Extra pictures...

 Mme Mitchell!

 Neat stage in the development of a bean plant

 Dancing with guest hip hop artist

 Fathers' Day poetry

 Round Dance for Aboriginal Day

 Reading maps at Riverdale Farm

Bonnes Vacances!!

LAST POST!

Dear families,

Thank you so much for the extremely generous gifts, it's too much. It has been my pleasure teaching your children this year, they are all wonderful and special and I will miss them much more than they will miss me - trust me! Please scroll down if you have not already read my thank you message to YOU, you have made such a difference this year.

Today I have a little gift for the children as well. I'm giving each student a new communication pocket. I thought after the disaster of the paper folders, a fabric (and hopefully waterproof) zipper pocket would be an appropriate gift that they can make good use of next year. In it you will find a new workbook (I was thinking summer journal?) and some extra math and French activities that you might like to do over the summer or take with you on long car trips! I've included some colour-by-numbers (of course involving adding and subtracting), word searches, mazes and money problems. I hope the kids are interested and enjoy showing you what they can do.

I have also included a CD of pictures and movies from this year. I couldn't fit everything on, so I tried to make an album for each child that contains only pictures and movies that feature them! I know many of my pictures from this year have been fuzzy, but the movies are great, and there are some pictures there that didn't make it onto the blog. Hope this provides you with a fond memory of grade 1!

One thing I did not include is reading material. Please visit your public library often and look for French books. Summer is looong and we quickly forget our French! Please keep reading a part of your daily routine!!!

I also wanted to mention that the sound place mat we brought home a couple days ago is a great tool that students can continue to use next year. The grade 2 teachers know we made them and would love for them to bring it to school in September. I laminated them, so feel free to use them as real place mats this summer (you can practise words at dinner!) and then send them to school in September. The name tags can also be re-used next year, so leave them in the backpack so that they're ready to go.

Again, thank you for a wonderful year. I look forward to seeing you all around the school in September.

Have a fantastic summer!

Sincerely,

Tamara



Report Card Etiquette

Hello parents,

I hope you have been enjoying the work that's been coming home! Yesterday, students labelled a map of our school and were able to independently locate our classroom, the gym, the library, the music room and a few other places. Students also brought home their amazing stories (which I was sad to let go of and hope you will read over and over) and their math cahiers which have plenty of undone pages that you can try over the summer!

Today students are bringing home their term 2 report card. Like last time, I will be having a discussion with students about what their report cards mean and some things to remember on report card day. Here is some of what we will discuss:

• Report cards are personal, don't share your marks with anyone. Everybody is good at different things, and it never feels good to compare.
• Only open your envelope once you are with your parent/caregiver. Do not open envelopes alone or on the bus.
• Take learning skills comments seriously. It is hard to make progress in subject areas without strong learning skills.
• Trying your best is the most important thing. In the subject comment boxes, I explain what you've accomplished so far, and what you can try to do next in order to get an even better mark next time. Read these with care and decide what you will try to do better (pick one thing). Parents can also select one thing they'd like to work on over the summer.
• Please take a moment to write your goals on the bottom of the second page and return it to me tomorrow.

Our bean or pea plants are also coming home today. I think we finally managed to get everyone's growing! Yay! Tomorrow we will take care of the last few things left at school, including shoes. If there's anything in particular that you know is missing, please make sure your child comes to school on a mission to find it.

See you soon,

Tamara

Thank YOU!

Dear parents of Aire 24,

As the year comes to a close, I would like to take a moment to say thank you.

I have LOVED teaching grade 1. It has been incredibly rewarding to see the kids developing and applying what they have learned, even from day to day, and knowing that I had something to do with it. YOU had something to do with it too. Without all the reviewing, reading, word-studying and chatting about school that you do every day, my efforts would not have been as successful. Thank you for all you have done to support me and your student this year, it has not gone unnoticed.

Thank you to everyone that has volunteered in the classroom (to help me as well as the kiddies), supervised on outings and contributed to Dewson in other ways. Thank you to everyone that reads my blog and uses it to help connect with their child about what is going on at school.

I am very excited to be teaching grade 1 again next year. I learned a TON from your children. Thanks to them, I will be an even BETTER grade 1 teacher next year, and definitely a better upper-grade teacher in the future. I am already thinking ahead to September and thinking of what I can do next time.  

Your kids will soon be off in grade 2 land doing amazing things. At the moment, I can’t imagine sending them off to a new teacher - I feel that they are mine, and I want it to stay that way! I will miss their smiling faces, their excitement, their curiosity and their enthusiasm. Please keep in touch and let me know how they’re doing. I’ll definitely be asking their teachers about them in the fall!

Thank you again for your wonderful support this year - it makes my job a million times easier and more enjoyable when I know you’re behind me, and I never questioned that you all were for a second. The grade 2 teachers are lucky to be getting such a great group of families!

If I don’t talk to you in person, have an amazing summer, and I’ll see you in September!

Tamara

Last weekend until summer!

I can't believe that next week at this time, our students will have graduated from grade 1. Crazy!

We had a great day at Riverdale. Thanks SO much to all our parents-teachers. It was a long day, but a good one. Definitely ask your child what they saw at the farm and what their favourite part of the day was. I'll try to get a couple pictures up this weekend.

See you Monday!

What time is it Mr. Wolf?

Tonight's movie night is NOT FOR US! Grade 6 only I'm afraid, sorry about the confusion.

Tomorrow morning we have our second-last library period. The final one will be on the last day of school. Please search high and low for missing books. I have explained to students that they should return the slip with the books, or write a note on the slip if the books really cannot be found. We're definitely missing a lot of white books too, so please send back everything you can find. Thanks so much!

Well, the kids have been learning to tell time quite quickly. We are experts at telling the time when it is something o'clock ("Il est 9 heures."), and we're getting good at telling the time when it's half past the hour as well ("Il est 9h et demi."). In fact, we can hardly get any other work done because the clock (which nobody looked at for most of the year) is now of great interest, and children are constantly telling me what time it is! This is great! Please ask your children what time it is constantly! If it is not on the hour or half past, they can either tell you what hour we are in (e.g., it's after 5 o'clock) or you can help them count the minutes one-by-one. This is an important first step - counting minutes one-by-one - because kids need to learn that the big numbers on the clock represent the HOURS, not the MINUTES! This is beyond grade 1 though, so it's a bonus if you work on this with them.

In science, we have added some important internal organs to our life-sized paper people. Ask your scientist what body parts we glued on today and see if they can show you where those parts are in their own body!

Tomorrow I will send home a reminder about our field trip. Please look for it so that children are prepared with everything they will need for a successful Friday!

That's it for now,

Tamara

Second last week in 24!

Happy Monday everyone,

I hope the castles made it home safely! A couple tid-bits about this week...

1. Please be on time tomorrow and Friday (and everyday) as we have assemblies both days right after attendance. Take a look at the fantastic brochure for more information about the Aboriginal Day celebrations going on this week at Dewson.

2. The library slips I mentioned were sent home today. Please send the slip back with the books. If you really can't find a book, please write a note on the paper and return it to me or Mme Gaudreault. I'm also collecting Area 24's white books. Please have a good look around!

3. This Friday is our trip to Riverdale farm. All parents who volunteered will receive a confirmation slip. We actually don't have an excess of helpers this time, so please confirm with me ASAP that you are still available so that I can make arrangements if necessary.
In addition to the food and clothing listed on the form, children are welcome to bring a ball, game, skipping rope, colouring pages, or other equipment to play with at the park. Please be involved in their thought process here - it’s better if they bring something that they can do with others rather than alone or just with one person. They also need to keep track of their belongings at the park, so absolutely no money, valuables or electronics!

In class this week, we are working on a letter to our future teacher with details about ourselves such as what we like and what we want to do next year. Tonight, you might like to help your child brainstorm some ideas for that last one. In grade 2 would they like to be in primary choir? Compete in track & field? Have a class pet? Get a 'B+' in reading? It's helpful to think about our writing in advance, and it's a great goal-setting exercise.

We are also learning to tell time (to the half-hour) using both digital and analogue clocks. We made great progress today using only the hour hand on some practise clocks and moving it around. Please encourage your child to tell you the time at home, even if it's just "something after 4 o'clock" or "5 et demi". The correct hour is what we're aiming for!
We talked today about telling the time using the sun, and how the earth spins, giving us day and night. Students had TONS of questions, and eventually I had to get back to clocks! It's a fascinating subject though, so I encourage you to bring it up at home and go into more detail! You can probably find excellent books on this subject at the public library.

We're alternating a bit between social studies and science. In social studies, we're going to keep reading about communities and what they need. We'll have a chance to explore this even further Friday on our trip.
In science, we're talking about living things. We've already done a fantastic comparison of plants, animals and people, using a 3-way Venn diagram. We found some similarities between the various living things, including the fact that we all need the sun and water to survive. Now, we are talking a bit about parts of the body and have traced some life-sized paper people that we are labelling. Many of our beans are growing well, but we haven't had a lot of sun in our windows, so we added some back-up seeds today to the pots that haven't been so successful. Fingers crossed!

Hope that gives you a few things to talk about this week! Again, while there are exciting things happening in the last 8 days of school, we are also going to be reading and writing and working just like always. It never hurts to remind your child of how important this is (the quicker we listen, the more fun we can have)!

I hope to see many of you tomorrow at the Volunteer Tea.
Bye for now!

On it's way home...

Thank you for all the field trip forms and for being so prompt with pizza money. I have sent reminder trip forms home with the last couple kids, so please get that back to me Monday. Thanks!

Work will be coming home regularly, so keep checking the bags for fun things to look at. Today I have sent the community maps we made, as well as a blank grid for making a fire safety map of your home, or a room of your home. It would be a great activity to do together - we talked about how important it is to have an emergency plan!

Parents who have been able to volunteer in our class or school this year are invited to the Volunteer Tea next Tuesday. I have sent invitations home today, and hope I haven't missed anyone. If I missed you, please come anyway. The information is in the blue June newsletter, also coming home today.

We did make a little something for Father's Day, so maybe the moms can help us remember to get it out at the appropriate time.

One thing that needs to come this direction are BOOKS! I imagine you will be receiving a little reminder soon if you have outstanding library books. In addition, please search your house for the white levelled books from Area 24. They are time consuming to make, so I would appreciate having each and every book back before the end of the year. Thanks in advance!

Oh, please ask about the special presentation we had this morning from the hip hop artist! I'll post some pictures soon!

Have a lovely weekend!

POLICE!

This morning we, and many other classes, had a super-exciting visit from Officer Houston (a relative of ours). Officer Houston is a Mounted Police Officer. He came with his horse, Moose, and gave a captivating talk on what his job entails. We also got to see Moose trot, and everyone got a chance to pet him. Ask about this tonight! (What can a Police Officer do on horseback, that an Officer driving a car cannot do?)

This afternoon, we had the pleasure of going to Mme Morgenstern's class to watch 2 plays that her students prepared (both based on books, like our own). The plays were "The tortoise and the hare" and "Hansel and Gretel" (but in French, of course). Ask about what happened in those stories. Children who weren't already familiar with the stories were a bit confused - it would be a great night to re-read them!

We also had our first story presentations today. All of today's authors did a fantastic job sharing their stories. I'm looking forward to more!

IMPORTANT FORM STUFF!

Today I passed out the form for our final field trip of the year, which will take place Friday June 21st. Please return the form, with payment, no later than this FRIDAY and indicate if you would like to be a supervisor!

Tomorrow I will pass out the forms for the final pizza day of the year, which will be Thursday June 20th. This form is due back even sooner, by THIS Thursday. Please note that there will be no pizza to purchase on the day, so please return your form on time.

It's not too late to order French books for the summer. If you forgot to return your Scholastic form last week, please return it ASAP so that your books arrive on time.

Scroll down for more conversation starters...

Back to real life!

Hello again,

It was amazing to see so many of you at our open-house. I am so proud of how the kids did and really hope you enjoyed the tour and concert! A pair of ladies sunglasses was left behind in our classroom. If they might be yours, please email me @ tamara.mitchell2@tdsb.on.ca. 

Now that it's over, I will start unpacking the classroom and sending home all forms of work. I hope you get a chance to look at the work as it comes home and chat about it. Much of the artwork from this year is really amazing, so I hope you can enjoy it for a while, or start a portfolio!

We also need to get back to our regular work - we are in the middle of units in each subject that we need to wrap up, and we still have to present our amazing stories to each other. It can sometimes be hard to focus in June, as the weather is nice, and we all know summer is around the corner. However, for everyone's sake, we will be keeping up all our regular routines until almost the very last day. I appreciate your reminders at home as well, that school's not over 'til it's over!

Here are some things we have been working on, and will refocus on next week:

1. We planted beans! Ask your child about how their bean is doing - how much has it grown? What do plants need in order to survive? Is this the same or different than humans?
2. For just a week longer, we're talking about probability in math. We have learned the words possible, impossible, probable, improbable and certain and have been using them in sentences. Try to use them in daily conversation as much as possible (more than you normally would). For example, rather than say "It probably won't rain tomorrow", say, "It is improbable that it will rain tomorrow". You can also take this unit a bit further by talking about probability as a fraction. For example, if playing a board game as a family of 4, ask what the chances are of each person winning. Each person starts with a 1 in 4 chance of winning, because everyone has an equal shot at it at the start. (Also, I have found that knowing there's a good chance you won't win is a good way to avoid being upset!)
3. I'm sure you noticed our fantastic community maps in the hallway. I will be sending home a grid paper with instructions for making a map of one's bedroom or home. This is a little take-home extension from our fire station trip, which also connects with the mapping side of social studies. It's optional, but I encourage you to do it as more mapping practise and good fire safety review.
4. Also for social studies, we will have a visit Monday morning from a Mounted Police Officer. It should be very exciting. Ask about that Monday evening!

Thank you & Long Weekend!

Dear families,

Thank you all for coming to our open-house. It was so great that every child had someone here to see the show and look at their work. I know the kids were thrilled to have you here and perform for a real audience, and I am delighted with how the whole day went. Thank you for coming and making it such a success!

Tomorrow (Friday) is a PA day for students. Enjoy your long weekend!

Don't forget...
- If you want to order summer books, please return your Scholastic forms ASAP!
- We still need lots of parents to help with Festival! Some kids took yet another form for you if they know you haven't volunteered yet!!
- If you took pictures or videos today, I'd love to have them! If there's any way you can email them to me, or lend me your memory stick (which I will return promptly), I would be very grateful.

Thanks again,
Tamara

Better pictures start NOW!

Finally, the fuzzy pictures are over! Just in time for the end of the year!

Here are a few pictures of last week's hula hooping extravaganza and time with our reading buddies. Our reading buddies have been instrumental in helping us prepare for our performance this Thursday. Merci merci merci, Aire 45!

And our current artists... (notice the hula-hooping!)