Fine motor fun!

The Kinders have had lots of fun practising printing in chocolate pudding! They printed letters; made patterns and created shapes. Try this at home with pudding, whipped cream or even shaving foam!

3-D Shape Exploration

The Kinders have been exploring 3-D shapes. We have named the following: sphere; cube; cylinder and cone. Please look in your home for these shapes. Go on a shape hunt with your child! The Kinders worked together today to build a 3-D castle. They added a door and towers. Torrey would like to add a draw-bridge tomorrow!

Our New Art Easel!

Thank you to all the parents and grandparents who baked cupcakes for our sale! We earned enough money to purchase a brand new, beautiful easel. Thank you for supporting us!

Let's Experiment!



What will happen? We are watching 4 different carnations this week. One is in clear water and three are in water with food colouring. The students have predicted that the carnations in coloured water will change colour.

Jolly Phonic Actions for Group 5

z Put arms out at sides and pretend to be a bee, saying zzzzzz.
w Blow on to open hand, as if you are the wind, and say wh, wh, wh.
ng Imagine you are a weightlifter, and pretend to lift a heavy weight above your head, saying ng...
v Pretend to be holding the steering wheel of a van and say vvvvvv.
oo oo Move head back and forth as if it is the cuckoo in a cuckoo clock,
saying u, oo; u, oo. (Little and long oo.)

About Rose Seaton

In 1891 a building was under construction on Phipps Street. The building was a two storey structure that contained four classrooms. The first principal of the new school was Samuel Houser and the two teachers were Miss Simpson and Jane Gerrard. The school was part of the Bridgeburg School Board and named Bridgeburg Public School. Rose Seaton began her tenure as principal in 1918.


In 1932 with the amalgamation of Fort Erie and Bridgeburg and a unified school board, the school was renamed the Phipps Street School. During the 1930s and 1940s life at the school was a dependable constant. Mr. Willis burned the waste papers every day; Miss Weaver produced her play based on Tom Sawyer; Miss Hanes taught Grade 2; Miss Price was the nurse; Miss Mildred Young taught music. Rose Seaton remained at Phipps Street school for 31 years and when she retired, the Board of Education renamed it in her honour as a tribute to her devotion and competence.

In 1984 the building was demolished and a new school was built on the Emerick side of the property. Consequently, Rose Seaton Public School is both the oldest and youngest school in Fort Erie!

Jolly Phonics

Jolly Phonics is a thorough foundation for reading and writing. It teaches the letter sounds in an enjoyable, multisensory way, and enables children to use them to read and write words.

This guide provides background advice for parents and teachers. It explains the principles behind Jolly Phonics so that your understanding of the teaching, and your ability to help a child, is much greater.

All the material is suitable for use in school and much of it is also well suited to use at home.

Jolly Phonics includes learning the irregular or 'tricky words' such as said, was and the. Together with these materials you should also use storybooks.

Parental support is important to all children as they benefit from plenty of praise and encouragement whilst learning. You should be guided by the pace at which your child wants to go. If interest is being lost, leave the teaching for a while rather than using undue pressure. Not all children find it easy to learn and blend sounds. It is important to remember that this is not because they are unintelligent but because they have a poor memory for symbols and words. Extra practice will lead to fluency in reading and help your child manage at school.

The five basic skills for reading and writing are:

1. Learning the letter sounds
2. Learning letter formation
3. Blending
4. Identifying sounds in words
5. Spelling the tricky words


1. Learning the Letter Sounds

In Jolly Phonics the 42 main sounds of English are taught, not just the alphabet. The sounds are in seven groups. Some sounds are written with two letters, such as ee and or. These are called digraphs. Note that oo and th can each make two different sounds, as in book and moon, that and three. To distinguish between the two sounds, these digraphs are represented in two forms. This is shown below.



Each sound has an action which helps children remember the letter(s) that represent it. As a child progresses you can point to the letters and see how quickly they can do the action and say the sound. One letter sound can be taught each day. As a child becomes more confident, the actions are no longer necessary.

Children should learn each letter by its sound, not its name. For instance, the letter a should be called a (as in ant) not ai (as in aim). Similarly, the letter n should be nn (as in net), not en. This will help in blending. The names of each letter can follow later.

The letters have not been introduced in alphabetical order. The first group (s, a, t, i, p, n) has been chosen because they make more simple three-letter words than any other six letters. The letters b and d are introduced in different groups to avoid confusion.

Sounds that have more than one way of being written are initially taught in one form only. For example, the sound ai (rain) is taught first, and then the alternatives a-e (gate) and ay (day) follow later.

Making Connections!