December 16, 2022

Hello families,

This week we began a winter craft based on the book Squirrels Sweater. In addition to being quite cute, these squirrels offer fine motor practice through the practical life skill of weaving!

In math we continued with our T-Shirt Problem. Students have now collected their data, converted it into a new t-chart and used this to draft a bar graph using blank graphing paper.

In literacy students completed their Favourite Food plan, and began to fill in their graphic organizer. Some students have moved onto their final draft.I love seeing such a variety of favourite foods in our class!

Word Work Groups

*This week was our last week of Word Work groups until the new year.*

In Ms. Greenhall's Word Work Group students have been learning about consonants. This week we reviewed the letters V, Y, and Z using the Animated Literacy actions. We then cut and sorted pictures that start with these letters. Those who finished early tried to spell the items in their pictures and then moved onto a literacy game. Ask your child about the actions and sounds for  V,Y and Z.

 In Ms. Lacour's Word Work Group students have been learning about vowels. This week we continued with short "E" and looked at the "ET" and "EG" word families. We then sorted pictures to match the corresponding words. Ask your child about words in the "ET" and "EG" family

In Ms. Midgley's group we reviewed all of the digraphs we've learned so far - ch, sh, th and wh! We sorted pictures for all of the digraphs.

In Ms. Gierl and Ms. Green's long vowel groups, students worked on the short and long i sounds. We continued our work with King E by comparing words like: hid - hide, pin - pine, fin - fine, shin - shine, bit - bite. It is fun to think of long vowel words - try it at home! "What is the long vowel word for ______?"

In Social Studies we learned about Bear- Courage, and the importance of taking risks. As we discussed examples as a class, it was wonderful to hear students share times they tried something new or something they didn't want to do. Many students made the connection that learning from ''awesome fails'' and having ''awesome success'' can only happen when you have the courage to try.  

We also finished painting our class healing stone. Each student took one thing from their healing stone plan and painted it on the stone.

In Science we continued to explore temperature. We conducted an experiment where we measured the temperature of snow and sketched it after it melted. Students were very surprised to see how much hidden dirt and other things were in the snow!

Check out some of the responsible work choices students made this week!

Thank you to room 8 students who were flexible and understanding as we switched classrooms for the week, and prepped for the Winter Concert! We are now back in our classroom and it looks great! Wonderful work to all students who also put on an incredible performance at out Winter Concert.

Home Reading

 We know that children learn by doing. The more they read, write and discuss, the stronger literacy learners they become. The focus of home literacy is for children to build their love of reading and writing, while practicing essential literacy skills. 

We invite you to participate in home literacy activities with your child 10-15 minutes each night. The home literacy envelopes were sent home on Friday.

After reading with your child, we ask that you record the reading book title(s) and also if they aren't challenging enough, too challenging, or just right. Please date and initial activities your child has completed on the literacy activity page. Activities can be done in any order, may be repeated any number of times and you may substitute activities of your own choice. 

Once you are done reading, please send the folder back to school for your child to pick two new books to take home. Happy reading!

If your child's last day will be before December 22nd,  please email me so we can wish them a Happy New Year and so they can receive their surprise from me before Winter Break. Thank you!

Have  a great weekend,

Ms. Greenhall

Upcoming Dates

• December 17th -18th LBS Casino

• December 19th - LBS Holiday Spirit Week Begins

• December 22nd: Last Day with Students before Winter Break

December Spirit Days

Listen to Reading

The Daily LA Listen to Reading station can be quite distracting for other students if headphones aren't used. If you are able to send headphones for your child to keep in their cubby at school, that would be very helpful.