Good morning everyone! Will it snow? It sure is cold outside right now!! So...as a reminder, please send your children dressed in gear that is clearly marked with their name on it! Im finding that they dont recognize their own boots (haha, well they all look rather similar!!) And if it is snowy, snowgear ..snowpants, hats, mittens etc!! send it all!! The warmer they are dressed for outdoors, the drier they will be and much more comfortable in the classroom. Speaking of warmth, because of covid, we need to keep the windows and door open and it gets really chilly int he classroom. I told the children that they shoud all have a cozy sweater that they can wear in the room, as jackets often are too bulky and uncomfortable for them. NEWS THIS WEEK: 1) We are continuing to work on our author study..Jan Brett. So far we have watched Jan Brett draw (her favourite animal is the hedgehog!), we have heard her read her own stories, even new ones that are not out in print yet. We have been learning how to do a retell of the story and then make a connection to the story. Good readers always thinks "what does this remind me of??" They are really getting good at this!! 2) We are also continuing our bear unit. So far we have done bears in general, the grade twos are working on the Polar Bear (i will be introducing it to everyone this week) and we have done a few projects on the Spirit Bear. We always do lot of writing and then as a "treat" we do art around it. You will some pictures of what we have done!! They sure are enjoying this unit! I am as well! 3) In Math the grade ones are really moving along on their adding to 5. We use manipulatives as well as do paperwork and their frequent comment is..." I love to ADD!!" Wait till they try to subtract!! haha. The grade twos were sent home their math that they have been working on since the beginning of January, please go through it with them, it is interesting to see what they know and what they are having difficulty with. We just started our double digit adding without regrouping. They are now realizing how important it is to have their mental math strategies in place as it helps with doing the double digit adding. The rule that they are working on...is a) ALWAYS to add the ones column...then b) add the tens column. 4)Every Monday we continue to do our spelling and phonics, so please know that by Friday they will have a little review/quiz. It is important to practice the reading and the writing of the words. It will help them in all their independent work. Monday is also Library day..bring your books back..and its also the day we exchange our homereading. ...so lots of stuff happens on Monday! THANK YOUS: 1) Again..thank you for all the lovely smelling soap!! The children love washing their hands!! So maybe Covid has been good for something?? 2)Thank you for the hand sanitizers and the disinfectant cloths!! These all have helped keep our classroom clean and germ free!! And thats it for today...enjoy your day! And I will see you all tomorrow. Always feel free to contact me via email or just touch base! I love hearing from you and your children! xo ms. t

Good morning everyone and happy Sunday to you all. I hope everyone got out into the sunshine on Friday and Saturday before the rains began. I guess the positive note to that, is it sure is lovely to sleep when the rain is coming down!! The sweet sound on the roof is like music right??? But now that its daytime, time for some sunshine again!! We had a great week last week! We started our week with writing about what we know about bears. We will be learning about bears for at least the next month. Your child will be reading about bears, writing about bears, doing poetry about bears and art about bears. They will know so much about bears that they may all want to become conservationist officers by the end of it!! We start new units by writing what we already know, this is a great way to show children that they can build on prior knowledge to increase their existing knowledge. They love sharing what they know and are always so excited to learn more. While the grade ones are doing reading with Mrs. Roopra, our resource teacher, the grade twos have been reading about polar bears. I have some wonderful writing on the polar bears that is at grade level, they are reading together, we discuss what we have learned and then they are working on answering questions regarding the information that they have read. They are doing such a great job. Soon we willput it all together into the form of a written report. This will be working on their higher level of thinking! We also learned about the parts of the bear (with the entire class) and as scientists we labelled the parts, then wrote what the job of each of the parts is. Ask your child if they remember what the job of the tail is? (nothing!!) and how the bear lost his tail??? This week we also went outside for our nature exploration. On this day we took our drawing boards and our cozy seats and sat by the stream at the edge of the field. We spent two minutes quietly looking at the stream, then they would turn around and draw what they observed..we then turned around again, looked, then two minutes more of drawing without looking. This is a good lesson on focus and memory. The drawings that the children did were amazing and have been put into their nature books. This week we had two assemblies on Friday. In the morning there were two BC Lions who visited the school (onine) and they shared tips for conserving energy and electricity. They did a great job presenting. We actually did some exercises with these two BC Lions. Our afternoon assembly was to acknowledge Martin Luther Kings Birthday and we all wore black. We are all working hard at understanding that our skin colour does not identify who we are ...it is who we are on the inside that matters. Having discussions like this at home are very important. In Math: The grade ones have begun working on our number operation skills-addition and subtraction. For the next little while , the children will be involved in many hands-on, concept building activities. The focus this term will be additon and subtraction to ten. In Grade 1, the goal is not memorization of facts, rather its the development of mathematical language and an understanding of the concept and having the ability to apply the concept of addition and subtraction in a variety of ways. Meanwhile the grade twos are working on different strategies to get to an answer without using their fingers or manipulatives. Ask your grade two child how the "number in the middle" strategy works....7 + 9...ask them..they love this strategy!! Thank you to all the parents who have sent soap and for the handsanitizer. It sure helps encourage the children to wash their hands when they have nice soap!! They are really great at it!! And with that..enjoy the pictures. Have a great Sunday I will see everyone back on MOnday. take care, teri

Good morning everyone and welcome back to school!! This is our first blog of 2021! Happy New Years to you all! I had the opportunity to listen to all the children this last week share their holidays with me!! What lovely times they had! They were soo excited to come back to school and tell me all about their adventures! All the stories about skiing and playing and eating and movies and friendship just filled my bucket. I was so excited to see them all! WE spent the last week talking about resolutions and what they meant. That another word for resolution was making a promise or setting a goal for themselves. The grade ones wrote simple goals for themselves, but the grade twos worked on a two part writing system, where first off they wrote their goal in three simple sentences (like the grade ones) then they took their simple sentences and expanded them into longer, more detailled sentences. Wow, was I ever impressed by their goals and their writing. These will be included in your child's report card (which you will be receiving at the end of Jan). I think you too will be very impressed! This week we also had to say good bye to Alice and her family! They were here for one year and have now returned to Sydney, Australia. Alice definitely will be missed. The pictures will focus on Alice and her friends. We all wished her a great trip back and I think I know where all the kids want to go for their next vacation...me too!! haha NOt only did we do lots of writing, we also worked on math. The grade ones and twos are working on more patterning, looking at patterns that occur around them. They are learning identify the core of the pattern, count how many terms in a pattern, and to extend patterns. We will be going outside and using found objects to continue our exploration of patterns as well!! For our First Nations component, we looked at two important topics. One is how the First Nations celebrated the Winter Solstice and what it means to them. We watched a few videos on Elders talking about how the Winter Solstice is a time for rest and for animals and humans to take a little break. They would have festivals during this time, share stories and eat up food that might go bad. December 21st or 22nd was officially the first day of Winter Soslstice. We also investigated and talked about the Cedar Tree.There is a beautiful, big Cedar tree that is located at the front of Queen Elizabeth. So we walked there, touched it, looked at the height and shape and then came back and read a book about the Cedar tree, drew it and wrote aobut it. So as you can see we had a busy week this last week. But it was FUN FUN FUN!! Reminders:: 1) Spelling is every Monday with a review quiz on Friday. Please look for the words in your child's pack every Monday and review throughout the week. 2) Home Reading books need to be brought back every Friday as well so we can exchange them on Monday. (unless you have a different reading arrangement set up with me) 3) Library books need to be returned on Monday, that is our Library exchange day. Please make sure that your books come back by then so your child can borrow new books. 4) It is rainy...just saying..your child needs proper clothing to play outside in as they get very wet! Recess and lunch is outside..always. Finally, Thank yous. 1) We have run out of our spray sanitizer and I told the children that we were going to have to use the gel (which they dont like) and on Friday we received some spray from Hana and Laurel. If you have some spray that you would like to contribute, we would gladly accept it. 2) Our soap that everyone donated at the beginning of the year is also almost finished. We do wash our hands a lot and the children sure do love the foaming ones..they love washing their hands with that. And with that, have a great Sunday and enjoy all the pictures!! xo t