Monday, December 12, 2011

December 12, 2011

December 12, 2011

Dear Parents,
This will be my last newsletter before the New Year. We have had an awesome year in the Core English up to this point. You may have heard about the little visitor that came to class this week. He is a Russian Blue Rat and his name is Chippy. Last year he inspired many story telling activities in the class and he is always a big hit with the students. The next couple of weeks are busy with holiday activities. On Wednesday we have registration at 4:30 for a French Course given by Mme Haddad. The cost is $60 with all funds being returned to the school. Thursday, at noon, is our Annual Christmas Concert. Parents and visitors are encouraged to bring in a canned food item to help support the local food bank. On Friday a grade 8 student, Jeris, and her General Lake theatre group will be presenting A Christmas Carol in the gym at 2:40pm for parents. Next week the fun will continue with a holiday sing along and slideshow on Tuesday and Thursday at 2:40. The English classes will be exploring The Mummer’s Song by Bud Davidge and rumour has it a mummer or 2 may appear at our Singalong. Our November/December character awards will take place on Wednesday at 2:40. Finally, Friday we will hold a red and green spirit day encouraging all students to wear red and green with points being counted for each class.

In the classes:
Kindergarten:
Students are continuing to develop their sound symbol correspondence with the Jolly Phonics program using the letters s, a, t, I, ,p,n,c/k,e,h, r, m, d. We continue to work on the days of the week and numbers to ten. Sk’s have become working on sight word identification and phonics activities using Chalk and Sock activities. The sight words are the, of, and, a, to, and in.
Grade 2: Students continue to work on their levelled books and recording their books in their home reading journal. They have participated in a shared reading of The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. I have separated the class into two groups. One group is working on reading and comprehension type activities, while the other group is working on development of sight words and phonics activities to increase their reading level. They have completed work with the sight words the, of, and, a, to, and in and they have worked with words in the following word families: at, ap, am, an, an, ag.
Grade 7/8: Students have been continuing their reading of Craig Keilberger’s Free the Children. Students have been exploring the main idea of specific chapters and practiced recording the main idea through a CASI type question. Students will then work on examining the answers to their questions and marking the answers to gain insight into what makes a level 3 and 4 response.. The students have also been completing some Elf duties within the classroom and exploring the parts of a friendly letter.
Have a safe and happy holiday. I look forward to seeing everyone in the New Year.
Ms. Legault