Dear families,
It was really a pleasure meeting with you last week to discuss your child's progress! Please feel free to contact me at any time if your have any questions or concerns.
It snowed briefly last week and that means winter is coming! That also means the children need to be dressed warmly for outdoor play and that they need indoor shoes that stay in their cubbies. Crocs or slippers work really well since they're light weight and comfortable and easy for your child to put on.
We've almost finished our Science Unit on Owls. I think the children are learning a lot and are hardly aware of all the reading and math activities hidden in our lessons :). We talk about using our "eagle eyes" to help read using pictures, and "stretchy snake;" stretching words out to help us read them. We'll be talking about more ways to help literacy skills, so don't be surprised to hear your child mention them at home!
We also did a lot of practising with "-AT" words. I sent a list of them home to practise.
We also learned all about the numbers 3 and 4; how to make them, what they look like etc. For example the numeral "3" can be aaa, aba, aab, baa, bab, bba, abb, the word "three," horizontal, vertical, diagonal, three on a dice cube, "third," and so on. More difficult for a 3-5 year old than we appreciate!
This month's Character Trait is Empathy. The children did a very good job looking at various photos of people/animals and trying to imagine how they feel. Then they wrote how they thought they felt and about a time they felt that way too.
This week the Seniors brought home 4 mixed up sentence strips about owls. Their homework is to cut them up, glue the words in the correct order, and read the sentence.
Our next unit will be on Primary Colours. We'll start by reading Eric Carle's Classic pattern book "Brown Bear" and we'll go on from there to make a colour wheel, learn how colours react together in a science experiment, and we'll read more colour books such as the wonderful "Mouse Paint." We'll follow everything up with an Eric Carle Author Study.
We are also focusing throughout the year on "popcorn" aka sight words. I'll send some information home about them in Friday's mail bag.
Thank you so much to Dylan's mom who was Mystery Reader this week and to Megan's dad who helped out in the Computer Lab.
This week the Grade 8s started their visits at the end of the day to read one-on-one with the children. What a nice opportunity to make a new friend and improve reading skills!
The children did a wonderful job at the Remembrance Day assembly. Thank you Freya for laying our classroom wreath. In this week's white bag is the book the children wrote called "A Poppy is to Remember" and the two songs we learned: "Little Poppy," and "Poppy, Poppy."
Please remember that your child needs two snacks each day. Quite a few only have one. I always have extra in the cupboard but please pack a little extra food with your childnjust in case. A good idea is to label the food items in their lunchbox: "Snack 1," "Lunch," "Snack 2." Or simply 1, 2, 3.
Thanks for bringing in your permission forms for the Munsch play. Thank you to our lucky parent volunteers Martel's mom, Christopher's mom, and Izzie's mom, for taking the time to assist that day. Thank you Matthew H. for picking the names out of a hat!
The Holiday Scholastic Order is due December 1st. It's due a bit early this time to ensure that the books are delivered before the holidays. If you would like your child's order to be a gift from "Santa" please write "GIFT" on your order form and I'll make sure to hand the order directly to you. Thank you!
The unit on Bats and Owls will go home on Friday. Please encourage your child to read and explain what they learned.
The Seniors and some of the Juniors have started journal writing. Please support your child in this important skill. I will write back to the children and put stickers on their work etc. Good practice for Grade 1 and beyond!
That's all our news for this week. I hope you have a lovely weekend.
