With summer just around the corner, this month will be packed full of fun and interesting learning opportunities and many will take place outdoors! Hopefully sunscreen and hats will be in order. Program Information Thanks parents for coming to the Celebration of Learning and for helping support the Read-at-Home and spelling programs now underway. Children who make the most progress are the ones who have parents and caring adults who support their learning at school. Our Gabriolan children are lucky to have so much support from home! This month, we will continue learning with an additional emphasis placed on mathematics, health and science. Language skills will continue to be integrated with math, science and health studies. Theme Digest May’s learning theme will continue to focus on the life cycles of frogs, butterflies and plants. As you may have heard we plan to have seeds, and caterpillars living and growing in our classroom along with the tadpoles. These living things will live out their full life cycle for us to see. We will be releasing the adult butterflies into the garden at the end of our study. The tadpoles (when they develop into frogs), will be returned to my neighbor’s pond on Gabriola Island. We will also incorporate a story writing unit into this topic and the children will write their own stories about frogs, tadpoles, bugs, butterflies, plants etc. Birthday Broadcast There are no May birthdays. We will be celebrating three birthdays next month. One June Birthday and 2 summer birthdays, this way no one misses out. Show and Tell Bulletin For show and tell in May we will continue with the nature box. The children are to bring “things from nature” to show us and tell us about. Each child will have an assigned show and tell day and a small nature box will come home with them the day before their show and tell day. You can start helping your child think of something to bring for this special show and tell. You will know it is your child’s turn when the nature box comes home with him/her from school. Please be sure to send the box back the next day as another child will be anxiously awaiting his/her turn. Gym Journal We have completed a floor hockey unit with help from Hunter’s dad. THANKS Jeff! We then worked on our Frisbee skills and traditional circle games like London Bridge is Falling Down, Farmer in the Dell and Do You Know the Muffin Man? Much of our PE time will be outdoors from now until the end of June. We are planning some indoor Yoga time as well. Social Skills Synopsis Our social skills focus this month will be on making good learning choices and staying on task. Field Trip Quarter We had a fantastic time on our trip to Mad Rona’s for hot chocolate. Many big smiles and such polite manners! I am sure we would be welcomed there again. Our next trip will be on May 24. We will revisit the Gabriola museum with a focus on how we shape the local environment and how the environment shapes us, including key events and developments in the local community and in the local First people’s communities. We will spend time outdoors looking at the petroglyphs and studying native plants and uses. Joan Merrifield will guide us through this process. Special Guests We had a special guest artist teach us how to do contour drawings and the children were fully engaged in this for two full hours. Baby Oliver came for his second visit with his mom and we noticed some amazing changes in him! Gardening at the Commons We helped Sacha do some weeding in the gardens last week and we will continue to help out in the garden each Thursday after lunch. Please be sure your child is dressed for gardening on Thursdays. Feel free to send gardening gloves for your child if they have a pair. Make sure they are labelled with your child’s name. Nature Walk to the Pond Each Friday afternoon we continue to go on our nature walks and last Friday we had an exciting development! We actually saw Gizmo the turtle sunning on the bank of the pond. Jeff identified the turtle as a Red Eared Slider (not native to Gabriola). We also spotted goldfish. This is perhaps the pond of misfit pets? However we did find a mystery egg and a deer crossed our path on the way back to school. Such excitement! Celebration of Learning Thanks again for attending this event with your child. I was impressed with the goal setting that the children did with you. It will give them each a new focus for their learning and help us get ready for the next grade. If you took home the white sheet with the Quick-Scale snapshot of your child’s learning progress, please return it to me at school. I will update these documents again in May and send the final copy home for you in June. This way you can look for the progress your child has made since February. Read at home program Thank you for your support of the read-at-home program so far. The children are very excited about this. Please make every effort to continue to read daily with your child. The calendar must be returned at the end of the month for your child to be entered into a free book draw. You will find a new calendar and note in your child’s back and forth folder for May and June. Please be sure to send the classroom book back daily. We need the books to stay in circulation daily, thanks. Watch for the books that the children will be making at school, these can be read for read at home and then kept at home to be read again and again. I enjoy working with you and your child. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me or leave me a note in the back and forth folder or planner. Sincerely yours, Mrs. Kathy L. Gurr
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Spring is here! We have many exciting things planned this month.
Program Information As you know, I have been keeping a portfolio of some of your child’s art and written work at school. As work and projects are completed they are added to your child’s files. We will be having our special celebration of learning on April 27, where you are invited to come celebrate your child’s learning in our classroom. Look for more details to come. Other program notes; although reading writing and social skills will continue to be a strong focus, additional emphasis will be placed on mathematics, health and science this term. Language skills will be integrated with math, science and health studies. Theme Digest April and May’s learning will focus around the Joys of Spring. I have already been sharing some of the upcoming plans with the children and they are getting very excited. Included in the Joys of Spring theme will be a science study focus on life cycles including butterflies, bugs, frogs, and plants. Spirit Week This first week back is our school spirit week. Tuesday, is wacky hair day, Wednesday, sport jersey day, Thursday, favourite character day and Friday is rainbow day. Please help your child dress up accordingly. Social Skills Synopsis Our social skills focus will be on following instructions:
Show and Tell Bulletin Following the complements box our show and tell will involve the children bringing “things from nature” to show us and tell us about. Each child will have an assigned show and tell day and a small nature box will come home with them the day before their show and tell day. You can start helping your child think of something to bring for this special show and tell. You will know it is your child’s turn when the nature box comes home with him/her from school. Please be sure to send the box back the next day as another child will be anxiously awaiting a turn. Guest Speaker and Guest Artists Last month we had a special guest from GIRO (Michelle) come to teach us about zero waste and waste free lunches and we also had Graham of Sunstone Pottery come to help us contribute to a clay tile installation being added to one of our outer school walls. On April 11th, we’ll have another guest artist visiting to do another special art project with us followed by an art show in the gym on the 13th. Birthday Broadcast We will be celebrating one Birthday in April. I&I Teacher Ms. Culbertson will be back with us once a week to help us work on our LID projects. It is so much fun and such a bonus for the children to have two teachers collaborating and team teaching together. I enjoy working with her. Garden Notes The children will soon be returning to their work and learning in the garden once a week with gardening expert Sacha. The garden project is ongoing until the end of June. Field Trip Update Last month we won second prize in the Great Gabriola Food Fight Challenge and we won free hot chocolate and a small treat at Mad Rona’s. I am planning this as a walking fieldtrip on Friday, April 21st leaving the school at 10:00 am. We will need several parents to help us walk safely to this exciting destination. Let me know if you are able to help us out by filling out the note at the end of this letter. Thanks. Learning support at Home Mathematics will take a more in-depth focus in our classroom this month. We will begin doing daily addition and subtraction problems using dice and the small toys in the math bins. Grade ones will also be working out addition and subtraction problems in their math books. Children’s stories and literature are also wonderful ways of representing mathematics in a practical context. Check out some of the following books for your daily home reading time: Anno’s Counting Book - by Mitsumasa Anno The Shopping Basket – by John Burningham The Most amazing Hide-and Seek Counting Book – by R Crowther The Doorbell Rang – by Pat Hutchings One Duck, Another Duck - by Charlotte Ponerantz These books will allow you to initiate some discussion about mathematics as a natural part of enjoying the stories. Spelling and Read-at-Home Program We have started a weekly spelling program. Your child will bring home a list of words to study at home and we will have a spelling test each Friday. On April 10th we will begin our read at home program, the children are very excited. Please make an effort to read every day with your child. A note will come home with all the details along with a book in a zip lock bag or in the planner pocket. I enjoy working with you and your child. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me or leave me a note in the planner or back and forth folder. Sincerely yours, Mrs. Kathy L. Gurr EXTRA! EXTRA! . . . DATES TO MARK ON YOUR CALENDAR April 5 – Hot lunch April. 4 -7 School spirit week April 11 – Guest artist April 13 – Art show in the gym 1:45 – 2:20 April 14 to 17 – Easter break April 19 – Hot lunch April 20 – Earth Quake simulation April 21 – Mad Rona’s walking trip April 27 – Celebration of learning Soon, you will receive an invitation from your child to come and celebrate their learning. This will be a very special event to your child. Please mark the date on your calendar and make time to come in and see the work they have been doing at school. If you cannot attend please arrange for another significant adult to attend with your child. It will take place in an open house format from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. on Thursday, April 27. You are welcome to come with your child at any time during the two hours. Please allow 20 to 30 minutes for your child to guide you through the activities. This is an important night for your child to have your undivided attention, so please make arrangements for siblings to stay at home or elsewhere during this learning celebration. ------------------------------------------------------- Cut off this portion and sign and return it to school as soon as possible Walking trip to Mad Rona’s I will/ I will not be able to help with this trip (circle one) on Friday, April, 21st from 10:00 – 11:30 am. ____________________________________________ Parents name _________________________ Phone number ____________________________________________ Child’s name |
AuthorI am a teacher with over 25 years of teaching experience including all grades from kindergarten to grade seven. I am a Primary Specialist with a diverse educational background in Individualization, Learning Support, Behaviour Support and Home-Learning Support. Archives
May 2017
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