Friday October 14, 2016

Today we wrote about our week in our home journals. Take a look at the journals and be sure to send back on Monday.  We are really focusing on phonetic spelling right now and using all lowercase letters (except at the beginning of a sentence or a proper noun) as well as finger spaces between our words. We had a visit from our reading buddies in Gr. 3! We read to them our leveled book bag books.

Ask me about…Who is your reading buddy?  What books did you read with them today?

Literacy Groups This Week:

·      This week in Ms. Plaxin’s literacy class we started with the review of alphabet sounds and names.  We introduced the  "at" and “an” words and practiced writing them.  Everyone is working at their own level and progressing forward when ready.  We are working on starting letters and sounds of words.   Ask me about which letter and sound begins the words in your everyday life!

·      This week in Ms. MacDonald's and Ms. Percival’s literacy group we had a special delivery! Stretchy the Snake arrived and we learned how he helps us read new words. Ask me about what Stretchy helps me to do? We reviewed our reading strategy Eagle Eye along with long and short vowel sounds. Continue to work with me on the letter list that was sent home last week. I need to learn the name and sounds of each letters.

·      In Ms. Barley's Literacy Group students have been working on using Reading Strategies such as Eagle Eye (looking at the picture for clues), Stretchy Snake (Stretching out each letter sound) and we have introduced Chunky Monkey (chunking sounds together such as 'ch' and 'th'). We spent the week looking at double vowel sounds and talked about the rule: "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking." Ask your child if they can go on a Word Hunt and find any words with this double vowel rule!

In our Literacy Centres this week we:

1. Built our own Silly Sentences using magnet words

2. Made new words out of the letters found in "Halloween"

3. Went on a word hunt looking for sight words such as: the, and, it, in and kept tally marks of how many times we found the words

4. Listened to Stories 

5. Read with the Teacher

·      The first 2 weeks in Mrs. Daniels’ literacy group we have been focusing on the word families “at”, “an”, “ap” & “ad”. Please practice these word families at home with your child. For example “What rhymes with cat?” ….rat, hat etc.  In our reading groups we have been practicing pointing to the words and tracking as we read as well as looking to the pictures to give us clues to an unknown word and making sure the beginning letter matches the sound. 

These are some common sight words that are frequent in the books we are reading right now:

Me 

I

Can

To

My

We

In

Like

It 

Up

Mom

The

And

He 

Look

Is

See

Come

Get

At

Practice these words at home so that students recognize them from memory to increase their reading fluency. 

Home reading book bags: Please enjoy reading these books with your child. We encourage students to point to the words as they read to track their reading, use picture clues, or beginning letter sounds to decode unknown words.

***These books will be exchanged on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s every week. Please return the book bag in your child’s folder for new books.  If you have a note about the level, please place it in the folder, not in the book bag as the volunteers are exchanging the books and we may not see it.

Reminders: 

-Fundraising packages went home.  Check it out and help ROS raise some funds!!   Fundraising due back next Friday October 21, 2016.

-We are collecting water bottle lids (clear or white plastic lids) please send them in with your children. 

Dates to remember:

Tuesday October 18 – Book orders due back to school

Friday October 21 – Fundraising due back

Thursday October 27 – Literacy Night

Friday October 28 – Hallowe’en Dance

Monday October 31 – Pumpkinella

Circle of Courage:

Each week one student per class will bring home a sheet of paper describing the circle of courage. We ask that on Friday of your child’s week that he or she brings in something that shows one of the following sections of the circle: Independence, Mastery, Belonging, and Generosity.  See below for what the letter will look like. 

Circle of Courage Spotlight 

Congratulations, your child has been chosen to be our Circle of Courage student. Your child will have the opportunity to share more about themselves and how they show the four quadrants of the Circle of Courage to help build a caring classroom. Your child will present on Friday OCTOBER 21st  Yahya and Jesse B. 

Once our Circle of Courage student is announced the student will have a week until their presentation date to collect the following items to share with the class. 

Independence  

·         An artifact your child is proud of and demonstrates independence. i.e. piece of art, writing, project, or video of dance  

Mastery 

·         An artifact that demonstrates a skill or activity your child has mastered. i.e. medals, awards, and certificates  

Belonging 

·         Photograph (no more than 3) that shows belonging, i.e. Family photo, playing with others, family vacation, sports team, class photo. 

Generosity 

·         Family Letter: Family members will be responsible for writing a letter to the class telling us how special your child is to you. Send the letter in a sealed envelope to the school with your child on the presentation date your child is sharing. I will read the letter to the class during our circle meetings. The content of the letter is up to you, but you may wish to choose from one of the following ideas: Describe special or funny stories about your child for the class to hear, tell us some interesting facts (no more then 3) we may not know about your child, send silly or special pictures with a letter describing the picture, or write a short story with your child as the main character. You may also send a video for the class to watch if you choose. 

After your child has had the opportunity to share, his or her classmates will recognize your child as our Circle of Courage student of the day by writing about how they see your child demonstrating one of the four quadrants on the Circle of Courage. We appreciate your participation in our Circle of Courage Spotlight and look forward to getting to know your child better and build a caring classroom community!