Author: Tammy

What is going on this week?

Sorry this is a bit late this week.

We are working on Friction, Force and Motion in Science.  We will be making pop can bristle bots that move by vibration over various surfaces.  We will have them ready to show you next week.

In Math we continue to work on measurement.  This week we have been measuring string to show how long the animals are in our book called Actual Size.  You can see them in the hallway and some are very impressive.

In Reading, we continue to increase our stamina for reading.  We are trying to ensure the books are interesting and the right level.  Ask your child what he/she chose for new books today.

We are finishing up a few writing projects this week and hope to write a Spring acrostic poem.  We recently worked on a funny riddle book for Ms. Porters Kindergartens and this week we worked with our little buddy to make a new riddle.  Ask your child what he/she wrote.

In Gym, we are taking part in the regular cross country running held every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Thanks for helping your child come with runners as it is so much easier to run without boots on.

Our new words this week are the question words: who, what, where, when, and why.  We have practiced writing a question mark and creating questions with those words.

Please check that you have returned the permission form for our trip to the Raven trail next Thursday.  I will send home a reminder as we need rubber boots that day and proper outdoor clothing.  We are helping be stewards of the land we work live and play on.  Great job everyone!

Just a reminder we are doing Student Led Interviews next week.  WE will be in the Computer room during that time if you chose a time during school.  You can come and get your child and do the Interview in our classroom.  If your interview time is after school, you may come back with your child to our classroom.  They are getting excited to show you their learning!

The PAC has organized gift baskets for a raffle.  Thank you to those people who have brought tings already.  Our theme is Gardening.  Please send in an item that is related to gardening- seeds, pots, gloves, etc. IT will be raffled off at the Spring carnival.

Next week includes Earth Day so we will be doing a garbage clean up on Monday.  Please send garden gloves for that.

Enjoy the sunshine I see peaking through and thank you for supporting our learning!

 

This week we have a few things that need to be returned.

1. We have a Hot Lunch Order that is to be filled out online, payment may be done by Pay Pal or print the form and send the cash to school by Friday.
2. A Book Order that is due on or before April 12^th. You can also pay for that online and just send in the form so I know what you have ordered.
3. The Student Led Interview sign up sheet was sent home last week. Please return it by Wed. Apr. 11.

We are learning about Force, Motion and Friction in Science.  The kids are having fun trying out experiments such as the straw and pompom one today.  Later in the week we will be making balloon blasters with a cup and a cut balloon.  Hopefully they bring these ideas home to try out as well.

Our Word Wall words are in the Agenda, however, if you’ve missed them they are as follows: I, nice, write and writing.  We are focussing on dropping the e and adding ing to verbs.  See if you can find some when you are reading and writing at home.

We are writing a book for our Little Buddies called Q is for Duck where we are making up some silly things like Q is for duck because a duck quacks.  We will each write at least 1 letter page and make a book for the kindergartens.  You may have fun creating some at home too.

In Math, we are going on to learn about measurement.  We will cover topics like length, money, mass, calendar, etc.

In Reading, we are focussing on reading good fit books and recalling what we are reading.  Today we recorded the 5 w’s- who, what, where, when, and why the book was written.  Some books are easier tor recall but we need to think about what we have learned after we read to develop and improve comprehension.

We have been invited to help with the Nature Bay Enhancement Project planting on the hummocks at the Raven Trail to help establish a more diverse habitat for reptiles and amphibians.  I will send more information once it’s settled but the trip will be Thurs. Apr. 26 from 8:30-12 ish.  Firm times will be sent once they are confirmed.  I need some parent helpers as they will be wearing rubber boots, shovelling holes and planting shrubs, trees, etc. as well as a few other stations.  At this point I am hoping to take a bus as it is a bit far to walk both ways.

Spring seems to get very busy- please remember o take time to read everyday with your child.  I can really see the difference with those who have regular practice and I see them excited to try new words.  Great job!  Remember to dress for the weather in layers, we are in for some cool weather and get this… sunshine!

 

Welcome Back to School!

It was nice to day to see so many happy faces filled with stories of adventures and new things such as sports, friends and relatives. It was also surprising to see how much they had all grown.

Here are a few reminders about the week:

• Tomorrow (Wed. Apr. 4) is Book Day please return all books both library ones and Home Reading Books.
• Please send a water bottle, veggies and enough food for your child to eat a snack and lunch, I think we have many with growth spurts as they were running out of lunch before the break
• I would like to take the kids on a walking trip to Badger Park this Thursday, please dress appropriately. Let me know if you’d like to come along, we will leave around 10:10.

We will be reviewing our word wall words this week so we don’t have anything new to practice. Also, we will start learning about friction in science and we will be doing some experiments this month.

The week of Apr. 23 I will be doing Student Led Interviews as the next Informal Report. A note will come home for you to choose a time and slot.

*Please be sure your child is wearing layers of clothing, a jacket, and warm mitts or gloves, as it is still cold in the morning. I’m keeping my fingers crossed it will warm up soon.

The PAC is doing online hot lunch ordering soon; keep your eyes open for information on how to do this.

Enjoy the week back and thank you for sending your children well rested and fed, it seems that they can concentrate better, solve issues with ease and be problem solvers when they are in this state. Happy April!

Mar. 12- 16 Review
A note went home today regarding the Simile Posters we are making. I will have things they can use at school but if your child has a special item he/she wants to use on the poster they can bring it by Wednesday. For example, a toy horn, a paper party hat, a bouncy ball, etc.
Talent Show
The school talent show is tomorrow. Not all students are performing only those selected. I know it is after lunch but the exact time is a bit unclear- it will be 12:45-1 ish ending around 2. If you have any more questions feel free to contact Mr. Roberts at broberts@sd83.bc.ca
Wed- Book Day
We should be in a good routine of changing all reading books on Wednesday including Library books and Home Reading books. Taking books on your holiday is your choice, however, lost books will need to be paid for. If you are going away I’d recommend not taking your child’s library books along.
Friday- Debbie’s Last Day
As you are aware Debbie Harrison is retiring this Friday. We will miss her but are happy she will join Mr. Harrison adventuring into retirement. IF you haven’t returned your paper with a note and picture yet please do so by Wednesday as Carla is making it into a book. If you lost the paper just use a white paper.

Friday- Gymnastics watch day
Friday is our last Gymnastics class and parents are welcome to come and watch the lesson. We start at 10:45 and go until 11:15. Remember to send your child wearing stretch pants or shorts, a t-shirt and long hair tied up. Thanks to the Pac for sponsoring this great program and for Momentum Gymnastics for teaching the students.
Enjoy your Spring Break which starts this Saturday and lasts two weeks. Hopefully the sun will stick around and do some melting. I strongly believe in kids being active so get outside, ride your bike or play. Also, remember to read, write and play cards games regularly to keep the skills we have been working on! I’ll see you again April 3rd, Happy Easter everyone.

Hello!

A special thank you to Christine and Max Ondang for bringing in traditional egg tarts to celebrate the end of Chinese New Year last Friday.  They were delicious and a nice treat .  Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Here’s a bit of an update for the week to help you.

We have done 3 performances with our Reader’s Theatre Scripts.  I am very proud of the students as they have practiced at school and home to show that they are reading more fluently and expressive.  The kindergarten and Grade 1 students have enjoyed hearing the stories.   The headbands made it interesting to watch- a job well done!

In Applied Design Skills and Technology we made parachutes for Jack to escape the giant, drew the plan, and made a materials list then built and tested our first one and timed it.  Students were then encouraged to alter their parachute to make it fall slower and test again.  This is where the real learning comes in- perseverance, the ability to have flexible thinking etc.    I sent home a small green paper last week to give you ideas on how to support this at home and ways to extend it if you are interested.

We are finishing up our fairy tale piggy back stories and doing our first partner edit.    We will move onto a different style of writing later this week.  We wrote a how to page to our Buddies and retold how we made our parachute using a First, Then, Next and Last framework.    Fynn delivered the letters and I sent along the parachute lesson hoping they will also try it out.

Our weekly word wall words are: there, their, they’re, want, and when.  Have fun writing, spelling and finding them in your reading books.

We have only a few events this week:

1. Book Day is Wednesday– please return all books and renewals Wed. morning (we will not be doing Book Day during Spring Break but I can’t seem to get that reminder to turn off for those 2 days sorry)
2. Beach Day is Thursday– Fynn and committee are doing a dress up day so students are encouraged to bring a towel, short, t- shirt, etc. with regular clothes over top.  They may bring a healthy snack to share but we will have regular lunches so just a small thing is great.
3. Friday is our second gymnastics lesson.  Please bring shorts or stretch pants, a t- shirt and hair elastic for long hair.

Only 1 1/2 more weeks until Spring Break.  It’s a wet and icy time right now.  Snow clothes are not working that well but it seems we are still in that gear so you may want to send along an extra pair of mitts and socks.  The lost and found is still in the hallway, we’ve looked at it 2-3 times but if you have something missing stop by and check it out as the stuff will go to the thrift store soon.

This week Ava is our Student of the Week and next week our last student will be Noah.  I’ve enjoyed seeing each child in this leadership role and have appreciated your support at home building connections, confidence and friendships as they notice how they are the same and different with others.

The PAC sent home a note for your family to fill our for Debbie Harrison as her last day will be just before Spring Break. Please send in a picture, note, etc. on the flower sheet provided last week and it will be made into a book for her.  Thank you, we will miss her very much!

Enjoy the week and thank you for sending your child to school rested and with a nice healthy lunch and water.  Together we can make a difference!

This week we will be working with the same word wall words as we did not have enough time to do a very thorough job of them last week.

The school  Lost and Found is lining the halls and has many pairs of snowpants, mitts, etc.  Check it out if you’re missing anything before it goes to the Thrift Store.

Wednesday will be Pink Shirt Day. Students are encouraged to wear something pink to symbolize diversity and accepting differences.  We will be reading books and doing some lessons about how we are the same and different.  It is  also our usual Book Day Wednesday.  Please return library books and all Ziplocs for new books.

Friday will be our first Gymnastics lesson from 11:05-11:50.  The students are doing this as a part of our Gym class so all students are expected to participate in shorts or stretch pants, a t- shirt, no jewellry and hair tied up.  They will be wearing barefeet as well.  Our lessons are paid for in part by the PAC- thank you to them!  The lessons will be Mar. 2, 9 and 16 with the parent watch day the 16th.

In Math we are subtracting, building numbers, using strategies such as counting on and counting back.    This week we will do a quick review of basic facts for making 10, doubles and near doubles as some kids are forgetting these facts making larger operations tricky.  You can help at home by playing cards, flipping 1 card and doubling it or doubling it and adding 1.  You could  also flip 4 cards (numbers 1-10) and turn over 2 that make 10.  Have fun but practice 5-10 min a day.  8+8=16 so 16-8=____

The recent Book Order Arrived last week and a new set of Book Orders were sent home last week and they will be due this Friday.  If you want anything please return them so I can try to get them  here before the Spring Break time.

We will be doing a new challenge Wed. or Thurs trying to create a parachute for Jack to escape from the giant.  Please wait to try it out at home until after your child has had a chance to do it  at school.  We could use plastics bags, light paper, tissue, string, etc to create these items if you have any extras laying around.  They will also each need a lego character.  Please label the lego character if you send one to school.  Thank you.

Currently, there are some Pet Shop  issues happening at school.  The expectation is that all toys that come to school return home with the same students.  We are not trading, selling, or giving toys away as it creates issues.  Please help your child limit the toys he/she bring to 2-3 and check that they are returning things that belong to him/her.  We have also had an issue with Pokemon cards in the past, let’s be sure we keep our own things and only share at school but return things to the owners.  Thanks for your help!

Have a great week and thanks again for ensuring your child is wearing socks, snowpants, a jacket, mitts and a hat!

We will soon be making fairy doors as our next project.  If you have any branches that are 1-2cm in diameter please send them in so we can cut them into pieces that will fit around our doors (each child will need 2 pieces 15 cm long, 1 pieces 20 cm long and 1 piece 10 cm long.

 

A happy snowy weekend to everyone!  Remember to bring socks, mitts, a hat and all other winter wear daily.

Here are a few things to keep in mind this week:

SYSA Soccer Lesson on Tuesday– wear appropriate gym clothes

Book Day Wednesday.- return all books for new ones please

Aiza and Abby’s Book Character and TV Character Dress up Day is Thursday

Hot Lunch orders  are due Thurs.- Sushi this time yummy!

Friday– Pro-D, students do not attend.  I will be doing a session on Google Docs and computer related learning.

Our words this week are: other, brother, sister, that and then

We will continue writing our Folk and Fairy Tale stories adding details to make them more interesting.

In Reading we have taken home our Readers Theatre Scripts to practice the yellow parts.  We will practice this week together working on expression and fluency. so please return the paper daily  You can help your child by reading the other parts so your child can just focus on his/her reading.  We hope to perform these plays for the kindergartens once we have practiced them for a few weeks.

We will be doing some lesson on healthy eating as a follow up to our Heart Healthy Valentines.  We will create our own Food Guide Page to bring home which can help with packing lunches and making meals.

To continue motivating students to write, I have set up 2 new centres- 1 is a drawing and comic centre where you can draw Elephant and Piggie from the Mo Willems books, the other new centre is the art centre where the students can create drawings, follow drawing in books, make books, cards, etc.

We will be finishing our mapping unit and moving onto a new unit next week.  It seems they have enjoyed learning about cardinal direction, making a key, creating symbols and using them to read the map.  Your child may want to create his/her own treasure map at home as well.

Feb. 12- 16, 2018

 

Hello and a Happy Family Day to each of you! I hope you found time to enjoy the sunshine and time together making memories.

I hope you are also enjoying helping your child come up with Random Acts of Kindness! The actual Random Acts of Kindness Day is Feb. 16- keep practicing.

Aiza and Abby sent home a note regarding Favourite Book Character or T.V. Show Character Dress Up Day. Start getting your costume ready if you like to dress up!

Our Words this week are : Valentine, care, love, like, and heart.

This week we have a few things to remember:

Tues. Feb. 13– Scholastic Book Order Due

Wed. Feb. 14- Valentine’s Day- bring cards for everyone if you are participating in this (the list went home 2 weeks ago). Handmade cards are so special! Healthy snacks are welcome to share- fruit, veggies, crackers and cheese. I have arranged for Laura Paiement (Our Healthy Schools Coordinator) to do a school wide dance lesson at 8:20 followed by interactive stations throughout the day for each class. Our stations are right after lunch with our little buddies. We will also have healthy snacks in the hall at our Public health Nurse Bulletin board near the library. A Healthy Heart is a strong heart.

Wed. is also book day followed by library book exchange

Thurs Feb. 15. – Gym Stations and Brooklynn’s Guest visit

Fri. Feb. 16– Chinese New Year, we have the pleasure of having Max’s mom come and teach us about it, read a few stories, do a crafts and teach us to paint the symbol for Fortune and Dog in Chinese.   It is the Year of the Dog this year; thank you Christine for taking the time to teach us about this important part of your life with Max.

Have a great week !

Hello and a snowy start to the week!

This week we will be working with the words: kicked, didn’t, bug, junk and jump.  We wil practice spelling the words, use them to help spell other words and look at words that are similar such as contractions and words with the ed ending that sounds like a t.

We will continue writing our fiction stories, last week we started writing our own stories.  Ask your child who their characters, setting and problem are so far.  They will work to create a solution to the problem this week.  We are reading a few fairy tales and a few twisted tales that are different perspectives on traditional tales such as the Stinky Cheese Man instead of the Gingerbread Man.

In Math, we are still reviewing our doubles and the inverse facts- 8+8=16 then 16-8=?  We will play some games with doubles and doubling the double.  We will also practice finding doubles in larger questions and then review making friendly numbers.  We will be  practicing our near doubles.

We will be doing 2 Science Snow Stations on Friday from 10:15-11:15 with some students from SMS.  I need 1 parent helper to be there to help supervise students during this hour.  It will only be 1/2 my class and I will be with the other group nearby.  Let me know if you think you could help with this.  Thanks.

Remember next week we have Valentines Day and our Heart Healthy Celebration that day.  I am encouraging small note cards to each child but it is optional.  As we are celebrating our heart please send only healthy snacks such as fruit, vegetalbes, cheese, etc.  The class list was sent home last week to help get your cards ready.

Keep reading every night, I am excited with the progress some students are showing and so are they!  It’s evident when they are practicting regularly.  I am not only seeing increased confidence and reading levels but improvments in fluency and decoding new words.  Keep up the great work!

In Art, we will be making some hearts in the style of Kandinsky for our Pen Pals, doing a penguin drawing from Art Hub with our Buddies and finishing our wooden snowflakes in the hallway.  You may want to try Art Hub at home, it has easy to follow drawing with a variety of ideas just google Art Hub.

Have a great week and please help your child arrive ready with his/her hat, mitts, snow pants, boots and jacket everyday. We do go outside to learn throughout the week even on our school grounds. Thanks!

This Week…

It seems this week will be busy but not quite like the last one.  A special thank you to Rob and Beth Savage for being our volunteer trail guides during our skiing sessions.  They were so helpful and kind!  Thanks also to Karin Huster for organizing it for us.

We continue to read daily, expect students to read every night for at least 10 minutes, listen to reading and read to others.  We will be creating some fiction stories  with characters, a setting and a problem and solution.  In Math, we will be reviewing out adding doubles and practicing how they help us with our subtraction facts.  For example- 4+4=8 so 8-4+4. You can practice these at home with a deck of cards 1-10- flip the card and double it.  In Socials, we will continue with our mapping using cardinal direction (N,S,W, and E) to navigate through a map.  We will also continue reading The 13th Story Treehouse and creating our own treehouses.

Please be sure your child brings appropriate winter clothing everyday including a hat, mitts or gloves, socks , a jacket and snowpants.  Dry socks great to have in the backpack as an emergency!

Monday- there is a PAC meeting at 6, all parents are welcome to give feedback and share ideas.  There will be 5 new words sent home in the Agenda to practice writing and spelling, they are from our word wall. I do not give them a test each week, instead we put them on the word wall as a reference to help with our daily writing.

Wednesday- Book Day, return all books for exchange.  Your child should bring home 2 new books in a ziploc every Wednesday.  I’ve noticed most students are increasing their reading level and seem very proud of their efforts- keep it up!  Whenever you have a few spare minutes… read!

Thursday- I’d like to take the kids on a short walkabout on our closest nature trail.  If you could come along around 10:10 please let me know.  Thanks.

Friday- This is our last skating day, the students have developed skills and perseverance through this activity.  I see skating as a Gym activity as well as a chance to learn life skills like perseverance and determination.  We practiced those things skiing as well.  This is also the Pirate Loppet Day which is optional for all students.  I will be going as the teacher rep but there will be a TOC in for me that day.