Good Morning and happy Sunday to everyone!
I have so much to tell everyone!!So please all the information as it is information that is important for the week to come!!
First off we will be having a bake sale on Wednesday (this Wednesday). I am hoping this isnt coming as a surprise to you, as hopefully the children have been communicating this idea with you.
It all started when four grade two girls (Lily, Neve, Hadley and Tea) watched a program and saw that the Hispid Bunny (an asian bunny) was the most extinct mammal in the world. In fact there are only abut 100 left in Asia. They thought that this was NOT okay and that they wanted to do some fund raising to send to a charity (that Sarah, Neve's mom will be looking into) that will help with this endangered species. Thus the evolution of the Bake Sale came to be. The girls went to every single classroom and presented this to the classes. They made posters and were unbelievably brave and confident. I was very proud!To enable this Bake Sale to be a success we are hoping/asking that everyone can send some baked goods to school for Wednesday. Our plan is to sell the baked goods in our classroom at recess and perhaps lunch on that day..(I will help them with the sales). I told the children that if they could bring the goods on Wednesday that would be the best..but earlier in the week..monday and tuesday is fine as I can put it into the Bayview fridge. All items will sell for one dollar. If you can send things that are individually wrapped that would be the best for me as I think cutting and giving out napkins would be too difficult. Things like cupcakes, rice krispy squares, cookies would be awesome! I hope you will either be able to support the hispid bunny by either buying or baking! Thank you from the bunny team!!
Secondly This Friday is our first skating session.
PHEWF...we have enough drivers for this session and I believe for the next one...I will let you know about the last two closer to the date. Everyone needs to bring their carseats. I know this will be difficult on the buses, but it has been done by the other younger classes..so I know it can be done!! All children need to have a carseat! Also, if they have not rented skates, they need to bring their skates as well. What I recommend is that all things go into a big bag that they can carry ...skates, ski pants, mittens and a helmet(if they do not bring their own helmet they can use a helmet from the rink). We will be eating lunch early that day and leaving at 1230. So instead of play/lunch it will be lunch and then go skating. We will be skating at Kerrisdale Arenas as that's where our group has gone before (our group being ms. jung and my kids). It is a great arena that is able to get us in early. So all drivers if you get to the school at just after 1200 then you can support us in getting the children eating and getting ready to go into the cars. Also if I sent you home a 3rd person liability form please sign it and return it with your child.
It will be a lot of fun!!!

Because this was a lengthy amount of information...I will just post the pictures and let you see how well we did this last week!!
Have a great Sunday and I will see everyone on Monday.
Take care,
Teri

Our final Oh Canada pages.

Our catching snowflakes art..finished!

On Tuesday Some students came in to tell us about the Lunar New Year..the year of the Rat.They talked about lucky charms and special activities that Asian families do to prepare for the Lunar New Year. It was an excellent presentation. Then the children created lucky envelopes. I took pictures as we had to give them to the students for their display at the Art Gallery this weekend. Their will be some chinese new year festivities if you want to go and participate in them.

We worked on giving an "alien" directives in how to build a snowman. The children loved telling our imaginary alien how to do it.

This is our volunteer Susan, who comes in on Fridays to help the children read, do art and other activities. Today she is helping Kento make a hand butterfly.

Friday Funday. After doing our art and finish up the children get to play ...you can see how much fun they have on their friday fun day!!

Finishing up some art...is fun.

Drawing with your friend ..is fun!

Our Ted Harrison inspired inukshuk drawings...are so beautiful!

Doing extra math..is fun!

A reminder for our bake sale!

On Thursday Ms. Whitelaw came in and talked to us about British Columbia. We will doing one province or territory a week. We will be making a booklet to go home at the very end.

Neil and Nolan wanted me to take a picture of their "beach".

Good Morning good morning,
When I wake up it is sooo dark! I often wonder..well will we have a sunny day? or a snowy day??? and it looks like i mostly see rain! Now speaking of rain...we also need to dress appropriately for these days. Rain or shine, we will be going for our outdoor, bog experience on Wednesday afternoon. We missed it this week because it was a snow day..so I expect everyone was doing their own nature experience, observing and playing in the snow! It sure has been fun and yet a little challenging. Putting on gloves, ski pants, boots and jackets and then going out to play..and then taking everything off and doing it again for lunch and then after school. It is quite the gong show some days with boots and mittens flying everywhere. Names on all items is often a good idea as the children's items all start looking the same.

This week:
Monday: We got new spelling words. The children did really well on their little quizzes. Every Monday words come home to practice..it is beneficial for their reading and their writing.

Tuesday:Mrs Whitelaw came in and we talked about Canada. We learned who wrote the song, Oh, Canada. We sang the song, we saw others sing the song in 11 languages. We learned who Ted Harrison was, then the children were broken up into partners and we illustrated the lyrics to Oh Canada. And Ray, wow, you knew how old Canada was! Very impressive. Ask your child if they remember!

Wednesday: SNOW DAY

Thursday: Mr. A came in and we learned about symbols of Canada, what the coins look like and then he taught them (and they continue to learn) a song by Michael Mitchell, called, "Ive got Canada in my pocket". Deana also came in and re-read the book THE SIX CEDAR TREES and talked about all the animals that the Eagle saw and their special qualities. The children then worked on their own projects creating their own six cedar trees, the animals and an eagle.

Friday: We had buddies.We enjoyed playing GoFish with them. Playing cards is MATH! An enjoyable way to recognize numbers, learning special number counting strategies as well as a variety of  memory techniques. Besides we sure like our buddy class and it is FUN!

Every day besides these highlights we read, we write and we do arithmetic!
The children have really settled in and are really working hard on remembering our classroom rules and responsibilities.
They are enjoying working with a partner and in teams which is a very important part of being socially responsibility in the classroom and community.

Finally, I have received all the permission slips for skating and unfortunately at this time we do not have enough drivers. I think for the first one..(which is Jan 31st) we only have enough for 13 of our children to go...that means we need at least two more drivers..so if you think you can..please let me know. I believe it is the same for the rest (maybe even less). Also although I have received all the permission slips, not all have paid through the online payment. So if you havent, I did send you a separate email, can you please pay as we will also be needing to pay very soon.
With that,
Thank you and enjoy your day..and enjoy the pictures.
teri

The next set of pictures are of the teams that worked together.

Playing cards with our buddies.

Our completed Oh Canada Posters.

Catching snowflakes!

Good Snowy Morning to everyone!
It is WINTER! How do I know...well the amount of snow on the north shore is amazing! It is truly a winter wonderland out here!
Speaking of snow..we had a lovely day playing in the snow on Friday. The children rolled big balls and little balls and created sculptures and rolled in the snow..and by the time they were finished they were cold and very wet! Now we did have a discussion about that afterwards...about what to wear for different types of weather. I told them that their job was to take ownership of some of the things they need to keep them happy. They need mittens, jackets, hats, boots etc. If they have all these they will be happy! Some of them wanted to complain to me...but..decided that instead of fussing they would smile and next time bring the right stuff. So all in all a great day of play. In the afternoon we drew ourselves with a big wide open mouth catching snowflakes. The children loved this art project...I will take pictures next week to show you their creations!

This week brought us a lot of opportunities to have discussions about resolutions, and what that means. We talked about making goals and keeping promises...about making goals that were achievable ...and how to make realistic goals. The children called them "wishes" so we created three wishes for our new year. They did a great job. We reviewed classroom rules and expectations and practiced them as well throughout the week. The children were awesome and to be honest I was a little bit concerned how they would settle in after such a long break...and they were GREAT! Great attitudes, sunny smiles and an eagerness to do their tasks.

This week I read the children the book (part of a book actually) called the Six Cedars. This is a first nations inspired book that talks about six cedar trees with different animals attached to them. So the first cedar tree that an eagle lands on is the home to the wolf. The wolf is known for his communicating skills. To be a good communicator one needs to listen with their ears, watch the person who is talking and then use their brain to respond appropriately. We are working on being wolves this term. Remind your child about being a wolf!

This week we started our new social studies unit. During first term we talked about our family and our roles and responsibilities in the family. This term we will look at our place in Canada and the different provinces and territories that make up Canada and interesting facts about Canada. Mr. A introduced Canada with a Canadian map. He will be using Ipads and a book creator app to create their own booklet of different features about Canada. On Tuesdays, Mrs. Whitelaw and I will team together to talk about a province a week in the library. If you would like to send any Canadian content books, feel free to do so.

This week the grade ones worked on numbers to 50. They had a set of 50 snowmen that were numbered from 1-50. They have been working on ordering them, looking at numbers that are bigger than and smaller than, taking five numbers out of the bag and putting them in order of smallest to biggest, numbers that come before and after. Some of the children need to continue working on their counting to 50 and looking at their numbers to 50. I will send the bag of numbers home soon so you can play this game with them.
The grade twos are working on mental math adding strategies...strategy of 0, plus one, minus one, counting on, adding 10 to a number etc. I will send the package of strategies home with the children once we accomplish all of them! Learning these strategies will help the grade 2's when they begin adding and subtracting double digits. Continue practicing these at home to develop their understanding and confidence in it.

Reminders:
1) Please send back the skating permission slip. Payment has changed this year..you need to go online to pay, but I still need the permission slip signed and returned to me. At this point it doesnt look like we have too many drivers...we need drivers to make this set of field trips possible.Finger's crossed that we won't have to cancel. The children love skating and learn so much by the end!

2) Every Monday I send home spelling words for the grade ones and the grade twos. Please practice them. It does help them when they are learning to read and to do independent writing. I mark the "tests" just to see if they do remember the phonetic rules and it helps me to understand what to teach them. It is not designed to stress them out..but just to help them be accountable for a "teeny" bit of homework. I always suggest to do the practice when you do the home reading. The two go hand in hand.

And with that, happy snow day. See you all at school bundled up warmly on Monday.
Enjoy the fun pictures..the first set was of our nature walk. We looked at the "dead log" but is it really dead??? Ask your child that question.
Take care
teri

Field study..investigating the dead log!

Snow day!!!

Even the teacher's were having fun!!!