Friday September 27

Hello Parents/Guardians! 

W.O.W (Words of the Week) Words:

1. play
2. like
3. is
4. go
5. we

Bonus words:

1. four
2. five
3. six

These are 5 words that we will be working with all week.  The W.O.W words are words students will encounter while reading and when writing independently.  Here are some ideas of what you can do at home with the W.O.W words:

• Make flash cards and have your child practice reading them.
• Look for these words when reading each night.  Home reading hasn’t yet started but students can use their library books or books they have at home.
• Have your child practice writing the W.O.W words
• Make the W.O.W words out of playdoh
• Look for the Secret Story spelling patterns in the W.O.W words. (letter sounds chunks, eg. th)
• Tell you a sentence using the W.O.W words.
• Write a sentence using the W.O.W words.

Weekly Highlights:

• In literacy, we continued to practice our secret stories and learned the secret story “or.”  Letter o and r love to play together and they can never decide what to do so they say “or.”  Should we go to the park or  should we ride bikes.  We also practiced the “sh” secret story. 
• In math we practiced counting forward by 1s to 20.  We also practiced sequencing numbers.  Students identified whether a set of numbers were in the correct counting order (order we would say when counting forwards) and if they were not correct they were asked to write them correctly.  For example: 5, 3, 4 (Not in the correct order.  They would write 3, 4, 5).  We also worked on printing the numerals 0-9 remembering to start at the top.

• We continued to work on printing skills and printed letters Nn, Rr, Pp, Ee, Ff.  When printing, students were reminded to always start at the top.  We also practiced saying the letter sounds and brainstormed words that started with the letters we printed.   
• In Science we discussed how seasons affect the activities that people do.  We brainstormed a list of all the different things people do in the fall.  Students chose one activity that they like to do and created a Fall person representing this activity.  They used paper to create the clothing and accessories for their chosen activity.   
• We had a busy week with buddies!  The grade 1 students met their grade 6 buddy who they will be reading with each week.  They also met their grade 5 buddy who they will be doing various activities with throughout the year.
• This week we learned about Terry Fox and how important his journey across Canada was.  We also learned what it means to be brave like Terry.  Students brainstormed a time when they were brave and created a journal entry.  Some of their ideas were: I was brave when...
• “I held a spider.”
• “I jumped off the high dive.”
• “I went to the doctor.”
• “I went to the dentist and got my teeth pulled.”
• When writing in their journal students were reminded to: add the date, draw a sketch on the white part of the page, add labels, and write a sentence using kid writing on the lines, then to add colour if they have time.  They learned that during writers workshop time we work the whole time and keep writing until the timer is up.  There are always things you can do to improve your writing: add to the picture, add to the words, write another sentence.
• We ended the week with our schoolwide Terry Fox run!  The students enjoyed themselves and took pride in the fact that they were running for Terry Fox and for an important cause.  We will find out next week how much money the school raised.  Thank you for all of the donations! 

Reminders:

Orange Shirt Day:

Orange Shirt Day (September 30^th) is a day when we honour the Indigenous children who were sent away to residential schools in Canada and learn more about the history of those schools. We encourage all students to wear an orange shirt on Monday September 30^th in support of this special day.

Headphones:

We are kindly requesting that parents send in a pair of headphones in a plastic bag labeled with your child’s name.  We would like to use these headphones during our Daily 5 stations when doing listen to reading (Raz-Kids).  The headphones will be stored in your child’s individual book box and be kept at school to be used until the end of the year.  Please do not feel obligated to get fancy expensive headphones, dollar store headphones will work fine.  Please ensure that your child is able to independently put on and take off these headphones.  

Communication Books:

Please make sure to check your child’s folder and communication book each day and return it to school. After checking your child’s communication book please leave it open to the current page.  If you have a note for you child’s teacher it can be written in here.  

Library:

Students are able to sign out a new library book Monday to Thursday.  It is expected that your child’s library book will be returned in the plastic bag that was provided.  If your child has lost the plastic bag it is parents responsibility to provide a new one.  It is your child’s responsibility to put their library book into the basket each morning if they would like to exchange it.  

Ask Me About:

1. Ask me about a time when I was brave like Terry Fox.
2. Ask me the names of my grade 5 and grade 6 buddies.
3. Put these numbers in the correct order:

1. 5, 8, 7, 6
2. 11, 9, 10, 12
3. 1, 3, 0, 2
4. 22, 19, 20, 21