2 more too exciting not to post!

Congratulations Mme Byrd! Baby Byrd due this summer!

Wordless Wednesday!

A picture-only posting:

Weekly Update - January 19- 23

Weekly Update - January 19 - January 23

First let me apologize for the blog post hiatus. Between the holidays, flu season and report cards, it has been a very busy month. Hopefully, we are now back on track and we will give you an update on what has been happening in Room 20.

News Items:

Please welcome new students William M. and Janessa to our class :) 

Inquiries:

We are very interested in space and our solar system presently. Mrs. Shanna has created a fantastic space control center and rocket ship for the students to explore in in the dramatic play center, as well as a planet themed sensory bin seek and find game and a felt story board with planets and rockets. The kids are really enjoying learning about different planets, stars and what it's like in outer space. We encourage you to ask our child questions at home about what are learning and what they are wondering about. 

What We're Working On:

Math: creating our own board games! This is a fantastic math activity where we have encouraged students to create game boards using color patterns, numbers and symbols to create a game that they can play with family and friends. Playing these games helps them practice one to one correspondence (rolling the dice and moving that many spaces), creating and recognizing patterns and exploring the beginning stages of addition and subtraction (moving forward and back depending on the space they land on). Try playing your child's game with them when they bring it home :)

Literacy: We will be working on recognizing high frequency sight words in French such as 'les', 'le' 'la', 'ma' 'tu' and 'je'. A full list of sound blends and sight words will be sent home in the coming weeks for your child to practice.  We will also continue working more on our writing continuum. Some of you may remember seeing a "Bump it Up" wall (or "Echelle de succes" en francais) in our classroom. This wall has samples of student work at various levels of completeness which serves as a tool to help students "Bump up" their work and improve upon it as they go. We will specifically be working on writing in our writin journals and ensuring that our written text uses appropriate upper and lower case letters, is dated and matches the pictures we have drawn above. 

Science: We are exploring simple machines! specifically this week: pulleys (les poulies) and pendulums (les pendules).

Sensory Play: I spy seek and find sensory bin with space themed objects. 

Home Connection:

1) We took a short break from our home reading program but it will continue this week as usual. 

2) Please remind your child (we have talked to them in class) that remembering their note tote, library book, etc is their responsibility. We are working towards preparing them for future grades where they will have an increasing number of responsibilities. Thanks!

3) Also, new songs will be added to your child's note tote soon!

4) A few parents asked questions about our Open Houses and mentioned when we cancelled last week's open house that they were not aware it was happening in the first place. We would like to clarify that while the dates for all of our open houses were posted in a previous post, we understand that it was a while ago and that we should give reminders closer to the time. The reason we didn't do so this time was because, while the first two open houses we rather extravagant affairs, our open houses going forward will be much more like a regular day with open doors. We do not want parents to feel pressured to attend as we know that it can be very difficult to get time off work. We also don't want to have students upset if their parents aren't able to come. Therefore, going forward we will post the dates again (hopefully in the next couple days) and then post a quick reminder on the blog closer to the date. We will not be informing the students in advance. Hope this clears things up and sorry again for any confusion. 

Friday, December 19 Spirit Day

This Friday will be a Spirit Day for Broadview. Students are invited to wear their PJs to school. Classes in each division with the highest participation will win the "Golden Boot" (a trophy that stays in the classroom until the next Spirit Day). Our class has already won a prize for the highest participation in the Food Drive and it would be great to keep the spirit going!


We have been alerted to the fact that there seems to be a delay between when these posts get written and when the email alerts of a new post are sent out. We are working on rectifying the problem. As I write this at noon on Wednesday, I am hoping that it reaches you before your child dresses for school on Friday! Just in case, I will send home a reminder in the notetotes as well.

Books coming home this week

I just wanted to write a quick explanation of an English book that will be coming home this week (if it hasn't already arrived!). During my small group lessons this week, children are working on a sight word book to reinforce our newest word wall word: "it". The last page of this book presents children an opportunity to do a bit of phonetic writing as well. Students were given a Christmas light popsicle stick reading pointer. They use this pointer to point to each word as they read to help them track and focus on each word. I'm sure they will be excited to share this activity with you at home.

Gingerbread Decorating Supplies

As part of the Open House Holiday Celebration this coming Friday, room 20 would like to share with you a very popular part of our program: Structures! Each week the students learn about a different kind of structure, and then with a partner or small group make a plan and then follow through to build that kind of structure. This week, we will be designing and building our structures with you when you visit on Friday, and to make it even more fun, they will be gingerbread houses!

We ask that each child bring a small quantity of candy (nut free) that can be shared amongst their classmates. If each child contributes, there should be a good variety in which to build our gingerbread structures!

Some suggestions are, but not limited to: smarties, mini-candy canes, Shreddies (for shingles), jube jubes, chocolate chips, nibs, watermelon jelly slices, sweet tarts, marshmallows...

We will be providing all other necessary ingredients and supplies. Please send the candies with your child to school on Friday morning so we can start set up before all of the parents arrive in the afternoon. If you also have a small plastic container/bowl that they can be put out in, please send it in labelled and we will make sure it gets returned to you. Thank you!

Urgent: Open House Update

Huge apologies that this is being sent so late! There was an overwhelming response on our blog survey to change the open house date to Friday December 12 and combine it with the holiday concert/party. Therefore, the open house that was originally scheduled for tomorrow December 2 has been cancelled. We hope to see you on December 12 at 2:00 instead.