Dear Families,

This week, we were fortunate to have lots of rays o' sunshine and my students are getting quite rosy and getting a lot of much needed vitamin D :)  This being said, your child is gently encouraged to wear a hat and apply sunscreen as he/she is outside daily for two 25 minute fitness breaks.  Thank you for your support in this matter.  

I also wanted to say a thank you to the parents who regularly check and sign their child's agenda, it is an excellent communication tool between parent, child, and teacher.  I have been enjoying your notes!  As we soon enter our final month of school (June), I am delighted with my students progress and look forward to more fun in the sun!  Thank you for your continued support in your child's learning.

Nordic Highlands:
On Tuesday, we went on our field trip to Duntroon Highlands!  Over the past couple of years, I have taken several students up there and it is truly a wonderful place to learn.  Students explored in a pond study, learned about how animals adapt to their environments, and the basic needs of living things.  In the second half of the day, they played a fun and exciting Survival game and learned about the terms herbivore (plant eaters), carnivore (meat eaters), and omnivore (plant/meat eaters).  Please ask your child about these words and their meaning.  I bet they'll remember :)  

I would like to take this opportunity to give a BIG THANK YOU to our parent volunteers for accompanying us and providing your love and support.  Thank you Mrs. Duggan (Brody's Mom), Mrs. Reynolds (Nolan's Mom) and Mrs. Bolt (Jake's Mom).  Your time, patience, energy, and support is appreciated!  I felt at comfort and ease having you all there with our enthusiastic learners :)  

Enjoy the pictures!  We had a fabulous day of learning in the great outdoors!         

Starting our day off with a science lesson

Look at all our attentive listeners

Bunnies

Calm and gentle

Hens and Roosters

Turkeys

Miniature pig

Brody & Kaden

Nolan & Karina

Madi & Karina

Nice Jacob!

Quack, Quack!

Pond Study

Lesson #2 of the day

Animal Energy Chain

Character Recognition Assembly:
On Mon. at 9:15a.m., we will be celebrating all the recipients for this month's character trait which is RESPECT - "We treat ourselves, the environment, and each other with respect and dignity."  Mrs. Bell and her assembly team work very hard each month to organize and facilitate these assemblies. We missed last month's crowd pleasing slideshow, so we get to enjoy April and May's special events!

Reminder:
We have a PD Day next Friday.  Enjoy your day with your child!

Quote:
"If you can DREAM IT, you can ACHIEVE IT!!!"  --Walt Disney

Namaste,

Miss Gill

Dear Families,

I hope you had a wonderful long weekend with your family and friends.  Since the weather cooperated, I spent some of my weekend outside doing much needed yard work such as weeding, cutting the grass, and cleaning the garage.  I felt relieved after this session!  To treat myself from my hard day’s work, I had a yummy BBQ at a friend's place, it was a blast!!  I was happy to see my students bright smiles on Tuesday morning :)  I'm wishing you all another wonderful weekend, it is supposed to continue being beautiful out!

Language - Peer Conferencing:
This week, students spent some time working with a peer to provide and receive 'Feedback' to help improve their achievement in their writing.  It was lovely to see that each student was thoughtfully engaged, and I observed many purposeful 'stars & arrows' as I walked around gently listening in on the conferences.  Great work boys and girls, I'm proud of you!
Here are a few pictures I captured, look at ALL THEIR WRITING, WOW!

Karrington & Karina

Ava & Carissa

Kaden & Nolan

Brody & Conrad

Cassius & Emma

Alexander & Kurtis

More Symmetry FUN:
As a final task for symmetry, I had the students create pattern block designs using a ruler to represent their horizontal or vertical line of symmetry.  Once they created a design, they challenged a peer to try to create its' mirror image.  They had fun with this activity, and some of the designs were quite complicated, so it took some time to fully complete.  Check out our creations:

Arts Night:
Thank you to all the staff, students, and parents (families) who came to support our Night of Art at our school.  Everyone worked so hard to bring this event together to honour and celebrate the arts.  I was especially proud of my students who sang with their hearts.  Thank you Mrs. Czerny for helping prepare our students for this evening, they were so excited!

Spirit Assembly:
On Thursday afternoon, we gathered as a school to participate in our second last spirit assembly for the school year.  I must give a big thank you to our school's Leadership Team and Student Council for organizing this whole assembly for us.  The first challenge which was the frozen t-shirt contest was extremely exciting for one and all!  The Yellow House ended up winning this fun-spirited competition, but everyone left a winner because all t-shirts were successfully thawed but each house working together to get the job done.  Thanks Mrs. Morin for capturing some of these pictures for us.

Frozen t-shirt contest

Intermediates, Juniors, and Primary students working collaboratively :)

Madame and I just had to get in on the FUN, too!

And the winner is ... YELLOW HOUSE!

Wacky Hair Day:
Check out our WACKY HAIR!  This spirit day brought a huge smile to my face as many staff and students were very creative!  Look at US :-)

Ms. Hartley's hair, AWESOME!

Ashlee, Layla, Conrad, Ava, Emma, Carissa

Nolan, way to GO!  I love it!!  

Miika's Sharing:
I would like to take this opportunity to celebrate Miika's wooden boat creation!  As part of our Science learning with Structures, he brought in a 'man-made' object to share.  Miika has been working very hard at home on this project and he was very excited to share it with his peers.  Thank you Miika for inspiring us all to THINK, ACT, and BE CREATIVE!

Miika made a wooden boat with his family :)

Students asking questions 

Thank your Mrs. Niemi for providing this adorable picture of your son!

The experiment - the boat FLOATS!  Pure pride and joy!

Engaged.  Excited.  Respectful.

Alexander asking Miika a question

Best buds - Miika & Brody (thank you Brody for taking time out of your day to listen attentively and spending time with Miika so he could talk to you about his boat :)

Reminder:
Just a reminder that on Tuesday, we will be going on our field trip to Nordic Highlands!  This highly anticipated trip will not disappoint and I would like to say a thank you in advance to all the parent volunteers who will be accompanying us.  Your help and guidance will be vital and deeply appreciated.  Please have your child dress for the weather as it's evidently unpredictable with the temperatures high and low, rain and shine.

Quote:
“You can Google answers, but you can’t Google THINKING!”

Namaste,

Miss Gill