Hello parents and families and children!!
There is sooo much sunshine up here in North Vancouver but when i look down at the Lions Gate Bridge I see fog. I hope that everyone has managed to find the sunshine today!! It is the day to go to the mountains and collect your sun rays and your vitamin d! Hope everyone in having a happy day.

We had a great and full week this last week. Full of learning and some very fun activities and performances as well. This week we continued our Science lessons on matter. We talked about (and demonstrated with our entire bodies) what molecules look like in a solid, liquid and a gas. Then we used Fruit loop cereal to show how close these molecules might look when they are in a cube. The children loved playing with the Fruit loops and were all very capable of recreating the molecules for each of the three states. We will continue to look at the states of matter next week.

On Thursday we had the opportunity to have the Stagecoach Drama team (with Rosie and Karen) come in ...the team from Arts Umbrella at Granville Island. They spent almost an hour and a half doing some drama exercises and games with us. I did not know what a talented group of actors and actresses we had in our classroom. They were unbelievable. Their participation and cooperation and behaviour was outstanding. I was very proud of all of our little actors and actresses. 

This Friday we had the Green Thumb Theatre come in for a presentation to the entire school with a play called "Wired". This play was about cyberbullying. It was very well written and showed the effects of cyberbullying in a realistic and honest manner. Prior to the show we discussed what cyberbullying meant and I told them that they might be confused but we would discuss the play afterwards as well. There was some harsh language in the play that startled the children (as I know the words that they saw in print would never be words that they would use). We discussed this after the play and how they felt about the person who was being cyberbullied. They were all very keen to state their disappointment of "Pretty in Pink". It was an amazing play.

Important information:
1. Skating forms due in please sign and send in the money for the trip. So far only half have sent their forms in. Am hoping to have them all in by tomorrow.
2. This Wednesday and Thursday it is early dismissal at 2:00 as it is time for Goal Setting conferences. Each meeting is set for 15 minutes, but essentially it is a little bit longer. When it is yours and your child's time for the meeting come in and have your child start showing you their stuff around the room. Look at their writing, check out what they are doing right now...meanwhile myself or Mrs. King might be having a three way conference at the time, when we are done with our conferencing, then we will come and check in on your family. Is this clear? It will be when you are here.
3. This Tuesday the children will begin to participate in Cardio fit. They will meet Mrs.King in the classroom and then they will go down to the gym where they will do some moving to music. If you are late, go directly down to the gym and find Mrs. King.
4. This Wednesday we will also be having some guest visitors from UBC. They are our visiting nurses. Every year they visit our classroom to teach the children the proper way to wash their hands. Especially as it is cold and flu season right now, we think this is a very valuable lesson to learn. Our presentation time is right at 9:00 am, so please try to be on time.

With that I hope you are enjoying your weekend and I will see everyone on Monday.
Teri

Happy New Year from division 10

The children being so intense in their character. In this shot the children were making a winter machine.

Good Morning Parents,
Welcome back to school!!! Happy New Year to everyone...it is 2014 now...wow. Did you get upstairs to read our wonderful resolutions??? There are some very good ones up there. We spent last Monday talking about resolutions, goals, promises and how to achieve them. Many are going to be reading alot this new year, I can tell already that their reading and writing has really improved!!

This next month we are going to be focusing in on the following themes: Winter (overall theme that will be the focus of our reading and writing projects), in Science we will learn about Matter. On Wednesday we talked about Matter and how Matter is almost everything that we can think of...if you can hold it, weigh it, measure it, it is matter. Emotions, and singing is not matter. We will over the month be looking at the different states of matter and doing tiny experiments to look at how some matter can be changed.

In math the grade ones are focusing in on single digit adding and subtracting while the grade twos are beginning their double digit adding without regrouping. We will be doing hands on activities with both groups and many many practice sheets to reinforce both age group concepts. Help at home to reinforce these ideas would be very helpful!!

Coming home on Monday:
A permission slip for Skating will be coming home on Monday. Please sign the permission slip and send it back as soon as possible with a cheque or cash for the payment. We will need many parents for driving and for skate tieing. We hope you can come. The children love it!!

Goal Setting Conferencing:
On Wednesday January 22nd and Thursday, January 23rd is the goal setting conferencing at Bayview.
The times are Wednesday from 715-845 (with me)
                        Wednesday from  200-500 (with Mrs. King)
                         Thursday from 715-845 with me
                        Thursday from 200-500 with me

These conferences are 15ish minutes long.
They will be student led conferencing with the following format, first five minutes student shows their notebooks and writing and projects to the parents, next 5 minutes the teacher, student and parent review the goals from the report card, last five minutes, parent teacher little chit chat.

Please select your day and your time frame and i will send you back a confirmation. It is first come and first serve.
Both Jen and I look forward to meeting with you.

Finally just a few reminders and updates:
1. Please send back the report card covers.
2. Gym days are Mondays and Wednesdays...please wear appropriate footwear and clothing for gym.
3. Library book exchange days are Tuesdays.
4. We will be doing a little arts umbrella sponsored workshop this Thursday in the morning. We will be participating in a Stagecoach drama workshop so hopefully everyone will be here. I applied for this in the summer and Ms. Jung's class and I were the lucky recipients of this program.
5. This friday we will be having a school wide performance in the gym called Wireless....it is a performance by the Green Thumb Players. I was told that children younger than grade one may find this a confusing presentation as it has a lot of information about cyber bullying etc and computer safety (which i will be introducing to the kids throughout the week)

With that, I hope everyone has a great rainy day and that you are able to get outside and play anyway!!
Please remember that all the children need to have indoor shoes to change into after their play time at recess and lunch.
Take care,
Teri

Happy New Year Parents!

Hope everyone had a very restful holiday. Had a very wonderful Tuesday with your children. We started the day with Math. We are beginning our new unit on Shapes. We had fun finding shapes around the classroom and drawing pictures made only of shapes.

In our Journals students were engrossed in writing about their holiday. There was much to tell about presents, trips to Whistler and Disneyland, visiting with family and friends and just enjoying the time away from routine. As your children read their adventures to me listened to their breath for the natural breaks when reading and asked them to place periods where these 'breaks' were. We will be working more on this in the coming weeks as the students will read their journals to one another and look for natural breaks in one another's works.

We have begun a new unit in Health and Safety. We will be working on signs informing us and warning us in our homes and communities as well as the safety of our bodies.

The students did a great job listening during computers which can be a challenging time for them due to sheer excitement. In computers this term will be working in Word and all the functions that can help them utilize the program most effectively.

That is all for now.

Looking forward to next week and getting settled in with your little ones.

Jennifer King