Happy Valentine’s Day!   We began our week of friendship joining together to create some visual art pieces with our frozen ice.  Here are some photos of our aesthetically pleasing ice works in the garden.

We continued our better, stronger together theme with working together on 100’s Day.  We certainly celebrated the number 100!  In fact, students were given a challenge to build, with a partner, a Lego creation using just 100 Lego pieces.  Check out the names of some of these amazing builds.

Our Valentine Friendship Day was met with much appreciation.  Students shared their cards and thanked one another.  They enjoyed special cupcakes decorated by Shalini and Driffin.  Clinton Star cookies and sweet treats were a pleasure to eat.

After our sharing of friendship greetings, we HAD A BALL.  We played for the rest of the afternoon using bouncy balls.  We were really on a roll.

During the week, students also completed their Winter Cinquains with a few of their finished products displayed in our classroom window.  They also were Word Collectors and found empowering, encouraging words to add to their pink shirts that also hang in the window.

We also know that Spring is in the air as one of spiderlings created a teeny, tiny web in our classroom.

Have a wonderful Family Day long weekend and we look forward to continuing the better, stronger together theme as we move toward Pink Shirt Day.

The beginnings of our ice sculpting and garden art experience.  What are the possibilities when we connect with NATURE during a Freezing February?  We will continue with our ice explorations next week.  Please remember to support your child with bringing a collection of 100 items for Tuesday and Valentine greetings for next Friday.  Have a Winter Weekend.

We have had such a bright and brilliant January with not only all of the sunshine but all of the presentations students have engaged in.  Division 10 was very proud to host the kick-off assembly for Literacy Week while also hosting, alongside our buddy class, the January Month End Assembly.

During Literacy Week, students shared bookmark illustrations for wordless books (Dean really appreciated the opportunity to sketch), we brought poems in our pocket, we returned our Family Literacy Trees to support the growth of our School Literacy Tree and we drew illustrations for “What A Wonderful World.”

We shone brightly on the ice rink when we went off to Rosemary Brown Recreation Center on a gorgeous, sunny day.  Thank you to our parent volunteers, the teachers, Mrs. Wilson and Ms. Toor for organizing this January event.

We celebrated the Year of the Snake by creating some bright lanterns and we shared the positive characteristics of being Roosters and Monkeys.  Abir returned to school after some time in India and he shared some photos and information about his travel experience.

With February Love in the air, we made some graffiti names that join us all together as Clinton Stars.

Our presentation of the Clinton Star rap at the assembly was a hit.  Veggie Thieves, presented by many of the Clinton Staff, was also a hit at the assembly.

We look forward to 100’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Family Day, Pink Shirt Day and maybe a SNOW DAY in February.  We have continued to experiment with stages of matter and we were able to freeze some more liquid to solid.  We will try again in February when temperatures will drop below zero again.

Despite the lack of snow, we have had some crisp, cold days which has given students an opportunity to explore some phases of matter.  For days, we had a science experiment sitting outside of the classroom with water (liquid) waiting to freeze into a solid.

After a few mornings with no success, students concluded that an exposed area, where there may be a wind chill and an area that would have a base that would hold the cold may be a better place to conduct the experiment.

Success! We got ice.  Our stages of matter went from liquid to a solid and then back to liquid once the sun had warmed up the area again. 

In keeping with the winter theme and Reading In The Dark for our literacy week, we talked about campfire stories and the fun of listening, speaking and reading when camping.  We then got out the S’mores maker and made some S’mores.  What fun.

A big event took place on Friday, when one of our spider egg sacs had many of the eggs hatch and produce tiny spider-lings.  Usually, spider-lings do not hatch until Spring but with the warm classroom temperatures the hatching happened early.

The students did an amazing job at the Kick Off Assembly for literacy week and will once again host an assembly on January 30, after lunch.  They have enjoyed Poetry Day, Reading In The Dark, Wear Your Words and the Reading Train. 

Please have fun on National Literacy Day, tomorrow, and return the Family Literacy Activity sheet on Monday, or Tuesday at the latest.

We look forward to ice skating, lunar new year (Year of the Snake) and the January assembly next week!

Enjoy your Winter Weekend.

Division 10 has started the new year off as busy bees taking on some leadership roles with the Literacy Week activities.

The class will be hosting the Literacy Week kick-off assembly on Monday, January 20, after recess. They will be sharing the land acknowledgement, welcoming everyone with a Happy New Year 12 months of the year and reciting 3 poems.  They will also be cheering for all the literacy week activities taking place.

For your calendars, please note that tomorrow, Friday, January 17, a Family Literacy Form will be coming home.  Engage in any of the activities listed on the back or create your own literacy experiences.  Every time you participate as a family in one of the activities, colour in a leaf bubble on the tree.  Once 5-8 leaf bubbles have been coloured in, return the filled in form to me.  You can also send a photo of your family participating in a literacy activity to Mr. Winterlik.

On Monday, we will have the kick off assembly.

On Tuesday, students are asked to bring a poem in their pocket for Poetry Day.  There will be a school-wide activity taking place that afternoon.

On Wednesday, students will participate in Reading In The Dark.  They are asked to bring books, a flashlight and stuffy (if they choose) for an afternoon of reading in the dark with their house team in the gym.

On Thursday, students are asked to Wear their Words.  They can wear clothing full of letters and appropriate words.  Cool facts and jokes will be shared over the P.A. that day.

On Friday, students will board the Reading Train at 2.oo p.m.  They are asked to bring a book for that reading journey.

Saturday, January 25 is Family Literacy Day in Canada.  Continue to participate in literacy activities and fill in your Family Literacy Forms.  The last day to return the form is Tuesday, January 28.

On Thursday, January 30, at 1:00, Division 10 and Division 6 will be hosting the January month-end assembly.  They will be working together as buddy classes to present a Clinton Star rap.  There will be a “What A Wonderful World” power point presentation followed by a Reader’s Theatre story acted out by Staff, if the Literacy Tree in the lower hallway fills up with leaves.  Each time a student returns a Family Literacy Form, a leaf is attached to the tree. (Thank you Mrs. Rempel, Sophia and Driffin for making the tree.)

There is so much excitement going on related to reading, writing, listening and speaking.  Division 10 is truly demonstrating their leadership skills this month.

At the end of the month, the class will also be going on a skating field trip.  It is a one-time event and will be a morning of smiles and fun.

I would also like to thank students and families for being understanding this month as I have had and will continue to have a few mornings/afternoons/days away from the classroom.  The students are in good hands with many teachers that they are familiar with such as Ms. Parmar, Ms. Girling, Ms. McCarthy and Ms. Stewart.  Day plans are always in place but these amazing visiting teachers have full access to the day, to work with the students as they please.

Some of the themes we are engaging in this month are: Winter, animal adaptations, hibernation, migration, non-fiction, wordless books, measurement of time, literacy and stages of matter when considering water.  We do hope some of the freezing temperatures give us an opportunity to freeze some water.

As part of our literacy explorations, we have continued to engage with our speaking and listening skills through Cafe Conversations.  Here are a few Starbuck moments in the classroom. 

You are more than welcome to attend the Kick Off Assembly in the gym after recess on Monday and join us for the month-end assembly on Thursday, January 29 at 1:00.

Happy New Year!

Here is a recap of some adventures and activities explored over the past few weeks.

A reminder that report card envelopes are to be signed and returned.  The report card does not have to be returned in the envelope.  Please replenish supplies over the break and if there are any students unable to independently tie their shoes, this would be a good opportunity for them to take the time to practice.

Reminder to return the parent driver form for skating.  The student permission form will come home in January.

Division 10 wishes you a restful, relaxing and peaceful holiday.  See you in 2025!

Another month has flown by and we are now ready to welcome December.  We also want to welcome Leo to our class.  He is a grade 2 student from Vietnam and we are very happy to have him part of our classroom team.

Here are also a few other moments that we experienced this week as we ended the month of November.

As promised, here are some of the photos from our “Something’s Wrong” story and activity.  “Friends are like underwear.  They’re reliable and supportive.”

Base 10 Blocks have proven to be a great source of enjoyment as well as a learning tool for place value.  The students use their own manipulatives at their desk but appreciate having the opportunity to share their learning by using the magnetic pieces on the board.

The Brain is kind of a Big Deal and students have been engaging in many activities and thought-provoking discussions on their most important tool, their brain.

With term 1 coming to a close and report cards coming out in December, students were reminded of how they can make sense of the language related to emerging, developing, proficient and extending with our Apple Learning Journey. They also revisited the idea of progress not perfection and that during the time of their Magic Decade (brain grows very fast during the first ten years of life), they are always learning and training their brain.

Division 10 has been very successful with remembering the classroom poems from the first term.  When a Silverfish experience happened one afternoon, a new poem was created to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.  Students not only created the song but then made some album covers to go with their connection to silverfish.  Check out the classroom window to see their record labels.

Coming home today is a Reading Advent Calendar.  Perhaps, there will be a time that families will be able to enjoy some adventures with reading throughout the month of December.  The final math flight and word quiz for 2024 will take place next week.  Students generated the word list for both grade 2 and 3 students this week. Students also decided that they would like to wear something festive on Monday for the first day of December at Clinton.  Winter sweaters, hats or accessories will do.  It is just a fun way to kick off the month.

This will be the last blog post until we break for the holidays.  Please check planners for information related to the Christmas Concert and upcoming events.  A reminder that students are asked to wear white for their top and dark colours for their pants/leggings, for the December 18 performance.

Have a great weekend.

The students have continued to look at the Aesthetic Window of the Entry Point Approach.  This approach allows students to focus in through a lens to gain an understanding and knowledge of a piece of artwork.  Line (shape), colour, balance and emotion have been the focus for term 1.

Through this lens, students took a deeper look into the visual art of Emily Carr.  They then took her nature inspirations and created their own works of art.  They accompanied their pastel pieces with an artist statement.

During Library time, Mrs. Hossack read a new book called “The Red Jacket,” by Bob Holt.  We really appreciated the concept of sharing the red jacket which really meant sharing care, kindness and building confidence.  Division 10 coated the classroom door with their red jackets, demonstrating what they could do to share their red jackets as they no longer needed them!

Following in the footsteps of designing jackets, the story “Something’s Wrong,” by Jory John gave us the opportunity to design our own underwear.  The story is one that highlights the importance of friendship, especially when it’s just not your day.  It is always good to have friends to support you, no matter what. We worked so very hard on our designs today and got very excited about all the different pairs of underwear being created in our Underwear Fashion House.  Our crafting is still a work in progress so please wait for the photos in an upcoming post.

And speaking of friends, we demonstrated some “team spirit” today when wearing our Team Jerseys for a leadership spirit day.  Anything from a sports t-shirt, sport-brand hoodie, t-shirt with a sport picture on it to an actual jersey were accepted for points today. Division 10 always has a team spirit but today it was shining brightly.

Division 10 has also been working well when learning the steps to their snowflake presentation that they are preparing for the Christmas concert.  Just a reminder that a white top and dark or black pants would be greatly appreciated for their performance day and evening.

Thank you.

November has already brought us some peaceful moments such as working together in a caring, productive way when creating Charlotte’s Web dioramas.  The setting of the scene was Zuckerman’s Farm and students worked in groups of 5 to create their Magnum Opus work within a time frame of one hour and 15 minutes.  It was truly remarkable to see how the students cooperated and created together with purpose and peace.

Division 10 worked with the story, “Somewhere Today” and then created their own thoughts about how something challenging in the world can be made better with kindness and love.  They appreciated learning of each others ideas and positive thoughts.

Students have put 6 poems into their hippocampus (file folder in their brain).  This week, they memorized the poem Hands.  They enjoy using their hands to act out the pieces of the peace poem.

Today, we had a lovely Remembrance Day assembly with a moment of silence during the 11th hour. The voices of Division 10 could be heard when every student sang the song Peaceful, led by Mrs. Jefferson.

A few weeks ago, Division 10 created a mulch bed of leaves for the garden.  They were then given the opportunity to sketch pieces of the garden that will be going into a dormant state as we move through the seasons.  Their work is highlighted in the Clinton Community Garden display case as well as on our classroom window.  It was so quiet and peaceful as they sketched in nature.  Check the links below for a few sketching moments.

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As we move further into November, students will be preparing for the December Christmas concert.  A notice went home today sharing the white and black clothing that we hope each student is able to wear for the performances.

We have also been working with personal safety skills and coming home today is a home address/contact information form that students independently filled in.  They may need some guidance in learning some of their personal information.

We would also like to welcome Ms. Zhu to our classroom on Friday afternoons, from 2-2:30 as she brings to all of the primary grades the lessons from a program called Everyday Speech.  We look forward to our Friday afternoon sessions.

We also appreciate Ms. Rempel supporting us in the classroom during the afternoons.  Today, she shared with us the pumpkin seeds she seasoned and baked.  We appreciated the crunchy, roasted, healthy treats as part of our connection to nature.

Just a reminder that Monday is Remembrance Day (students are coming home with a poppy) and school is not in session.  Word work will not be coming home.  Students have been told that they can use the Rainbow Write strategy, The Spelling Bee word work sheet or the Spelling Octopus ideas to support their practice of the word list this week.

Have a peaceful, pleasant long weekend.

We began our week with displaying our “stained glass” window decor for the light over darkness celebration of Diwali.  We also made, just outside of our classroom, some rangoli designs using chalk for all to see.

The week progressed with our Spider On The Floor practices so we would be ready for the assembly today.

Click on the link to see one of our practice pieces.

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We also had to say farewell to Charlotte as we read “Last Day” from our novel.  We then were excited to read on and meet all of the spiderlings that came from Charlotte’s Magnum Opus, her masterpiece, her egg sac.  In honour of the 514 spiders that hatched from the egg sac, we created our own baby spiders.  There were definitely “spiders on the floor.”

“Math is Fun” is our classroom motto for our math lessons and this week we had fun with pumpkin math.  Our classroom pumpkin ended up with 432 seeds inside.  We then moved on to working with symmetry, glyph data collection and coding.  A glyph is a pictorial representation of data.  The coding was the biggest challenge and some students will continue to work on this skill.

It was wonderful to see all the costumes today.  Buddy Bingo brought many smiles and our afternoon of tricks and treats surely brought goodness and light to the room.  What fun was had!

As we begin the month of November, please note that there is a time change this weekend and we fall behind.  Students may be going home in darker afternoons as the days gets shorter.  Health and safety are part of our curriculum and students have been and will be focusing on fire safety, using symbols to promote safe choices and being reminded of how to respond during emergency situations.

As Division 10 ventures out on Halloween night, they have been reminded about and have shared over the P.A., safety tips for this evening.

I look forward to seeing everyone back tomorrow for a wonderful beginning to November.

Have a spook-tacular night!

Happy Halloween and Happy Diwali!