Nature Centre Pictures!

What a day! I'm sure the kids will sleep well tonight. Turns out the Nature Centre has moved to a bigger building since last year so we had to walk much further into the park to get there. 

As always, the Nature Centre guides ran a great program, beginning with an indoor portion during which we got to meet Houdini the turtle, and impress our leaders, Katie and John, with our knowledge of how animals adapt to winter conditions. Then, we made pine cone bird feeders for the chickadees using lard and sunflower seeds.

On our hike, we looked for signs of animals including their food, tracks and even... wait for it... their poop! Yup! I walked up to a group wondering what they were gathered around staring at.... poop! We even had a "Poop Tracker" to help us identify what animal it might have come from. The kids didn't think it was funny or gross - they were very scientific about the whole thing.

Our guides surprised us with hot chocolate at the end of our hike and we headed home again on the streetcar!

Please ask your hiker about their favourite part of today's adventure! Thanks so much to the parents for all their help - we absolutely could not have done it without each of you!!!

I'd also like to introduce Mlle Bradfield, who is our new Teacher Candidate this term. Mlle Bradfield will be with us every Wednesday for now, and then everyday in the month of April. Like Mlle Martinson, she will begin doing some of the teaching shortly and gradually build up to teaching full days in April. She enjoyed our trip today and is very excited to be working with Salle 211!

Our Nutcracker Story

I finally figured out (and by that I mean force a friend to do it) how to break the Toy Dance video into two smaller parts so that I could upload it here. Sorry for the delay! 

Presenting... Salle 211's very own "The Nutcracker" 

with visiting artist Jessica Runge

It was almost Christmas at Dewson Street Public School and the students in Salle 211 were all wearing their pyjamas because they were having a slumber party!

After all the children fell asleep, someone tip-toed into the room. It was le Père Noël! He left some toys for the class and then continued on his way.

Soon after, the children awoke to some commotion in the room, and couldn't believe their eyes when they saw that the toys Père Noël had left had come alive!

(Part 1)

(Part 2)

After watching the toys dance, the students rushed to the window to see snowflakes falling and dancing all around.

In the other window, more snowflakes were twirling and lightly falling to the ground.

Outside they could see some flowers getting ready for winter. As they fell asleep, their delicate petals seemed to be dancing as they gently fell to the ground.

The next morning, the children in Salle 211 awoke in their classroom and found everything in it's right place, just as it had been the night before. They wondered, did it really happen, or was it all just a dream?

Thanks again to Jessica Runge for incorporating the Nutcracker story into her plan!
This project was made possible with the support of the Ontario Arts Council’s Artist in Education program, the Dewson School Council, and the YMCA.

Welcome back!

Welcome back to school!!

I hope everyone had a restful and fun holiday! It's good to be refreshed and back at school! Please remind your student to return all of their borrowed books ASAP. Thanks to everyone who remembered their books this morning!

This Wednesday is our trip to the Nature Centre. On Wednesday, we will eat lunch at 11:00 am in our classroom and leave around 11:30. We will be back for regular dismissal.

It looks like we will have a fairly mild day for our adventure, however, we will be outside for most of the afternoon. Please ensure your hikers are dressed appropriately (layers are good - we can always take stuff off). Boots, mittens and something to cover ears will make the day much more enjoyable. 

Students will not carry anything with them on the streetcar, however, they may give a water bottle or juice box to their chaperone to bring. We will talk about safety before our trip. Please take the time to review the following safety tips with your student:

- Always stay with your group and parent.

- When waiting for, or exiting, the streetcar, put your back against the nearest wall or fence.

- Find a seat and be mindful of others on the streetcar.

- If you get lost (don't worry, you won't!), stay where you are. We will find you.

Thanks, it will be a fun day!

Words of the Week

The ‘en’ sound is very similar to our last sound, ‘on’, and there are several ways to make it. This week we will focus on finding words with “en” and “em”. Again, ask your child to help you with this one, but to me, it sounds like what we say when we don’t understand something - “huh?”.

In the last weeks before te break, we learned a lot of vowel combinations that are so common in French and help us so much with our sounding out in reading and writing. We are continuing with this in the new year. When reading a book with your child, it is helpful to go for a treasure hunt before you start reading. Ask your reader to circle all of the “en” and “em”s he/she can find within words in the book. This way, when you get there, you already know what that part of the word will sound like.

You can turn this into a good review of old sounds as well. E.g., “Find me a letter that makes the sound ‘s’. Find me two letters that work together to make ‘o’. Now find me the sound ‘oi’.” This is what we do with our morning message every day.

Anything you can do to make working with sounds fun is a great idea!

en, vent, dent, décembre, content

Bonus words: cent, novembre