A Month of Friendship

February, a month of love and friendship.  This month we will continue to focus on bucket filling, specifically acceptance (learning to accept differences). “A box of crayons gets along nicely with all the different colours in the same box.  Wouldn’t life be boring if we always coloured with the same colour.” 

 February is National Friendship month.  What a great time to remind our students that we should be kind to others.  Challenge your child to do something nice for someone else each day of February.  Acts of kindness can be holding a door for someone, saying kind words, calling a relative to say hello, helping carry the groceries, and so much more.  I will be sending home some cut out hearts for the students to record their acts of kindness on.  Our classroom goal is to complete 100 acts of kindness during the month of February.  What a GREAT way to "Fill Buckets" 

 The students are also continuing to work on reaching their individual goals that they determined for Term 1.  I am very proud of the students progress in achieving their goals so far.  Keep up the hard work and remember NEVER give up!  You can do it!  I BELIEVE in you!  Remember “Practice makes Permanent.”

 If you have any concerns or questions please feel free to call me or write me a note in the agenda.  Also if you would like to have a pre-report card interview, send me a few times that will work with your schedule, and we can find a time to meet.

Valentine’s Day Celebration

On  the afternoon of February 14, we will be having a small Valentine/Friendship celebration.  There will be a chance for students to enjoy special activities and of course hand out their Valentine Cards.

We can show acceptance by including everyone when we hand out Valentine Cards.  Please ensure that your child writes a Valentine card for everyone in the class.  The students in the class are: Angelina, Jason, Brooke, Bella, Cole, Emily, Maggie, Michelle, Tyler, Serrennia, Matthew, Keifer, Keegan, Lukas, Jocelyn, Claire, William, Griffin, Ryan, Simon and Graham.

 Please remember we are unable to accept food treats for our celebrations.   Please do not attach  candies/treats to the Valentine cards.  Instead of candies and chocolates students could attach pencils, erasers, notebooks… to their Valentine Cards.

Winter is STILL Here!!!!

The Groundhog didn’t see his shadow, which means an early SPRING!!  Yay!!  However, Winter is still with us for a bit!! 

The students love to play outside at recesses in the winter.  However, when they come in after recess, they are finding the feeling of cold wet socks, pants and/or mitts a dreadful feeling.  YUCK!

Please ensure that your child is wearing SNOW PANTS to school on all cold and/or snowy/wet days.   Also please send an extra pair of socks and mitts with your child, in their backpacks.  This will allow the students to feel more comfortable.

Extra Information

Bottles of Water:  Brooklin Village is working hard towards continuing to be an eco-school.  This means that we are thinking about how we can help the environment (e.g. using both sides of the paper, turning off the lights when we leave the room).  So...Let’s continue to bring reusable drink containers to school. 

Water is fuel for the brain!!

 Water bottles will be sent home on a daily basis to be washed.  Please take the time to wash the water bottles before sending them back the next day.  We would really appreciate your support at this time!

Assessment and Evaluation

The transition from Kindergarten to Grade One is hard enough, even without the new pressure of the A, B, C, D grading system. We want to ensure that our students begin to understand the levels, learn how to set goals for themselves and understand what they need to do to achieve those goals. The levels are very similar to the levels you have been used to in Kindergarten (emerging, developing, expected level and beyond expected level). In an attempt to ease the students into this new system the entire Grade One team will be using the Ice Cream Scoop Model:

One scoop of ice cream = “I’m beginning to get it”. “I can understand my work a little bit”. Keep trying, we are here to help. = demonstrates limited knowledge = D

Two Scoops of ice cream = “ I understand some of my work”. “I am learning”. = demonstrates with some knowledge = C

Three Scoops of ice cream = “ I understand my work”. “I can explain my work in my own words” = demonstrates considerable knowledge = expected level = B

Three Scoops of ice cream with a cherry = “I can understand my work really well”. “I can explain my thinking in more than one way”. = beyond expected level

= demonstrates thorough/high degree of knowledge = A

Report Cards

Report cards will be coming home on February 15, 2012.  There will be some repeated information on this report card from the Progress Report.  The Progress Report was to let you know how they were doing on the expectations, whereas on this report card the students will be evaluated on the curriculum expectations. 

Students will have a chance to show you all of their important and best work that was used to determine their abilities to meet expectations on the report card, at the Pizza Portfolio Share. 

Lunch and Snacks

Students should be sent to school with two snacks and a lunch, if they stay for lunch. Please provide a healthy lunch and at least one healthy snack for your child as they will need the nutrients to get them through the busy, full days, in Grade One/Two. At Brooklin Village, we all participate in a “Boomerang” lunch. All food items brought to school, are either eaten or returned home. It may be helpful to send in a Ziploc bag to “zip” up any messy containers. All packaging and garbage will be returned back home in the lunch bag. For this reason, juice boxes are not the best option as they tend to leak in the lunch bag. Students will have a 20 minute, quiet eating time for lunch, in which music or a story will be played. We hope this quiet time will encourage more students to eat their lunch, rather than chat away their eating time!!

Agendas

The agendas are in full swing!  Thank you to the parents who are checking and signing the agendas on a daily basis.

Parents please continue to place  any notes or news (appointments, absenteeism, questions…..) that need to be directed to me, in the agenda, rather than a loose piece of paper.

Please continue to sign your child’s agenda on a daily basis whether or not there is any new news.

Monkey Business

Thank you very much to the students and their parents for completing their “Monkey Business” on a weekly basis.  I take the time to read through any comments and spend some additional time teaching items that students had difficulties discussing.  Please continue to discuss “Monkey Business” with your child and return with a parent signature on Mondays.  

Writing:

~Following the Writing Process- Brain Drain, Sloppy Copy, Buddy Study and Neat Sheet

~Using resources  (eg. Word wall and dictionary) to assist with spelling

~ Making Words

~Adding adjectives in our writing

~Recount writing

Reading :

~Continuing to use Word Solving Strategies

:- Retelling Nonfiction Text using "What's the Text So Far..." and sticky notes

-~Independent Reading Centres: library, conferences with the teacher, recording connections, recording retells, shopping for new books from the class library

Math:

 ~ Finishing our revisiting of Number Sense- using problem solving to investigate counting, representing and comparing numbers

~ Addition and subtraction mental strategies

Science

~ What is the job of a scientist?

~ Scientists follow a process : question, hypothesis, materials, method, results

~ Grade 1- Daily and Seasonal Changes

~ Grade 2- Air and Water

Social Studies: 

Oral Language:

~ Listening skills.  Continuing to be a good listener.  -- Sitting properly, eyes on the speaker, raising your hand to contribute ideas or ask questions during a discussion

~ Speaking Skills:  Clear voice, know our words, good volume, still hands and feet, sit/stand straight.