Oct. 14 2014 week and EDUCATION WEEK NEWS

HELLO PARENTS AND STUDENTS,

I hope everyone had a terrific Thanksgiving long weekend!  I heard the paper mache turkeys were a huge hit! 

We began Oct. 14^th week with Kichu’s “Star of the Week” presentation.  Kichu is an only child who lived in Waterloo, Ontario, before joining us in the 2/3 class in Regina.  He can speak 4 languages and has traveled to Singapore and Ottawa.  He enjoys water sliding, bowling and spending time with his mom, dad and grandparents.  He enjoyed strawberry picking and sampling berries in Ontario with his dad.  His mom is a math professor at University of Regina. 

We welcomed U of R ECS 100 students, Miss Kezama and Miss Lechler to our classroom on Tuesday morning.  We are excited to have them with us every Tues. p.m. until December!  They enjoyed getting to know my fabulous class and they participated and helped with a PWIM lesson about sorting words.

Happy birthday to Emaan.   We enjoyed the yummy, chocolate cake.

We studied different kinds of bats and predicted their names before researching about them on the internet as a class (photos 29, 30).  We also explored the anatomy of a bat (photo 16).  Check out these GREAT bat videos with your child: 

echolocation song :  www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr-Y2Tt8gFE

Bats, bats, bats song:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9y4r-VI_qY

We will be making clay bats on Friday, Oct. 24^th at 2:30 p.m. as part of our science and language arts unit.  Parents, grandparents who have had a recent criminal check are welcome to join us.  Please let me know in your child’s agenda.

For Science this week we studied birds and fish.  We had a blast dancing to the Bird Dance.  We used the following link:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xmV5uHWNag

We also broke into small inquiry groups, exploring non-fiction material, becoming “bird” experts in our teams and presenting facts to the class.  Mrs. Pankewich’s U of R students helped with this lesson.

We also read the story:  Miracle for Maggie by Jean Little, as a class and discussed vocabulary, answering comprehension questions orally, making predictions, and more.  We created bird notes as a class, and drew pictures. The story setting of Miracle For Maggie was the Pacific Ocean near Vancouver. Ask your child to tell you about the mallard duck and the oil spill. 

Today, the children will be introduced to “fish” as vertebrate classification.  They will watch the video by artist Charlotte Diamond called “Slippery Fish”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjvjI85xM0Y and Mrs. Pankewich will share some non-fiction books.

Our Writing Traits focus was:  sticking to a specific topic with clear sentences supporting the topic. See photo 15. Have your child write about a topic of his/her interest at home (Remember:  6 sentences for a paragraph in Gr. 2 and 3).  Do they stick to the topic? 

We enjoyed the playground with our Learning Buddies on Wednesday afternoon, playing tag, football, and using the awesome playground equipment (swings, climbing apparatus) on the senior side.

Thank you to Imogen and Corbin for donating cat nip for our upcoming Humane Society project.  If you and your child are interested in donating a bag, please send to school by mid –next week. 

HERE’S A SNAPSHOT OF NEXT WEEK:

Education Week:  THEME:  Supporting & Celebrating Success

Help us celebrate success during Saskatchewan Education Week!  As a school, we will be collecting gently used and washed winter coats, toques, mittens, and scarves to donate to others that are in need within our community.  Please bring your items to school during the week of Oct. 20-24^th.  We will be donating coats that we receive, to Geroy’s Coats 4 KIDS! 

Please take the time to look for any winter coats, toques, headbands, mittens, gloves, or scarves that you can donate to a great cause. Here is the website: www.coats4kids.ca   for a video that you can share with your child.

On Friday October 24^th, 2014 we will be having a school-wide “Breakfast and Books” morning at 8:30.  We invite you to join your child in his or her classroom.  Share a book and a muffin with your child!   

Trip by bus on Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. for show:  Voices of Nature Day.  Stay for lunch!

SCHOLASTIC BOOK ORDERS due FRIDAY, 24^TH.  If you would like to surprise your child at any point with the gift of book(s) for an upcoming birthday, Christmas gift, Diwali gift, Hannukah gift, etc., simply write me a note in the book order and I will hold onto the book(s) purchased until you pick them up. 

HUNTER is  * STAR OF THE WEEK * the week of OCT. 27^th.