Welcome and Ask Me About...

Welcome to the first blog post of the 2017/2017 school year! I am looking forward to working with your families this year, and getting to know you well. 

I hope that the blog will be a useful place for families to receive practical, logistical information about what's happening at school and in our class (reminders, requests, good-to-knows), as well as helping you to stay connected to our learning throughout the year. The blog will also be a tool that you can use to bring some of the topics and concepts we are exploring into your home, building connections and celebrating learning.

Requests: 

- Please send your child to school with a pair of indoor running shoes (gym appropriate) that can stay at school, as well as a small reusable bag to be used to store the shoes overnight. It will hang on your child's hook so the caretakers can sweep the hall easily.  All students should bring a change of clothes in case of accidents.  

- If you haven't returned the home folder  that went home on the first day with all of those forms in it, please do so on Monday. If you need more time for the forms, that's OK, but it helps me if the folder always comes back to school the next day or by Thursday at the latest. Please read my newsletter, and don't forget to return the section that has contact information (this is for my records, and does not go to the office.  It makes contacting you easier for me).  I'd love to read any "Tell us About Your Child in a Million Words or Less...." so whenever you get a chance that would be helpful.

- We could use some recyclable materials for our creation area: e.g. paper towel rolls, small boxes etc. 

Ask Me About...

I hope to be able to post "Ask Me About" questions on the blog as often as possible as a way to get conversation started about what is happening in the classroom. Think of it as a hopeful antidote to the: Parent, "What did you get up to at school this week?" Child, "I don't know." routine that often happens (especially in my house)! I will post pictures as well, which could open up a discussion with your child.

I like the "Tell me about..." prompt for starting a conversation, because it's open-ended. I'll also give some more specific questions if you feel like you'd like to draw your child out a little.

1) Tell me about are the two rules you have in your classroom.
Why do you think there are just 2 rules? Why are they important rules for your class?
What are some ways you can show kindness in your class?  How can you show that you are a learner (for example, look at the person who is speaking, ask questions to find out more, build stamina for reading and writing, sounding out words on my own, practice the class mindfulness exercises to learn to focus my energy).

2)  Tell me about some of the picture books you read this week.  What was surprising about the characters in these books?  Did the stories turn out the way you thought they would?  What can the characters show us about being kind, and being able to learn?

After students explored on their own, we met to discuss strategies that were used,
and how to communicate through words and drawings 

3) This week we counted collections.  Tell me about what you counted.  Why did you count the collection that way?  How can we group numbers to make our counting more efficient?  How can we show in our math journals to explain strategies for counting (diagrams of mathematical models like tallies, groups of ten, using "number labels").

4.  Tell me about getting to know your classmates.  Have you met anyone new?  Do you have likes and dislikes in common?

Our friends, Penny and Elizabeth...

A favourite hang out spot to read