New Beginnings

Our time together in Division 6 is moving very quickly!

There are a couple of ways that you can help us get settled even more quickly. The first is to ensure that your child has a pencil case or pencil box to keep supplies organized in his or her desk. We will also be doing weekly Friday afternoon "desk clean out". I teach students one rule for desks: NO loose papers!

The second way you can help out is if you have newspapers to recycle. We desperately need newspapers for art, as they are a great way to protect our desks while working.

Finally, we are collecting the first school fee which is for consumables. Teachers are required to complete an accounting form for any money that comes in to the classroom. As you can imagine, it makes extra work if I have to fill several of these out, so it helps me tremendously if you can return fees by the deadline. Then I can spend my time planning for teaching rather than accounting for money. Thank you so much for your help!

We have been busy establishing routines in our classroom. One of the first routines I establish is entering and exiting the classroom. If it is not raining, we ask students to drop off backpacks against the wall outside the classroom and head outside. We are also working on the P (Polite) aspect of PAWS, which means we greet others on our way in or out the door. I have already taught students several ways to say hello or goodbye in French - this is a great time for students to practice!

Another daily routine is DEAR (Drop Everything And Read). Students read from self-selected books that they keep in a personal book box. We are currently working on building up our reading stamina (currently about 15 minutes) to the thirty minutes required. During this time, I will be assessing students and/or working with individuals or small groups.

In writing, we have begun to talk about what writers write (reports, stories, poems, etc.) and where writers get ideas. Students are creating Heart Maps with spaces filled with things they love.

We have begun our science unit on the Human Body, and hopefully we will begin Social Studies next week. In math, we are learning about patterns. The vocabulary of increasing and decreasing patterns is new to grade 4 students. You can help support math at home by ensuring that your child can count both forwards and backwards easily, especially over the multiples of 10 (eg. 28, 29, 30, 31  or 74, 73, 72, 71, 70, 69). If they are accurate and quick with counting up or down to 100, start working with larger numbers.

I am looking forward to a great year together.