Dear Families,

WOW, what a wonderful week we've had!  The temperatures and the rays o' sunshine are lovingly welcomed after the deep freeze we experienced this winter.  Are you with me on this?  I thought so :) You may notice your child mentioning that we are outside more often.  I want to ensure that learning not only happens inside but OUTSIDE as well because we can do a lot of purposeful learning outdoors.  I have attended a few workshops this year and there is a push so to speak to having children being outside and doing inquiry based projects with nature by our side!  We are a fortunate school that we have an outdoor classroom, it does need some TLC, and it is my hope to clean it up with my students help!  Thank you to the parents who provided gardening tools in the fall for us to start this process.  We'll keep you posted on this endeavour!

Character Recognition Assembly:
On Monday, we recognized March's character trait of Integrity - “We can always be trusted even when NO ONE IS WATCHING!”  I have shared with my students how I feel this trait encompasses all our character traits that we have focused on thus far.  I believe if a person demonstrates integrity they also possess respect, caring, cooperation, inclusiveness, empathy, and responsibility.  I am comforted in knowing that WE at New Lowell are truly surrounded with many students who consistently model integrity in their actions.
Congratulations to Layla for being recognized for displaying Integrity in your thoughts, words, and actions.  You have worked diligently hard to demonstrate this trait and I am so very proud of your efforts!  Continue to be your best self in all that you do!  

Congratulations Layla!

This month’s (April) character trait focuses on OPTIMISIM– “We believe we can DO IT.  We never give up” From very early on in our school year, I have encouraged my students to always put in their level four personal best in all their academic, social, and behavioural experiences.  I am never looking for “perfect” only your child’s best efforts.  Again, I am delighted to share that most students do their BEST and listen to my constructive feedback to improve their achievements! 

Math Learning:
This week, I sent a math note home with your child.  Thank you to the parents who sat with their child to read this over and have already started providing 3-D objects to school!  This has been great because in the coming days, we will be using these objects to build structures.

Our learning goal for math is now focusing on exploring 2-D shapes & 3-D figures.  It is one of my favourite math strands to teach because it is very hands-on (using math manipulatives) and children get to use a variety of math tools.  In Kindergarten, students were exposed to this area of mathematics, and now in Grade One, the expectation is to describe these shapes by their specific attributes namely:  faces (flat/curved), edges, and vertices (corners).  Please ask your child over the weekend to share his/her favourite 3-D figure and describe it to you using this math terminology :) Here are a few pictures of our learning from this week!

Artist Visit:
Today, we had the pleasure of having Mr. Sean Dawson visit our classroom to teach and engage students in an art lesson.  Sean's art lesson focused on pop art and mixed media.  Your child painted using primary colours and then mixed them to make secondary colours (Grade 1 art expectation) to create a painting inspired by Andy Warhol.  Check out our creations below :)  

Welcome Sean!

POP ART!

 Please visit his website if you have time over the weekend, he is truly a passionate and talented artist.
www.swd-art.com

Thank you to families who provided a white t-shirt for students to do "silkscreening."  Check out their shirts this weekend, maybe they can even wear them since the warmer temps have arrived, wahoo!!

PLEASE NOTE:  Very important!  With the t-shirts, when they get home, they must go in the dryer for 15-20 minutes on their own (no other clothing in dryer please) to ensure the ink remains on the shirt.  After this process, then the shirt can be washed normally with other clothing.

“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”  -- Pablo Picasso  

Thank you Sean for reinforcing this powerful quote - it is so very true!!  We thoroughly enjoyed having you join our learning community, you are an inspiration!  Thank you, thank you!!

Earth Day Celebration:
On Wednesday April 22nd, we will be celebrating Earth Day as a whole school.  I believe it is such an important day to not only celebrate once a year, but I encourage honouring it everyday because we are blessed to live in an area that is safe, beautiful, and FREE.  To connect this celebration to our language learning, we will be creating posters and writing letters to Mother Earth about ways to help keep our school yard, community, and Earth clean.

Also on this day (Apr. 22nd), we will be having a Spirit Assembly!!  From 1:50pm to the end of the day, each HOUSE COLOUR will meet and then participate in a variety of Earth related activities.

Our school's leadership team is working hard currently at preparing for this event.
Here are the following events which will be taking place: 

1.  Recycling Relay (thanks Mrs. Czerny for organizing this)

2.  Planting Seeds (if you have extra egg cartons, please have your child bring them to school by Tues.)

3.  Cleaning up the Yard

4.  Helping Hands (thinking of ways to help our Earth)

5.  Face Painting  (Gr. 7/8 who will be doing face painting, so if your child is interested in having his/her face painted, opportunity for this will be given during the first nutrition break!)

Special Sharing:
Karrington and Conrad came to school this week and were excited to share their recent experiences with their peers.  So I definitely wanted to provide some sharing time for this :)
Over the weekend, Karrington went to the CN Tower (wow!) with her grandmother and brought in a scrapbook of pictures to share.  Thank you for doing this, your peers had some wonderful questions to ask you using our Q-Chart.

WOW!  CN Tower :)

Welcome back Conrad!  He brought in a Cuban guitar and played us all a tune :)  You're looking beautifully bronzed from your trip, we are happy you had a great time with your family!  

Awesome Cuban guitar, Conrad!

Quote:
"Make happiness a HABIT."

Namaste,

Miss Gill