Dear Families,

Happy HAT Day!  Thank you boys and girls for participating with such enthusiasm!

Wowie!  We certainly have been experiencing quite the weather and climate change, haven’t we?!  On Sunday evening, I was sooo excited to finally get back to school after a restful holiday and see your child’s bright eyes and smiles only to get up to a snow day on Monday.  Mrs. Czerny (LTO planning time teacher at our school) and I car pool together and we set off in the morning to get to school.  We made it safely and were greeted with a four students which was lovely.  We were both very pleased on Tuesday because it was a school day – yay! But then on Wed., it was another snow day.  I was in disbelief!  Another day of rest and relaxation, but let me tell you, I was anxious to get back!  I was relieved when Thursday rolled around and I was reunited with your child :)  But, here we are again, another snow day for today (Friday) – wowza!  I hope you’re all warm and cozy and do enjoy the extra-long weekend J  This all being said, I'm delighted to be back writing you all this update and keeping you posted on all our exciting learning to come and the adventures in our classroom in the year 2015! 

Empathy Recipients:

Empathetic Nolan & Brody - yay, boys!

"Love Can Build A Bridge!"  Thank you Mr. Anderson for taking our picture at the assembly, we adore singing and performing!

Congratulations to Brody and Nolan for being recognized for displaying Empathy – “We think about the feelings of others” in your thoughts, words, and actions.  You both have worked diligently hard to demonstrate this trait and I am so very proud of your efforts!  Continue to be your best selves in all that you do. 

At this assembly, we also had the opportunity to present our song “Love Can Build A Bridge.”  I was so proud of the students, despite being away for the holidays, they sang lovingly with their hearts and remembered all the lyrics and actions.  Way to go boys and girls!!  Thank you Mrs. Czerny for the beautiful slideshow that accompanied our presentation, the art work looked amazing and I know everyone enjoyed honouring these!

This month’s character trait is HONESTY – “We will always tell the truth.”  I have encouraged my students to always tell me the truth if they're experiencing any difficulty. Being dishonest only makes a problem / concern escalate and get bigger.  I look forward to reinforcing honesty is the best policy throughout this month through books, media presentations, and student action!  I am delighted to say, our class is filled with trustworthy students, how blessed we all are :)

Math Learning:

On Thursday, I introduced our new unit in mathematics which is Measurement.  I will be sending home a math note with the specific Learning Goal and Success Criteria with your child next week.  Stay tuned J

Measuring Objects:  Students worked in pairs to pick one object of choice from the class and use various non-standard and standard measuring tools (E.g., snap-cubes, paper clips, links, cm rulers) to measure the lengths of their object.  Once they completed this, we shared our thinking and compared the lengths.  They had a lot of fun with this!  Please take a moment to find your child’s work (see pics below) and ask them about this lesson. 

Brody & Emma - working together to get their job done!

Jacob & Karrington - thank you Karrington for being such a role model and leader for your partner!

Miika & Karina - measuring Karina's water bottle

Conrad & Cassius - measuring a school glue stick

Hannah chose to measure an alphabet chart :)

Emma & Brody measured the length of a ruler

Ava & Kaden - measured a math adding game

Ashlee & Nolan also chose to measure the alphabet chart

Alexander & Layla went to our special activity area and chose a toy basket to measure

Social Studies – Timelines:

I have displayed your child’s Timeline on our bulletin board outside of our classroom.  They look spectacular and many teachers and students have been admiring them!  All the hard work that has gone into these is greatly appreciated!  Ms. Hartley and I are in the process of providing feedback on these and their presentations J 

Quote:

“Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place!”

(Thank you Mrs. Roth for this thought-provoking and meaningful quote!)

Namaste,

Miss Gill

“If you can dream it, you can become it.”

Dear Families,

Thank you to all who dressed up in their RED & GREEN to build spirit!

It is with a warm and open heart that I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and soon to be a Happy New Year!  I hope you have an enjoyable and safe holiday with all your family and friends.  We all lead such busy lives, but the holidays are a time to stop, listen and think about all the ones we love, cherish and respect.  I am very blessed to have such caring, loving, and amazing friends, family and students.  Speaking of which, I will certainly miss seeing your child’s enthusiastic, warm, and beautiful smile over the holidays and I am delighted we’ll all be reunited and get back into our daily routine of fun and learning in January!

I would also like to take this moment to extend my thank you to all my families and their children who took the time, energy, and love to give me such amazing gifts for Christmas.  I will cherish them ALL.  It means the absolute world to me knowing that I have your unconditional love and support.  Also, knowing that you all believe in me as your child’s teacher is something that I cherish deeply.  My students are my greatest gift! It has been a tremendous year thus far, and I look forward to creating many more beautiful memories in 2015!

Social Studies Community Helpers - Firefighters Visit:

Our Visitors - Courageous Firefighters :)

Fire attire - safety first!

On Monday, we had the pleasure of having two courageous community helpers join our learning community.  The students enjoyed learning about ‘Fire Safety’ with our two Firefighter visitors.  They informed us on the importance of regularly checking smoke alarms, having a safety plan in case of a fire and to call 911 in case of an emergency.  Both firefighters were very engaging, knowledgeable, and friendly.  The students appreciated getting an activity book along with a hat!         

Layla all geared up!

Hello Ava!

Firefighter Karrington

Holiday Concert:

Performance Ready!  Hope you enjoyed our concert :)

I Wish for Peace.  A beautiful song sung by precious children.

Peace gifts for our family.

We rehearsed, and rehearsed and rehearsed.  "Miss Gill, I'm just going to 'rest' my eyes."

I would like to extend a huge thank you to Ms. Bumstead and Mrs. Czerny for organizing this year’s Santa Knows Concert.  They both worked diligently hard to prepare this special event for our whole primary division!  We are so fortunate to have them part of our teaching team. 

My students sang ‘My Two Front Teeth’ so lovingly and enthusiastically, wasn’t it just so adorable?!  My heart was filled seeing them perform!  Practice makes perfect J Every rehearsal was done with such poise and positive energy.  Well done boys and girls!  Parents thank you for coming to see our performance, we were excited to SEE and SING FOR YOU!

Learning Buddies Baking Extravaganza:

Did you hear?  On Thursday, we had a day filled with baking fun!  Mrs. Kimberley and I collaborated to have the Grade 5 Learning Buddies and my class look up a recipe for making Gingerbread cookies.  We spent time mixing the wet/dry ingredients, rolling out the dough, using cookie cutters, baking them in the oven for 8 minutes, decorating, and finally eating them – YUM J  I think everyone enjoyed working together to get the JOB DONE!

    

Spirit Assembly & Christmas Caroling:

This morning, we gathered in our house teams to sing Christmas carols, participate in a friendly house challenge (chimney crawl), and spirit dance (jingle bells).  I love these assemblies because we all meet as a school family to build upon SPIRIT and COMMUNITY.  At the end of the assembly the staff sang a version of “12 Days of Christmas My Students Gave to Me …” It was great to perform for the students!  I think they too enjoyed seeing all their teachers up there being playful and singing enthusiastically.  Our next Spirit Assembly will be held at the end of January.  The Leadership Team along with Mrs. Bell, Ms. Doka and myself always look forward to planning these assemblies and it’s a true joy seeing our school partake with great energy!   

Christmas Caroling by student request :)

Our Grade 7/8 Leadership Team

Chimney Crawl - way to go Chargers!!

Character Recognition Assembly:

Congratulations to the students in our school who will be recognized for demonstrating December’s character trait of Empathy.  There will be an assembly on our first day back from the holidays on Mon. Jan. 5^th at 9:15am to celebrate these students.  Parents of children who are being recognized are encouraged to attend.  Mrs. Bell works hard at ensuring she contacts families so they may be part of this celebration!  I will be certain to take a picture of our class’ recipients and post it on my next blog update J I must say, our classroom is filled with students who display character on a daily basis and this brings me such joy and happiness! I also want to share that our class will be performing our song called “Love Can Build A Bridge.”  The students have lots of schema (background knowledge) by now for performing (E.g, Stone Soup, Holiday Concert) that I know they’ll do a superb job for our school.  If you are able to attend, please do!  I know your child adores seeing you when he/she sings J  

Spirit Day:

On January 8^th, we will be having a SPIRIT DAY!  Please have your child wear their most favourite hat to school.  I am encouraging them to be creative, you may wish to decorate your hat and make it funky ;)  Have fun with this!

Website:

Today in the library, Ms. Hartley introduced a website.  Please visit it over the holidays as the students had a blast with this!!!  Ask them about this, I guarantee they'll share this with a huge smile on their face J

http://snowflakes.barkleyus.com

Quote:

“We may not be able to do great things. But we can all do little things with GREAT LOVE.”

-- Mother Teresa

Namaste,

Miss Gill