs. Mac & Phys. Ed 

Thursday, February 5, Day 5: Music

Friday, February 6, Day 6: Mrs. Mac & Phys. Ed 

Have a great weekend, 

Lisa 😊

Hi everyone,

I don’t always resend information that the main office has already sent, but there are three important points I don’t want people to miss out on. Please read below:

Since school was cancelled today, we will have our dress as your favorite book character day tomorrow, Wednesday, January 28^th.

There have been several confirmed cases of head lice at our school. Notices were sent out in homework bags yesterday. Please remind students to not share combs, hairbrushes, hats or hair accessories. Contact the office if you do find your child has head lice or if you have any questions or need support. For more information on head lice visit the Canadian Pediatric Society, Caring for Kids Website.

On Monday February 2 until February 18, we will be collecting gently used books for a used book sale on Friday, February 20^th. We ask that books are in good condition and are for grades K-6 level. All books will cost $1 to $2 and money raised will go to Easter Seals.

I hope you all have a good snow day,

Lisa 🙂

Welcome to our first early closure! We will be dismissing at 12:20 and we will be following the early closure plans that you filled out in September. I hope everyone has are travels today!

Happy Friday Team KA, 

Today West Kent tried a new form of Morning Announcements where each class could see Ms. Waye and Ms. MacKenzie on the Smart Boards in each classroom. They even hosted a song contest on the announcements and the KA class won. Our prize was TimBits at snack time! But more importantly, it really lifted the energy on a raining morning.

We are so lucky to start the new year off with two full weeks of learning. This is setting us up for a strong winter learning term, and this is arguably the most important learning time. Soon, students will put their tapping/decoding skills to use and start reading simple books. This is always an exciting time that I celebrate with each student when they experience this big learning milestone. I do my best to introduce book reading to each student at a time that is best for them in order to build their confidence and self image as a reader, so the timeline will differ for each student. I am confident that each student will reach this milestone by the beginning of March. 

This group has been working hard to grow their numeracy skills. Our focus has been on accumulating different strategies and learning when to use different strategies. This is an exciting but messy time of learning. Students are aware of many different strategies but can often confuse the difference between strategies and they aren’t great yet at knowing when to use certain ones. This is a totally normal part of learning, and with more practice over the next few weeks they will begin to select strategies more independently and accurately. It’s still important to ask your child to show off their learning at home, but don’t be alarmed if their counting and number work seems messy right now. It’s not that your child is struggling, it’s just the stage of learning that we’re at. 

Our West Kent hallway challenge finished up this week. Our class did a fantastic job of keeping our coat hooks tidy and organized the entire time. We had a respectable showing in the Wessy points, but we were not the popcorn party winners. The students in our class (and others) were very invested in this friendly competition and checked the scoreboard in the hallway regularly. This was a fantastic opportunity for students to practice their counting and comparing skills independently. I was most impressed with how students from our class would talk about how it was important to continue these good organizational habits after the challenge. Their social awareness and sense of responsibility is impressive and I’m so lucky to spend each day with such a conscientious group of students. 

This coming Friday will be our rescheduled Wild Child session. Please keep your fingers crossed that the weather is more cooperative for us this time. 

Family Literacy Day will take place on Tuesday, January 27. At West Kent, one of the ways we celebrate this day is by inviting students and staff to dress as their favorite book character for the day. This will help strengthen student’s connections and engagement in literacy which provides a strong foundation for their current and future education. Please keep in mind that costumes should be something that students can manage independently, that are appropriate for recess and Phys Ed, and little pieces/accessories are better left safely at home so that they have less chance of getting lost. 

Next Week in KA:

Monday, January 19, Day 6: Mrs. Mac & Phys. Ed

Tuesday, January 20, Day 1: Music

Wednesday, January 21, Day 2: Mrs. Mac, Phys. Ed & Library

Thursday, January 22, Day 3: Music

Friday, January 23, Day 4: Mrs. Mac, Phys. Ed & Wild Child

Lisa 😊

Happy New Year to all the KA families, 

We spent the week celebrating the start of 2026 here in KA. We wore our New Year’s best on Monday and participated in the school-wide countdown. Our literacy centers followed along with the New Year’s theme and we wrote a New Year’s acrostic poem together as a class. Students made resolutions and we posted them in our hallway. It has been a fantastic start to the year and I am so excited to get to work with this group of students.

As part of our numeracy learning, we have started to learn the part part whole strategy. This strategy is a building block for future addition and subtraction. We have been using cube links to practice this strategy and will continue to focus on this strategy for the next several weeks. Students will have a stronger grasp of the vocabulary after next week’s lessons, but this week they were introduced to the format of this strategy. If you would like a better understanding of how this strategy works, this is a quick video that explains to help you talk to your child about their learning.

Students were introduced to tapping as a decoding strategy this week in FunDations. This is a strategy to help students use each individual sound in a word to help decode (read) and code (write) CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words. We have practiced this strategy each day this week and will continue to practice this for the next several weeks. You can encourage your child to tap out simple CVC words you see around your home as a way for them to practice, show-off and celebrate their new learning. This video gives you a better understanding of how tapping works. 

West Kent is in the middle of a hallway challenge, and the students have really bought into this challenge. In order to encourage tidiness, organization and safe hallways, each class is competing against other classes on their floor for the neatest coat hooks. Classes are awarded points for tidy coat hooks throughout the day with small Wessy’s on a scoreboard in the hall. Students have been very motivated to keep their hooks tidy and check the scoreboard regularly. A popcorn party will be awarded to a class on each floor next Friday if they have the highest amount of points. 

Wild Child has rescheduled our session that was cancelled before the Christmas break due to weather. It will now take place in the afternoon of Friday, January 23. The permission forms that you signed in December are still applicable for this new date. I will send out reminders as we get closer to that date so that families can make sure that students are well prepared for an afternoon of outdoor learning. 

Family Literacy Day will take place on Tuesday, January 27. At West Kent, one of the ways we celebrate this day is by inviting students and staff to dress as their favorite book character for the day. This will help strengthen student’s connections and engagement in literacy which provides a strong foundation for their current and future education. Please keep in mind that costumes should be something that students can manage independently, that are appropriate for recess and Phys Ed, and little pieces/accessories are better left safely at home so that they have less chance of getting lost. 

Next Week in KA:

Monday, January 12, Day 1: Music

Tuesday, January 13, Day 2: Mrs. Mac, Phys. Ed & Library

Wednesday, January 14, Day 3: Music

Thursday, January 15, Day 4: Mrs. Mac & Phys. Ed

Friday, January 16, Day 5: Music

Be sure to check the homework bags to find examples of some of our center work from this week and to make room for other items to come in the future.

I hope you all have a great weekend, and please continue to reach out with any questions. Children thrive best when home and school are one team together. 

Lisa 😊

Hello again KA families,

We had an incredible last week of the school year filled with holiday traditions and cheer. Following our last snow day of 2025, we went to the Holiday Shoppe to pick out gifts for you from your children. I can tell you that each one of them really took the time to think of what you like and/or what reminded them of you to choose what gift to get you. They helped pick out the wrapping paper and ribbons and filled out the gift tag. They spent the rest of the day so excited to give you their gifts. I hope you enjoy them! 

We read some holiday books and enjoyed some special treats this week as well. During their time with Mrs. Mac, students decorated gingerbread men after reading multiple books about gingerbread together. Students enjoyed a mug of hot chocolate while I read The Polar Express, Ms. Waye and Ms. MacKenzie took candy canes, apples and oranges around to all the classes, Ms. Karen took in some homemade cookies after the concert for the school, and some friends in class took some treats in to share as well. It was a delicious week!

We also of course had our Holiday Concert on Thursday. It was a big day for students as they performed in the morning for the school and in the afternoon for the families. They did a fantastic job and I am so proud of them all. And a big thank you to Mme. Morgan for helping your children’s talent shine! I hope you enjoyed it as well.

We also had holiday themed learning centers this week in class. The centers that used paper copies were sent home in the homework bags on Wednesday. This week our learning centers practiced number recognition in various forms, spatial awareness, composing numbers, hand strength and dexterity, letter finding and matching, word matching and syllable counting. 

On Friday, Mrs. Szwarc invited us to special activities in the gym and we were able to participate in glow bowling, face painting, table hockey and other fun games for some end of the year fun. 

And on Friday afternoon, we were treated to a surprise visit from Santa! Excitement was high and hearts were full!

Please check backpacks and homework bags. In their backpack is a small gift from the KA class to each student and in the homework bag is the Santa letter they wrote asking for something for a loved one. Also, the holiday break is a good time to clean out any extra papers that were sent home over the past couple of weeks.

Next Year in KA:

Monday, January 5, Day 2: Mrs. Mac, Phys. Ed & Library

Tuesday, January 6, Day 3: Music

Wednesday, January 7, Day 4: Mrs. Mac & Phys. Ed

Thursday, January 8, Day 5: Music

Friday, January 9, Day 6: Mrs. Mac & Phys. Ed

Wishing all the families of KA a wonderful holiday vacation and I look forward to seeing everyone again in the New Year! 

Lisa 😊