Month: September 2013

McGill Library Dates

The following notice was sent home on Friday, September 27, 2013.  Please refer to this page as a reminder of the important information.

Dear Parents,

Please see below the list of days when Div. 5 and 6 will walk to McGill Library to choose books.  On the day of our visit, please send any books to be returned in a plastic bag.  Your child will also need to bring their library card that day and be dressed appropriately for the weather as we will be walking even if it is raining.  If your child forgets their library book, your child will not be able to take out a book that day and we would ask that your family return the overdue book as soon as possible so that your child may select a book on the following visit.

Thank you so much for getting library cards for your children.  We are looking forward to our monthly trips!

Mr. Phelps      Ms. Nazaruk

Here are our library dates, each on a Tuesday:

Oct. 1

Nov. 5

Dec. 3

Jan. 7

Feb. 4

March 4

April 8

May 6

June 3

Please note also – you are responsible for any overdue fees if your child’s book ends up being overdue.

Laity Pumpkin Farm Field Trip

Ms. Nazaruk and I have planned a field trip to the pumpkin patch in Maple Ridge for our two classes.  A notice will be coming home in the next day or so.  The trip is planned for Tuesday, October 8th in the morning.  We will be needing parent drivers to transport the students to the farm.  Please look for the notice.  We hope you can help us out.

Mrs. Gojevic is encouraging the use of the on-line payment system for all fees and field trip payments.  This information will be coming home in a notice and will also be an option on the pumpkin farm notice.  Please note that we will still need the completed signed permission form at the bottom of the notice.

Thank you for your on-going support!

Reading Groups / Spelling / Soccer

Today you will have received a letter from me telling you which Reading group your child has been placed in.  As previously stated, these groups will normally meet on Tuesdays through Fridays from 9:45 – 10:30 a.m.  We will not have Reading groups tomorrow, however, as Class Reviews are taking place with the Resource team.  We will re-commence the groups on Thursday.

You also should have received a note from me about our Spelling programme.  Students will get their weekly list on Mondays (these will be in their Planners) and will have their Spelling tests on Thursdays.  Please help your child practise their words before their weekly tests.  These tests will be sent home each week – for your information.

Students have enjoyed two sessions with the PASS soccer coaches so far this week.  We look forward to three more days this week and our last lesson next Monday.

McGill Library Visits

Our class will be making monthly trips to McGill Library.  These trips will be on Tuesdays (between Recess and Lunch) when Mr. Phelps is teaching the class.  Ms. Nazaruk and the Kindergarden class will be going with our class.  Today you received a letter from them requesting that you get a Burnaby Public Library card for your child so that they will be able to borrow books from the library.

I will update our ‘Upcoming Events’ page once I have the confirmed dates of our visits.  At this point it is hoped that the first visit will be next Tuesday (September 24th).  This will be confirmed on Monday.  Please ensure that the ‘start-up’ forms – including the one for the Walking Field Trips – are returned by Monday morning.

Thank you.

Terry Fox / Corn Roast

We began our afternoon in the classroom with a discussion of Terry Fox.  I shared information about Terry’s early life, his struggle with cancer, his journey across Eastern Canada, and his vision for raising money in order to help scientists find cures for cancer.

We then joined the rest of the school for an assembly in the gym where we saw a video of Terry’s ‘Marathon of Hope’ journey.

The official run followed the assembly.  Students had been preparing for this over the past two weeks by running each morning at the start of the school day.  I was very impressed by how well our class kept on going!  The weather was spectacular, as well.

Each student in the class had shucked one ear of corn earlier in the morning.  These cobs were then cooked by parent volunteers and given to students with the option to add butter and/or salt.  Most students enjoyed eating the corn after the run – many students went back for seconds!!

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It was a great day!!  With the Pro D day tomorrow I hope you all have a great long weekend!!

 

Seuss is Happening in our Class!!

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We have been reading and enjoying a lot of the books by Dr. Seuss this past two weeks!!  We began with “And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street” which was the first book that he wrote.  With an aim at being better at observing (and using imagination) we took a short walk down Pandora Street to see what we could see.  Back in the classroom students drew something ‘real’ that they had seen and then had to turn it into something ‘unreal’ or imaginary – similar to the way the character in the story exaggerated his observations.

With ‘The Cat in the Hat’ we had a directed drawing lesson on how to draw a human face.  Students learned about the correct placement of facial features and the proportions of these features in relation to each other.  As the first in our series of drawing lessons I think that the students did a great job!!  We added the great hats to finish off the art pieces.  Our drawing lessons will continue each week throughout the school year.  By June the students will have a fine collection in their portfolios.

We will continue with our Seuss theme throughout next week.  Many of the stories have been simply read by me during our daily Storytime after lunch – with others we have done activities.  We are currently finishing up our versions of ‘Yertle, the Turtle’.

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Intake Interviews

I really enjoyed getting to meet the parents of my students this past week during our Intake Interviews.  Thank you all for making time in your busy schedules to come into the school!

I hope you take advantage of checking out this blog regularly to keep up on what is happening in our class.  I do get busy sometimes but I try to post something each week.  You could check out the regular pages for such things as the Weekly Schedule (for example) or Upcoming Events – along with the information posts on the Home page.

Thank you to all who have returned the forms packet that I gave you at our interview.  There are only a few outstanding and I hope to receive them on Monday.

Don’t hesitate to email me, drop a note in the front plastic pocket of your child’s Planner, or speak to me after school if you have any questions or concerns.

Thank you

Carnival – 90th Anniversary

It was great to see so many of the students – present and former – along with their families at our celebration last Friday afternoon / evening!  The children seemed to really enjoy the wide variety of games, the food (popcorn, cotton candy, cake, and hot dogs), the face painting, and the prizes.  We were very lucky that the weather held off for us.  I hope you all had a chance to check out the displays of the decades (in the gym) that classes had made.

Our class made the posters for the 1960’s and the 1970’s.  In the two weeks before the carnival we discussed important events from these two decades.  Students made Canadian flag-socks as they learned that our current flag became official on February 15, 1965.  We also enjoyed music from these decades during our activities those first two weeks.  Many of these songs the students actually knew as they have been re-used in more current movies.

A huge thank you to all those who helped us out by volunteering at a station for the carnival!  I think it was a great success and will be a great memory for the students as they progress through their school years.

 

 

Welcome to Grade One!!!

On Friday our classes were confirmed and we are ready to get into the business of being Grade One students!!  I am looking forward to a wonderful, fun-filled, and productive year with the students.

You should have noticed that your child brought home a shiny new Planner on Friday.  There will be a notice going home next week asking for payment for these personal planning devices.  All notices are placed into the plastic pocket inside the front cover.  Please remove them, read or respond to them, and place items to be returned to me at school in this pocket each night.

Every day students will write a message in the day’s space which is then signed by the teacher.  At the beginning of the school year most of the students cannot read these messages – and aren’t expected to do so!  It begins as learning how to copy off of the board but as time passes it becomes so much more.

Please check your child’s Planner every day.  You may initial in the space by the teacher’s initials, if you like, to indicate that you have read it.

The Planner has a lot of information about the school written in the first several pages.  The students and I went through all of this very briefly as much of it is for YOUR information more than it is for theirs.  On the front inside page – above the school contact information – I have glued a piece of paper which contains the school website along with the web address for this class blog.

I use this blog to regularly update you on the goings-on in our classroom.  You may peruse previous entries from former years, as you like.

Learning how and using a Planner is a very important part of the Ministry curriculum for Personal Planning and Social Responsibility.  Please help your child by sharing this experience with them by checking it and reading it every night.  The Planner must be returned to school each morning as this is a daily activity in our classroom.

Your continuing support and assistance in your child’s educational welfare is appreciated.

Thank you,

Mrs. S. Temple