Week of March 2-6

Dear families,

This week we had two exciting and fun activities in the gym - Patchi, the Mascot for the Pan Am Games, paid LKS a visit, and the Kinders participated in a fun and active team building presentation called "Grow." Thank you so much to Stella's mom who was a "judge" in the fun competitions!

We continued our Inquiry on the Ocean this week with more art and writing (our hall bulletin board is nearing completion!). This week we learned about crabs - how they move, what they eat, their features, etc. We also completed a chart dividing the animals into classes eg mammals, crustaceans, mollusks, and so on. I think the children were impressed with all the different kinds of ocean animals that they eat! The children have done a wonderful job creating various ocean animals while learning about their features. Next week we'll learn facts about Orcas, sea shells, sand, and water. I'll tie a little science in there with "things that float/don't float." The homework for this weekend is to finish the sentence "My favourite ocean animal ____." and to complete the WHERE and SAID mini-books.

We said "Farewell" to Freya on Friday with a little class party. We will miss you Freya! Best wishes! Bonne Chance a Montreal!

A reminder that the February Scholastic Orders are due by Monday at the latest. Thank you. March's orders are due March 31st. Thank you again to Megan's family for collating the order forms!

Brentwood Library is running a Lego Club March 10 and April 7 in the Community Room from 4-5 p.m. Fun! They will also be screening the Lego Movie on March 20 at 2 p.m., and Despicable Me on March 21 at 2 p.m. Something fun to do over the March Break!

Here are some tips to accelerate your child's reading progress if your child is reading beyond highly patterned books:

- Take away the reading finger
- Encourage your child to use the meaning of the story or picture to decipher an unknown word. What makes sense? What sounds right? Tell your child the word if it takes more than 3 or 4 seconds to sound out the word.
- Encourage your child to make their reading sound like talking (reading fluency) so that his/her strong oral language is used to solve unknown words. Word by word reading slows down reading progress and interferes with reading comprehension.
- After the first read of the book with you, have your child read it again so it sounds like talking with phrasing (words naturally grouped together like when you talk, with pauses at punctuation (period, exclamation mark, comma, question mark), and with intonation (some words louder or sounding like a question).
- Feel free to model read the text with fluency if needed.
- Re-reading books many times increases reading fluency and builds your child's reading vocabulary and confidence.
- Have fun!

I hope you have a terrific week.