It's been a busy two weeks in Room 166!

It was very nice meeting with all the parents during Parent-Teacher Interviews. I enjoyed speaking with you about your children's progress! Keeping a journal at home and a book report booklet is a wonderful "next steps" activity for children who wish to do more writing activities.

The children did a wonderful job on their Remembrance Day writing/art activities and I was so impressed with their attentive listening during the quiet Remembrance Day ceremony. The children wrote about Peace and make a booklet called "A Poppy is to Remember" based on a book we read of the same name.

Our Grade 8 Reading Helpers continue to read one-on-one with the children in the mornings and at the end of the day. I have made little puzzles called "I am a bear-y good reader" and for each book the child reads they get a piece of a bear-shaped puzzle. When they get all the pieces they can bring them home and make the puzzle!

Our Morning Class worked on two booklets called "Signs of Fall" and "The Story of the Black Bear." On Monday the afternoon class will meet their Reading Buddies from Mrs. Adair's class and we will work together on those books too.

On Monday, the children learned a lot about Bees and Insects in their lesson from the Scientists in the Classroom! Thank you to the parents who volunteered to assist with this special day. A special thank you to Angelina's mom who brought in a huge (empty!) wasp nest that she discovered in the Ottawa area, along with photos of what it looked like when it was on the tree. I will find a special spot on the classroom to display it!

Thank you also to Logan's mom who generously contributed Christmas/Holiday Crafts for the children. I will incorporate Holiday activities in our learning starting in December, and we will use the crafts at one of our tables during the Holiday Party.

Please save any small white Shopper's Drug Mart Beauty Boutique Bags for the classroom. I need at least 40 of them. Thank you!

In our journals we wrote about our favourite parts of the Robert Munsch story "The Paper Bag Princess." What a wonderful and funny story!

Our sight words of the week have been "the" and "said." We continue to work on our phonics duotangs and many of the SK children are on Set Two already which is terrific!

We are learning all about Bears and have been reading bear-themed books (such as "Corduroy"), writing in journals, doing bear math, making patterns and making booklets as part of this fun and interesting unit. The children did a wonderful job being "as quiet as hibernating bears" during their table work time. Next year I plan on teaching the children all about Penguins and incorporating this cute and interesting animal in our learning in November. I also plan to teach a unit on Fairy Tales in February and for the children to create a lot of reading and writing activities from some classic stories.

We had a special day on November 22 when award-winning author Rukhsana Khan read stories to the children. www.rukhsanakhan.com The children especially loved her New York Times recommended book, "The Big Red Lollipop." Thank you to Cameron who brought his own copy in and had it signed by the author! We wrote in our journals about our favourite part of this wonderful story.

The children did a wonderful job reciting the poem, "Manners" during our Sharing Assembly. Congratulations to Kai L, Kai B, Cameron and Julia who received certificates for "Empathy" at our assembly.

On Friday, November 30 all LKS students are encouraged to wear ties/dress shirts/pants as part of "Movember" to support Prostate Cancer awareness and research. Student Council will be collecting donations as well.

The date for our special holiday-themed December Sharing Assembly will be posted soon on the LKS blog. We hope you can attend! The Character trait for this assembly will be "Kindness and Caring" and I will post the names of the children who will receive a certificate for this TDSB Character Trait on my blog in advance of the assembly.

Have a wonderful weekend, see everyone tomorrow!

Beverley