January 10, 2020

Happy new year and welcome back to school! 
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! 

We had a great first week back to school with lots of new and exciting things happening in our classroom. 

How that the children are used to our routines in school our Star of the Day has been reintroduced, with more responsibilities! We brainstormed some "jobs" for the Star of the Day which will include sitting in our special chair, taking care of Charlie the bear, standing at the front of the line, and being the special helper. Children who are working hard, following the rules and being kind to their peers will earn being Star of the Day. Don't worry, everyone will get their turn! 

This term we will continue learning the letters of the alphabet, the corresponding sounds that they make and how to write them. We will start to move a little more quickly and learn 2-4 sounds a week. 
This week we learned letters 'i' and 'j' and next week we will focus on 'k' and 'l'.

We have started a new type of lesson each day that will support phonemic awareness and learning basic reading skills. Most days of the week the students will learn a new 'sight word'. Each child has been given their own key ring where they will keep flashcards of the words they learn. Sometimes students will take them home on the weekend to practice their words. Stay tuned, as I will post some fun ideas of ways to practice these words! 

"Sight words" are words that appear frequently in the language and are sometimes difficult to read just by sounding out the letters. As children learn more sight words that they can read by memory, this develops fluency in reading. 

This week we learned the sight words 'I', 'a', 'the' and 'to'. Next week we will focus on the words 'is', 'can', 'on'.

In Math we have been comparing numbers and groups of objects using the language, "greater than" and "more than" for numbers that are bigger and "less than" and "fewer than" for numbers that are smaller. We learned that numbers that are the same can be called "equal".

We have also started exploring our environment and comparing the size of objects. We will continue working on these skills next week. 

This month the character trait we are focusing on is Courage. We have been reading books to support with our understanding that courage is displayed when you might feel scared to do something, but do it anyway.

This week we began Circle Friday. Circle Friday is a school-wide activity where for half an hour, all the students in the school are assigned a different teacher who will have students from all grade levels in their class. Each group takes part in a sharing/talking circle. It is a way to develop belonging across our school where children get a chance to meet and get to know other people who aren't in their class and have a connection with another adult in our school. The circles stay the same for the entire year, which allows everyone to build strong relationships. Our afternoon kids were very courageous when they went to a new teacher with older students on Friday! Next week our morning class will get the opportunity to partake in Circle Friday. 

This coming week is going to be very cold! We do not play outside when it is below -20, however it is very important for children to dress warmly and have a hat, gloves and appropriate footwear for these cold temperatures. Thanks for your support!