November 12, 2014 week with Ms. Selimos

          Hello Parents and Students,

It has been a short week, but a busy one.  Thank you to birthday boy, Brodie, for the delicious chocolate chip birthday cookies last week.  We really enjoyed them.  

We read many Remembrance Day books last week, including “Who’s That Man?” by Marny Duncan Cary, one of my favourites.  We joined our Grade 4 Learning Buddies on Friday, 7th at 11 a.m. for a beautiful Remembrance Day assembly.  The slide show was very effective and the Gr. 2/3 proudly and peacefully shared their “Peace” paragraphs.  At the Term I interviews, your child will share his/her “masterpiece” with you.  The children wrote a poem in their printing booklets about poppies, as well.  They are encouraged to use an erasable pen when writing in their printing booklets.  See photo 17 from email.

Artist, Mrs. Belcher, joined us last Friday afternoon for a Visual Arts lesson, exploring mapping skills with us. We discussed imagery. The children practiced sketching our classroom with a literacy/numeracy focus on spatial and 2-dimensional representation.   We made "shorts" books.  Ask your child to explain this book making process and the "bone" tool we used to help us to crease the paper.  See email photos 3 to 9.

Please reinforce +/- to 18 at home using flashcards, math sheets and on line games from my website.  One goal is to learn facts using automatic response.  Begin with adding one or two more (ex:  5+1, 8+2).  Next reinforce doubles (5+5, 8+8).  We can discuss more strategies and tips at the 3 way conference.  Number families continue to be reinforced.  In and Out of the Toy Box was a math book which I used this week to reinforce +/- strategies.  

The Sub Lunch last Friday was a huge success.  Thank you to the parents who helped in the classroom.  All went smoothly.

Our science focus this week has been to explore and to create jot notes, working in small groups about their specific farm animals of study.  Next week each child will create a paragraph. 

Our phonics letter of the week was Ff.

SONAKSHI  is  * STAR OF THE WEEK * the week of Nov. 17th.

Report cards go out for all Grant Road students on Friday, Nov. 21st.  On MONDAY the 17th, I will be sending a FILE FOLDER for you to sign of your child’s Term I work samples. Please look at the work WITH your child and discuss. 

Stay warm this weekend and GO RIDERS!