Report Card Etiquette

Hello families,

Today you received your student's progress report. I explained the different sections to the children today so that they can begin to understand what their progress report is all about. Side 1 focuses on learning skills - things that we have to do in order to be good learners, such as listening, working together, staying focused and taking responsibility for actions and materials. Side 2 focuses on what we are learning, how we're progressing with our reading, writing, math, and other subjects.
At this point in the year, I think it's really important to focus on the learning skills section. It is very difficult to make progress in subject areas if our learning skills are lacking.
I also explained what the letter grades mean. E is for Excellent, which really means that you're doing a great job all the time. G is for Good, which means you're doing well most or all of the time, but there are small ways in which you could improve even more. S is for Satisfactory, which means that sometimes you're doing just fine, but other times you need to be reminded, so keep working on it. N means that you need a lot of help with that skill, so make this your goal going forward.
My hope is that all children will read their progress report with their parents and decide what area they want to work on. I have given my opinion of next steps in learning skills, language and math, so those are things to consider as part of this discussion. If you would like suggestions for how you can help with those things at home, please bring this up in our interview.
Finally, there are a few etiquette rules around report cards that will be true for every report this year, and in future grades as well. Here is what I explained to the children:
1. Do not open your report card envelope until you are with a parent or guardian.
2. Your report card is private. Do not share your marks with friends, this doesn't make either person feel good.
3. Keep your report, but please return the envelope (signed) so that we can reuse it for the next report.

Also in your envelope you will find your interview confirmation. It's a small piece of paper, so dig to the bottom. I hope that your time works for you, but if not, please let me know ASAP. I have scheduled 20 minute interviews, which should give us plenty of time to talk. I will do my very best to watch the clock so that you can make your next appointments and so that we can get out of the school on time for the caretakers. If we need more time, we can always schedule another appointment. Finally, if you would like to bring your child, please feel free to do so. They are very welcome to join us.

Now then, there are lots of other things going on this week, beginning with yesterday's Remembrance Day activities. Dewson put on a beautiful assembly and all the students were really well behaved. I was impressed. After lunch, we had a very special visit from a World War II veteran, my own grandpa. I hope you've heard about this already, but if not, please ask about all the interesting things we learned about his experience in the Navy. For example, he mentioned that one time their radar seemed to be showing that there was a submarine nearby, so they set off some explosives, but it turned out to be a huge school of fish, so, out they went in their lifeboat and everyone had fresh fish for dinner!
- Why did Mr. Lowens join the Navy, rather than joining the Air Force, or the Army?
- How old was he when he joined?
- What was the most serious thing that happened to Mr. Lowens' ship?
- What was Mr. Lowens' job?
- Were there girls in the Navy?
- How many people were there on Mr. Lowens' ship. How many cooks were there?

For me, this was a special treat, as my grandpa is not very talkative and much of what we heard yesterday was new for me too. Once again, the children were very respectful, asked great questions and were very thankful towards Mr. Lowens, and Mr. Mitchell (his chauffeur).

This week gets even more exciting Thursday with our first field trip. Please look for the reminder note tomorrow evening with info on what to wear and pack. In addition, the book fair is on for the rest of this week. I hear there are some French books available, so have a look when you're here for your interview. Next week we have another pizza day, and the forms that went home today are due Monday (I suggest sending them this week so it's not forgotten over the long weekend).

On to classroom news...
In the craziness of yesterday, I completely forgot to hand out the words of the week. Sorry about that. The kids have them today, and here they are just in case:

est-ce, que, lundi, des, avec

This week we are working on the sound 'é'.
The accent on this 'é' is called un accent aigu (pronounced "ay-gu"), and it changes the sound of the 'e' from what we learned before (bleu) to the English 'ay' sound. Most of the kids knew the sound immediately as soon as they saw a few words that they recognized with that letter in it, but it'll be exciting to start seeing it in their writing, where so far they have usually used the letter 'a' when they needed that sound.

Here are some common words that use it: éléphant, bébé, été, fée, étoile, idée

Lastly, in our patterning unit, we have been working on making and identifying patterns that have 3 pattern rules, for example, colour, shape and size. Here are some pictures of the mathematicians at work:

Next we are going to see how we can turn a picture pattern into a number pattern!

Finally, I have to say Bravo to every single scientist for having their homework complete and at school today. Thank you, parents, for being at-home teachers and ensuring everyone was ready for our discussion today. We shared our ideas, and I've sent them home to ask you about insulation if you didn't already talk about it!

See you later this week,
Tamara