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September 2011
Issue no. 7
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Playgroup
As you know, Pam Spencer is now leading our Playgroup, as well as providing support in our Kindergarten. Pam thanks you all for your warm welcome as she gets to know everyone, and familiarises herself with all things Leapfrog!
The Playgroup is now following the same themes as the Kindergarten. We now have a curriculum for the Playgroup, and the learning areas have been defined in a separate document. Click the links if you want to know more about whatīs behind our Playgroup classroom practice.
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Kindergarten Classroom Phone
We now have a Kindergarten classroom phone for parents to relay urgent messages to the teachers - especially last minute changes to going-home arrangements.
Email remains our main means of contact, but if you are not in front of your computer or need to contact us directly in the classroom, please use our classroom phone for text messages or emergency calls: 6413 8247.
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Dates to Remember
September 13th - public holiday, no school.
September 29th - Parents' Evening
September 30th - CPD day, no school.
October 5th - public holiday, no school.
October 17th-21st - half-term break, no school.
November 12th - Halloween Party.
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Healthy Snack Suggestions
We strongly recommend that the children bring healthy snacks to school. Unfortunately we canīt allow nuts at school due to some serious allergy problems. Please make some healthy choices and exclude any type of chocolate coated products, cakes and sweets. Vegetables, fruits and small sandwiches are the perfect choice for a little snack at school.
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Halloween Party
Our famous Halloween Party will be held on November 12th this year. Please reserve the date! This party is our biggest fundraising event of the year and is great for the whole family. We have games for the children, costume prizes, BBQ, Cash Bar, Raffle, Auction, Face Painting, Disco etc. Make sure you bring your friends and families to this fantastic event. It really is a lot of fun and such a joy to see the looks on the children's faces when they see the school transformed!
Our Halloween party is primarily organized by our parents. Alisie Barrett (committee member and Mum of Mika in K1) has kindly offered to jointly organise the event. She is very experienced at this but is looking for a right hand man or woman to help her in this co-ordinator's role!! Please contact Ailish if you are willing to help in this way. Such a large event also needs many other helpers to take on smaller tasks - please watch your email to find out when the first planning meeting will be, and come along f you possibly can.
Contact Ailish for more details.
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New Staff at Leapfrog
Rachel Johnson is our fabulous new Kindergarten EA (Education Assistant). She is a swimming instructor and was previously working as an EA in a local Kindergarten on Hong Kong Island. We welcome her to our Teaching Team!
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New Tshirts!
New Leapfrog Tshirts will be here soon.... we are very excited about the new design, and will let you know as soon as they are available. They are a great way to keep home clothes paint-free as well as giving the children a sense of pride in their Leapfrog! |
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Dear Leapfrog Parents
Many thanks to all of you for a great start at Leapfrog Kindergarten and Playgroup this year, 2011/12. Most of our classes are already full but we still have some spaces available in Hoppers, Tadpoles (Tuesdays), Wednesday Playgroup and Super 2s. Our K2 class is full and K1 is filling up. If you are considering Leapfrog for your child's Kindergarten years, please contact us as soon as possible.
Our Newsletter has a brand new look! We are using this new tool called CONSTANT CONTACT to keep you in the loop! We are always trying to find ways to keep our community as informed as possible about what is going on at Leapfrog; please let us know what you think of it.  |
Parents Evening and Open House on September 29th
All Parents are welcome to visit our Kindergarten on September 29th between 6.30pm-7.30pm. Please drop in and meet our staff and current parents. Louise Heap will introduce the defined Learning Areas and curriculum along with outlining our assessment procedures. Louise will also present the basics of the Synthetic Phonics system that we use to teach the children to recognize letter sounds. This is the same system used by the majority of international schools in HK - donīt miss this fantastic opportunity to learn to help your child to read. 6.30pm - Open House with refreshments
7.00pm - Guided Tour and Introduction to Synthetic Phonics "Get Reading Right"
7.30pm - Exclusive Kindergarten Parents Meeting
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Reading stories with children at home
By Louise Heap  Whilst story telling is, of course, a most enjoyable activity in its own right, research shows that parents and carers who read stories to and with their young children regularly at home have a strong positive influence in the literacy development of those children.
Children have the opportunity to watch their parents providing a model of reading. In handling and reading books they are demonstrating the direction of print, how it functions and how it is used effectively. 'Big Books' can be used in school allowing a group of children follow the text together, but this aspect is made even simpler in a one-to-one situation at school or at home using a wide range of picture and story books.
Children are introduced to new words and sentence structures, widening their vocabulary and understanding of the use of language generally in conveying ideas and meaning.
The child is learning about the structure of stories - they have a beginning, middle and end, and they include characters, a setting and a plot. This sense of story construction helps them to understand other stories and ultimately to start creating their own books.
The power to support children's literacy learning is enhanced further when the readings are repeated, and themselves include elements of rhythm, rhyming words and repetition (such as 'The Three Billy Goats Gruff'), so that participation, interaction and direction by the child is actively encouraged.
Such 'familiar territory' already experienced at home provides an immediate and reassuring connection when a child starts school.
Story reading sessions form an important part of each day at Leapfrog, and are often enhanced with art and craft activities, puppet making, role play and songs and rhymes. The children are often asked to suggest the books that they would all like to hear, and sometimes they may prefer to have an additional quiet story time rather than play with their friends outside. In addition to this each day they select a book to take home from our very own library, returning it to us when completed.
Currently, some of the most popular storybooks in K1 and K2 are; All Dr. Zeus, (Random House), eg "Cat in the Hat', 'I wish I had Duck Feet', also in the series (Harper Collins), 'A Fish out of Water' by Helen Palmer, "The Best Nest' by P. D. Eastman, "The Bears' Holiday' by Stan and Jan Berestain, 'Flap your Wings' by P. D. Eastman, All Lynley Dodd books (Puffin), Eg 'Schnitzel von Crum', 'Wake up Bear', All the 'Little Princess' books by Tony Ross (Harper Collins), Eg 'I want a Friend', 'The Wish Cat' by Ragnhild Scanell (Little Tiger Press), 'The Big Pancake' adapted by Lynn Mott (Kohwai and Young), 'Little Red Car' by Nicola Baxter (Ladybird).
We are always looking to expand our children's experiences of stories and literacy. If your child has enjoyed but now outgrown a particular book at home, we would welcome the chance to share it with other children at Leapfrog. It is also a great idea to donate a book to commemorate a birthday. All donations are gratefully received, and you can be assured that they will be put to very good use for many years to come.
Truncated version previously issued in the September issue of the Sai Kung Magazine. www.saikung.com
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Summer Kindergarten 2011
The Summer break was the ideal opportunity for a small group of children to meet together and consolidate the material they had been working on for the previous academic year. The 'Synthetic Phonics and Numeracy Summer Kindergarten' was especially designed with the children who are moving up from K1 to K2 in mind, although in fact the ages of the attendees ranged from just over 3 to six years of age. Some of the children were regular 'Leapfroggers', whilst others had attended alternate schools during the term time. All of the children welcomed the opportunity to meet new people, and quickly established good relationships with one another. The phonics sessions were based on the 'Get Reading Right' reading scheme. We matched, sounded-out and wrote each of the letters, and held 'treasure hunts' in which we had to search for specified camera words that had been hidden around the classroom. In addition to this there was always time for free-choice activities such as cutting and sticking, painting, puzzles, construction toys and outdoor play, and we jointly chose at least three stories to be read each morning after snack time. The three weeks passed by very quickly, and it was gratifying to receive positive feedback from the parents, in terms of how much the children had enjoyed the sessions. It has to be said that thanks to the good behaviour and responsiveness of the children, so did the teachers! We look forward to doing it all again next year. |
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CPD Day 30th September
Leapfrog will be closed on Friday 30th September for our staff CPD (continous professional development) day.
We will be taking this opportunity for all staff to complete a course in International Paediatric Emergency First Aid (given by First Aid International) at Annerley.
Kristrun and Fe recently completed this certification back in March, but will be refreshing thier knowledge along with Louise, Rachel, Pam and Ailish. |
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Slope Maintenance at Leapfrog
Essential slope upgrading and maintenance work is supposed to begin at Leapfrog on Monday 19th September. W are expecting the initial period of work to be noisy, and so we are asking for your patience. Click here for more details.
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