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!