What happened to February? With spring break, March is a short month at school too. Here is a brief update on what’s happening.
Program Information During our friendship theme in February, I was proud of the children and their astute understanding of the complexities of friendship. With snow, illnesses, power outages, Family Day and Pro D we had many interruptions to our learning in February and it went by so quickly. So, March’s learning will continue around the theme of friendship. Report Cards Envelopes Please return your child’s report card envelope to me with any comments about the new reporting process that you may have. Thanks to those who already have done so. Social Studies and Social Skills Our social skills focus will be on friendship and the needs and wants of individuals and families. We will examine different perspectives and make comparisons and interpretations. Friendship Skills 1. Smile 2. Use a friendly voice 3. Include others 4. Share and take turns 5. Be a good sport Birthday Broadcast We will celebrate 4 Birthdays in March. Language Arts learning The children are becoming strong independent learners and readily take part in daily literacy groups that support the following skills: reading to oneself, reading to others, listening to someone read, responding to something we have read, developing reading strategies, phonics awareness and reading vocabulary development. This will continue but we now shift focus towards emergent writing skills and processes. Storytelling and the elements of a story will be examined closely. We will be creating stories personal and imagined (fictional) as well as exchanging ideas discovered (factual) in writing, pictures and diagrams. Much of this process will happen during our LID project work time. What is LID? LID stands for learning in depth and is an approach where children are assigned a random topic to research and make discoveries about. It is very open-ended and the children are encouraged to follow their own directions within the topic, making connections with other students as they also explore their own topics. Each child becomes an expert on their own topic. The focus is on the learning process and not the topic. We will each be creating a LID project that involves applied design skills and students will be using tools and technologies to extend their capabilities (Ipads and computers) After this extensive study, we’ll take part in the year-end show case to celebrate our learning and expertise. Parents will be invited to celebrate with us and of course you are encouraged to help your child develop their knowledge of their topic at home. Parent volunteers would be a great help on Wednesday mornings when we could use readers to help us dig out more facts about our topics. Let me know if you are able to help us with this on a regular basis. Mathematics Our math centre time involves explorations of addition and subtraction concepts and the concepts of equality and inequality or balance and imbalance. We continue to practice transferring our hands-on knowledge to written work as well. Science Update Since September we have been taking regular nature walks to the forest or pond. Each week we have a new focus; we found mushrooms and several bird species and fascinating spider webs as well as an active ant hill. Rain walks answer our questions like; where do spiders go in the rain and what happens to the webs We’ve made many different sky, plant and tree observations and have been noticing seasonal changes all along. The snow walks were great fun! We were able to build in the snow and make snow angels and we even played fox and hare! We’ll take magnifying glasses out for close-up looks and maybe a blind-fold walk. We have made nature collections and outdoor art. The children are very adept at spotting things from nature vs. human made things. We are also talking about temperature and probability. We’ve engage all our senses during our explorations (sight, sound, touch, taste and smell) of the natural surroundings. This will continue until the end of June. It’s a very rich learning experience! Experiments: We have also conducted several experiments in the classroom with solids, liquids and gases and water properties of snow and water. Next we will be exploring measurement, pushes/pulls and light/sound. Gym Journal We are lucky to be able to take part in a Metis dance lesson. We continue working on skipping, and jump rope skills. Encourage your child to practice at home as this is a very challenging skill to learn. They are so proud when they accomplish growth here. Our first skating lesson was a great success. Thanks to the parents who helped us out, we really needed you! Sexual Health Sessions We will be taking part in two 45 minute sexual health education sessions with a Sex Ed professional on March 14th and 15th. Baby Oliver We were very excited to meet baby Oliver during our empathy lessons last week. We will get to see him once a month and watch him grow and change. Food Fight Challenge(caring for others) Our class will be part of the Gabriola food fight challenge. We will be collecting non-perishable foods for the food bank in competition with other classes and the Hope Centre. Please send items to school with your child. We will be weighing the total as part of the challenge. Show and Tell BulletinOur compliments box will now begin the rounds to every home. After this, watch for the Important Book coming your way. Your child will bring home a bag containing 2 books. One is the Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown and the other is Our Kindergarten/Grade One Important Book. Each child will be contributing to the second book, with your help. Please read the Important Book to your child and then write what is important about your child in the Kindergarten/Grade One Important Book and send it back to school for us to read in class. Spring Break Spring break is two weeks long and the last day of class will be on Friday, March 17. School will resume on Monday, April 3. Over the break, I will be sending home all shoes and extra sets of clothes that are at school now. Please check to see that everything still fits. After spring break please send back good fit inside gym shoes and a full change of spring/summer clothes to be kept at school until June. Garden project Our class will soon be taking part in the school garden project again. We’ll be assisting with many gardening tasks and learning so much along the way. Departure Bay Fieldtrip We will be going to Departure Bay School on March 16th to meet with our grade one buddy class again. We will explore the beach and share lunch with our new friends. This ties in well with our friendship and science themes. Celebration of Learning - Mark your calendar Next month you will receive an invitation from your child to come and celebrate their learning at school. This will be a very special event for your child. Please mark the date on your calendar and make time to come in and see the work that your child has been doing in grade One and Kindergarten. If you cannot attend please arrange for another significant adult to attend with your child. It will be done in an open house format from 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm. on Wednesday, April 12th. You are welcome to come with your child at any time during the two hours. Please allow 30 to 40 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 the learning celebration. Thanks Talent Show The Hope Centre is sponsoring a Talent Show on Saturday, March 11. The entry fee is $5 and everyone is welcome to apply. Pick up forms in the school office. Learning support at Home K’s –Encourage your child to do “kid” writing about anything that is meaningful to them. Make it purposeful and fun. Don’t push. Accept all attempt’s at writing. Ones – Begin to encourage your child to write about things they know or to create stories or poems. Write a note to grandma or help create the shopping list. Provide space and time to write freely without expectations. Make it fun and interactive. EXTRA! EXTRA! . . . DATES TO MARK ON YOUR CALENDAR Mar.1 and 15 – Hot lunch Mar.3 – skating Mar.10 – skating Mar.-14&15 - Sex Ed. Mar.16 - Departure Bay Trip Mar.17 – skating and last day of food fight challenge. Mar.18 to April 2 – Spring break 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
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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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