Dear Families,

First off, I would like to say thank you to those students and their parents for taking the time to visit our Classroom Blog each week!  It is an opportunity to listen, learn, see, and celebrate what's happening in our Learning Community!  I'm encouraging you to continue to do so as your child is working extremely hard to improve his/her achievement academically, socially and behaviourally to REACH FOR THE TOP!      

Social Studies Inquiry-Based Learning:

Every Day 1 at 12:15-1:05pm, we go to the library for an Inquiry of the Roles & Responsibilities of various Community Helpers in our area.  The students are developing inquiry skills which is the ability to explore, research, and question using non-fiction text, iPads, and lap-tops. Your child also has an Inquiry Notebook in which he/she uses to write his/her thinking and we then use these to help consolidate our thinking.  Yesterday, we used the following website to explore and learn about various Community Helpers.  Please visit it with your child this weekend and ask them which Community Helper they chose to write and draw about J   

CHECK IT OUT!  www.pebblego.com          Username:  simcoe               Passsword:  pebblego

Ms. Hartley's mini-lesson for our Inquiry

Students thoughtfully listening and oh so engaged!

Ideas:  Roles & Responsibilities in our home, school, and community

Math Learning:

This week, I sent home a math note (yellow) introducing our new Learning Goal (Data Management) accompanying Success Criteria.  Thank you for taking the time to read this over with your child and completing the survey question.  Cassius, Kurtis, and  Alexander brought their sheets back to school to share with us.  They each surveyed their family members using this question:  “Is fall your favourite season?  Yes or No?  As a whole class, we looked at their respective graphs and talked about what information (data) their graph told us.  Did more family members say yes or no?  Next, we will be asking our own survey questions and making a bar graph.  We started this process today (Friday), and I am very impressed with their questions thus far.  Some are:  “Do you like cake or muffins? (Carissa)  Do you like gymnastics or dance?  (Karrington)  Do you like the number 3 or 4?  (Brody)  Please take a moment to ask your child what his/her survey question is.  Most chose topics that were of interest to them (E.g, sports, food, colours, animals, etc …) 

Also this week, we have been sorting and classifying different objects by specific attributes (E.g., colour, shape, size, number, orientation/position).  I had the students work in groups of four and when they were done, we did a gallery walk (ask your child what this is) to listen, learn, and share our thinking.  I was very impressed with how each group “worked together to get the job done!”  I also introduced a new math song called: “Attributes!”  It’s one of my favourites and now I think my students’ adore it too!  Ask your child what some of the words and actions are.  Here are a few pictures of the kids in math action!

Miika, Karina, Ashlee, Jacob - sorting and classifying different types of leaves

Hannah, Karrington, Kurtis, and Kaden - sorting and classifying pattern blocks

Carissa, Cassius, Conrad, Brody - sorting and classifying dinosaurs

Layla and Nola - sorting and classifying different types of pasta

Emma, Daniel, Alexander, Ava - sorting and classifying dominos

Math Gallery Walk: students listen, learn, and share their sorting rules

Math Game:  Race to the Top

Karrington loving math centres!

Layla and her Learning Buddies playing Race to the Top!

New Math Game:

Every week or so, I do my best to introduce a new math game to reinforce skills that I’ve taught.  This week, I taught the students how to play “Race to the Top!”  Please refer to pictures that I've posted above.  The concepts and skills required are the ability to roll two dice, add the numbers and put a ‘ones block’ on the number added.  Your child taught his/her learning buddy how to play on Tuesday!  It’s always so neat to see a younger student teach an older one. 

Spirit Assembly:

On Tues. morning, we will be having our first Spirit Assembly!  Ms. Doka, Mrs. Bell and I are the teachers/principal in charge of our School Leadership Team, it consists of students in Grade 7/8 who plan, organize, lead these assemblies.   On Tues. please have your child dress in his/her house colours!  I have shared with each student what their colour is (hopefully they remember!)  At New Lowell, we are working hard at building Spirit, it is amazing to see when we can all come together as a school family and work towards building COMMUNITY!  You all know how much this means to me, so we are extending this within the whole school.

Reminder:

NO SCHOOL ON MONDAY DUE TO A PD DAY FOR TEACHERS.  I look forward to seeing your child’s bright smile on Tuesday morning!!!    Have a terrific weekend, enjoy the rays o' sunshine and warm climate with your family.

Quote:

"Be kind.  Help others.  Be truthful.  Be responsible.  Be a good friend.  Work together.  Play fair.  Share.  Have respect.  BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!"  
Thank you to Carissa’s older sister Julia (Gr. 5) for giving me this gift to share from last year!  I have it posted in our Classroom Community at our “Peace Place” as a reminder for us all.  I continue to cherish this, Julia!!       

Namaste,

Miss Gill