Gender stereotypes proliferate in the advertising, television, books, magazines and conversations that children are exposed to from a young age. That children might be deeply influenced by the gender stereotypes thrust upon them should give us all pause. How often do we heedlessly shower little girls with platitudes about prettiness and looks, or comment on how “big and strong” their brothers are growing? And, of course, I am just as susceptible to passing along my unrecognized and ingrained gender biases as anyone. But I try hard not to. Team Awesome is discouraged from labelling items such as colours or toys as 'for boys' or 'for girls' in our classroom. At first the children laugh at or scorn such claims and the opposite gender shun the items deemed not appropriate for them by their peers. But slowly, slowly, their grip on their stereotype beliefs relax and it becomes a non-issue. And I am happy to have noticed that over the last few months there has been more crossover in the use of traditional toys in our classroom. I am seeing the boys choose the doll house and the girls choose the building activities more often, with no fear of reprisals from their peers. Tiny steps.
- There is no regular Monday book exchange due to the Book Fair being set up in the library. We will exchange our books next Monday.
- The Scholastic Book Fair at BEST begins Monday, May 29 and continues through to Thursday, June 1. We will be previewing the books at 11:00 on Tuesday and 10:45 on Wednesday. You are welcome to send money with your child to buy a book at that time or the Fair will be open at various times throughout the week, including after school.
- On the afternoon of Wednesday, May 31 at 1:10 the primary classes will be having a musical performance in the gym called "How Canada Came To Be". Team Awesome needs to dress in 'olden day' clothing. Please send their costumes to school that day and we will put them on after lunch, just before the performance. If you are able to help with props or backdrops please let Mrs. Phillips know.
- Mrs. Farber and I are meeting our new Ks for next year the afternoon of Thursday, June 1 so there will be a substitute for that afternoon in our classrooms.
- Friday, June 2 we are taking a trip to the Big Little Science Centre for the morning. Permission forms have been sent home and are due next week with $2 for the bus.
- The City of Kamloops EcoSmart team will be presenting at BEST the afternoon of Friday, June 2.
- May 29-June 2 is Bike To Work/ School week and BEST will be participating! More info will be posted shortly.
- If you would like to order pizza it is due Monday, June 5 with pizza lunch Friday, June 9.
- There will be no Family Project for June as I am not sure we will have time to share them all.
- The BEST newsletter can be found here. Look under Site News.
- May sight words are: are, her, him, how, out, play, this, when, your. If a word comes up repeatedly in our studies we will sometimes add it to our words for the month.
