Remembrance Day

You would have been quite proud of how your children comported themselves during our Remembrance Day Liturgy on Friday. I do hope some of you were able to join us to see for yourselves. I also hope that today you find some peace and solice as you remember those we have lost, and know that they shall live on in our hearts forever.

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Thank you to all of the parents that were able to come to our Parent-Teacher conference this past Wednesday. It was very nice to meet all of you. I look forward to meeting a few more of you in the coming days.

This past week was full of learning for your children. We wrapped up our patterning unit.

We will be starting a new geometry unit in math tomorrow, starting with 2D shapes and their attributes.

In language and literacy we continue working with words, on beginning sounds, CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words/word families, syllables, our WWW (word wall words) and writing super sentences. In reading we are starting to explore a new decoding strategy, the 'Stretchy Snake'

I often sing a song with the children to demonstrate how we can stretch out words to hear their individual sounds and have them put the sounds back together to guess the word:

I love someone, yes I do

I love someone, yes I do

I love someone, yes I do

Let me say it slow for you...

N-o-a-h

L-u-c-a-s

I then start changing the song to include various words. I encourage you to play similar games at home.

The children continue to enjoy working on creating their own works of literature, and continue to demonstrate their knowledge of print as they create title pages complete with titles, author/illustrators' name, and picture, as well as text and pictures in their books. We even had one classmate as for help to create an 'About the Author' on the back of his book, reminiscent of what he'd noticed on some of the Robert Munsch books in the class book nook.

We also went to the Learning Commons for our first library visit of the year. You'll have noticed the children have brought home two books, one English and one French. You may keep these books for two weeks and are encouraged to re-read them several times for added comprehension, having the kids using their decoding and comprehension strategies. We also request that you discuss with your child the privilege of being able to borrow books and the responsibility that goes along with that to take care of them. Please return the books on Monday November 19th (add this to your homework calendar please). Our next library visit is Wednesday November 21st.

WWW for the week of November 12-16: boy, girl, but, your, play. I am also going to start introducing common 'instructional' words that the children will start to see more of as they progress in school on various worksheets. This weeks added word is 'draw'.

The school will be hosting two back-to-back information sessions for parents only this Wednesday November 14th. Learn more about Social Emotional Learning from 6-7pm, so you know what your child means when he tells you he's in the Blue Zone, etc. There will also be a Tech Tools Basics session from 7-8pm the same evening. More information is available on the school website.

Speaking of social and emotional health, I was a very proud witness this past week to two separate events where the children demonstrated their great empathy. Above is a photo I couldn't resist taking. Imagine the slightly chaotic scene of trying to organize more than 100 five and six year olds at the end of a long day to ensure they're in the correct bus/childcare/walker line. Imagine the stress this end of day rush can put on some of our littles. Now imagine one of the stressed out littles sitting on the floor in the busy hallway, fighting with his laces. One of OUR littles noticed this wee guy struggling and stopped everything he was doing to kneel on the floor with him and do up his laces for him. Thank you Justin for showing your caring heart!

On another occasion, we had a classmate in tears at the end of the day because she had lost her poppy. She was quite distraught, despite assurances from me that all would be well. As we were about to depart, a classmate came up to me and said, "I'm going to bring some of my own money tomorrow so I can buy a poppy for Autumn to make her feel happy again." Thank you Sergio for showing how much you care!

It fills my heart to see such evidence of empathy and caring amongst some of our wee grade one students.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend with your loved ones,

Erin Riley