Hello Families of Room 51,

We hope that you have had a wonderful week!

The students have been up to all kinds of hard work these last few days.

As you know, we had our Christmas concert on Wednesday so there was a lot of preparation happening to pull off the fantastic show that you saw.  In addition to all of that "concert work" here are some of the other things that your children were up: we started a new STEAM project, creating puppet theatres out of particular resources; working on daily math problems using a variety of strategies; fill a sock cards and stuffing; surviving an entire week of 'blue days'; yoga for gym in the music room; growth mindset; while reading Robert Munsch (Andrew's Loose Tooth) one of our students lost a tooth, and another immediately after; Dot art; Grade 3 partnerships for gingerbread house theatre creations; classroom layout adjustments; story writing; watched all of the school Christmas concerts; charades and other games with Ms. Nicole during our blue Lunch recesses; math toss; heads up 7-up; self-assessments; I-pad learner self-interviews; Go-Noodle exercises; Daily 5.

If you have not already checked there is a 2nd Annual Family Christmas Movie form in the blue folders — don't forget to purchase your tickets :)

Have a fantastic, cozy and warm weekend!

Cheers from,

51 A and B

Hello Families of 51,

Just a reminder that tomorrow (Wednesday December 6th) is "The Big Day" for our little ones, as it is their performance day.  The children have been asked to arrive at 5:45 pm for tomorrow's evening performance.  The Dress Rehearsal is at 1:00pm and all are welcome (no tickets are necessary).

Have a wonderful evening; we look forward to seeing you all at the show!!

The 51 Team

December 2, 2016

Happy Winter Wonderland Families of Room 51!

Our Growth Mindset this week taught the children about how the brain works in relation to learning.  We also did some Growth Mindset art based on the book, “The Dot”.  Ask your child what they learned about the brain and what they created in their dot watercolour art.

Hopscotch anyone?  The focus in math this past week was on doubles as students practiced their mental mathematics, through math centers and also by drawing their own hopscotch board in the compound, in order to play doubles in their groups.  We saw some beautiful doubles art work.

Students continued writing their owl stories in language arts, remembering to use proper capitalization and punctuation.  They worked on writing sentences with their words of the week while taking on the Mystery Word challenge as one of the Daily 5 centers.

In social studies students began learning about mapping and started making a map of the classroom, while in gym they continued practicing their hockey skills, rotating through stations.

The students were singing wonderfully as they practiced their Christmas concert songs for “How to Train Your Reindeer to Fly”.

PLEASE NOTE:

Forms were sent home with your child with concert information and TICKETS on it this week.  Currently our gym is at capacity if every student brings two guests, and we cannot give out any extras.  BUT we are asking families to RETURN THEIR TICKET(S) if they are not planning to attend the evening performance, and we will redistribute those extra tickets to people who are interested in more.

If you are interested in more tickets, please let your child’s teacher know by Thursday at 3pm and your names and request will be added to a master list in the office. Depending on the numbers of requests and number of returned tickets, we will do a random draw of those names on Friday afternoon

Here is a link to Mrs. McBride’s Google Drive, which has ALL the Christmas concert lyrics and music so your child can practice at home.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzUAxeb2kOFJQUx4eTJVM2lfZ3c

Happy Friday Families of Room 51!

The children were excited about our math centers this week, especially about creating math art with a given number.  Other centers included graphing with colours, counting-on games, building and recording block patterns with accompanying tally marks and word problems.  Ask your child about the center work they did.

We continued working on our owl friendship stories, mapping them out with pictures and words then moving on to writing them out.  This has been very challenging for all the students.

Writing in science concerned the building and testing of their houses.  The students completed the building of their structures and were ecstatic about testing them against the elements. Most of the students were able to share their learning with their parents about this inquiry project during student-led conferences.

Students reexamined their role and responsibility within their family during social studies, particularly the jobs each family member performs.  Please encourage your child to continue helping out around the house.

Please consider donating to our student-led Christmas charity this year of filling a sock.  It is greatly appreciated and a valuable teaching opportunity for your child.

Have a wonderful weekend & enjoy this wonderfully mild weather!

Room 51

Hello friends and families of Room 51; we hope you had a wonderful week. 

The students wanted to let you know, first off, about “Fill a Sock”:

Help us bring some Christmas joy to our city’s homeless

The Fill a Sock, Fill a Need campaign provides a Christmas “stocking” of essential needs and small personal items to those in need.

We are asking each student to donate $5 (or more J) to help fill socks to be donated to the Drop In Centre.  If possible, we would also ask students to donate a pair of new, warm, adult sized socks.

We strongly encourage students to earn their donation money by doing chores around the house - shoveling snow, taking out the garbage…etc.

We will be collecting money from students between November 21^st and December 1^st.  We will also be collecting cash donations during Parent Teacher Interviews. 

The students are extremely interested in this campaign, and showed what a kind and thoughtful group they are with the comments, suggestions and questions that came up during our “Fill a Sock” discussions.

TWAS:

This week at school we started a new unit in science “building,” which included learning about building resources, the ‘job’ of a house, and using “local resources” to build houses that are strong enough to stand up to “local conditions” (the students will be able to elaborate on this); new songs in music; daily eye openers; Canyon Meadows girls’ choir performed for us; new counting on strategies in math; Daily 5 writing, reading and word work; making a friend storytelling/drama; capitalization and punctuation work and club Friday.

Remember to book for conferences next week; we’re really looking forward to sharing in all of the great thinking/creativity/work that your children are up to each day.

Thanks for reading our blog,

Have a wonderful weekend,

Room 51

Hello Families of Room 51,

We hope you had a wonderful long weekend!

We had a beautiful Remembrance Day ceremony on Thursday, and did not get to our TWAS, so decided to do a LWAS this morning (Last Week at School).

Though our week was short, it was very busy.  There was lots of preparation for Remembrance Day.  The students made beautiful wreaths from an assortment of art materials and shared their thoughts on Peace.  These thoughts were so lovely that we decided to post them on the bulletin with the wreaths. Many of the students noticed that we had a special guest at our ceremony, and we’re sure he was impressed with not only the performances but also with the very respectful audience.

Here are some of the other things that we were up to last week: Learning new songs in music; working on throwing/catching skills in gym; mental math counting on strategies; storytelling; parts of story; Daily 5 stations; Peace and Poppy art; monster writing; interviewing using IPads; lockdown drill; classroom book exchange and for some of us ‘shoelace’ club.

A couple extra final notes: we are starting a building unit in science so please hang onto any little bits of recyclable materials that your child might be able to use for boat building (empty pop bottles/ toilet paper roles/plastic containers/Styrofoam trays/tinfoil); the deadline for ordering this month’s scholastic orders will be this Friday, November 18^th.

Thank you for reading our blog.  We hope you have a fantastic week,

Room 51

Families of Room 51:

On Thursday Nov. 10, we will be observing Remembrance Day with an assembly.  Students who are members of Scouts Canada (i.e. Beavers/Cubs); Girl Guides Canada (i.e. Sparks/Brownies); or Cadets are invited to wear their uniforms for the day.

Happy Friday Friends & Family of Room 51!

Another busy week has passed with the students reaching "Day 40" of their current school year.  Students were busy finishing their 2-D monsters and continuing work on editing their rough drafts of their monster descriptions.  Once their finalized pieces of writing are complete we will display the numbered monsters, read the description of each student's monster and try to guess which hanging monster is theirs.  They are very excited about playing this up-coming guessing game and were also very excited dressing up on Monday in their Halloween costumes and parading for one another.

In physical education, Room 51, enjoyed a game of Toxic Blast and relay race bingo after practicing their warm-up skills at the beginning of the period.  Ask your child what kind of warm-up activities they are required to do.

Throughout the week Mrs. McArthur read from our classroom novel, "The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail" and students continued building their reading skills during DEAR, the Daily 5 and guided reading.

We celebrated Matthew's birthday as he turned 7 this week.

We talked about Remembrance Day on Thursday and began making wreaths filled with poppies, created from a variety of media.  Students also worked in groups to make structures or creatures using units, rods and flats, while recording how many units they used with tally marks.  We also learned about collecting food for the food bank and winter clothing for those in need.

In science we learned what scientists do by discussing a mock experiment.  The students then prepared an inquiry book for future investigations, which they artistically covered with colourful question marks.  Ask your child what a scientist does.

Incredible Edibles served up a healthy treat to students who pre-ordered online for todays special snack day while relaxing in our new classroom setting.

PLEASE NOTE:

Cranston School is joining with the Veterans Food Bank to collect non-perishable food items, as well as cash donations to purchase  Co-op gift cards for veterans to use to purchase fresh produce and meats.  We will be collecting donations until November 15th, so please send in what you can.  If your child is in rooms 54, 55, or 82, and you are planning to attend our Remembrance Day celebration on November 10th, we ask that you bring a donation to support this cause.  Our school goal is to fill all 4 boxes that were sent for the food drive, but we will always welcome more!  If you are able to make a cash donation, even if it is only your spare change, we will have a jar in the office for students to add to.  Thank you for all of your support!!!

Have a wonderful weekend!