Feb. 17th

Our Valentine's celebration was fun, all the students were so excited to both give and receive and read their valentines.  Thanks to those who brought in the food snacks and goodies!
We focused on friendship this week and looked closely at two great books.  Owen and Mzee - The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship.  I have included the Owen and Mzee website on our useful links as your child would probably love to explore this!  We also listened and watched the book Enemy Pie - have your child tell you about this focusing on the problem and the solution of the story. 

The SPCA presentation on Monday is called the Kindness Counts program to teach children empathy towards animals, people and their environment by discovering their similarities and differences and how our actions can have positive and negative consequences.  This fits perfectly with our courage unit. A special feature of this program will include the inclusion of a classroom visit by a well socialized dog (the dog will be under adult control).  The students are really looking forward to this.  Please send in $2.00 for this presentation.  Thanks to those who have already paid.

If you haven't already signed up for conferences please do so as they are only a couple weeks away.

Club Red is well under way.  Remember that you need to sign each heart after your child reads and then he/she can colour it.

Please see the calendar on this blog for other special days happening this month, next week is another crazy week as we have 3 special celebrations in a row!

Also please bring in 100 day representations by Thursday the 23rd.  Thank you!

Feb. 9th

This has definitely been our shortest (and craziest!) week ever with both Monday and Tuesday being snow days and now we are off tomorrow.  Remember as well there is no school on Monday because of Family Day and Tuesday because of the Curriculum Implementation Day.  Our Valentine's celebration will be on Wednesday, Feb. 15th in the afternoon.   Students are welcome to bring valentines for their classmates - all the students names were posted on last weeks blog post.  Thanks to the following students for providing our yummy snacks.   Rachel - Fruit Tray, Luca - Veggie Tray, Charlotte - Cheese/crackers or small sandwiches, Mason - Sweet Treat,  Adam - popcorn/chips or pretzels, Shayla - other??.   We didn't get a chance to go on Spelling City for lesson 2 so it would be great if you could have your child practice over this long weekend.

Club RED Number Day was a success with lots of creative ideas for ways to display numbers. We had lots of numbers represented here but #5 seemed to be a favourite!

Today we were really lucky to have Claire's mom Lisa come to our class to teach us all about the importance of hand washing and whether Bugs Need Drugs?  Your child should have brought home a booklet about this - please review this with your child.  Div. 7 were great listeners during this presentation and seemed to really enjoy it!  Thanks again Lisa! 

Upcoming dates...
Wednesday, Feb. 15 - Valentine's Celebration
Friday, Feb. 17 - Dress up as your Favourite Book Character
Wednesday, Feb. 22 - Anti-bullying Day - wear pink
Thursday, Feb. 23 is 100th Day - *all students are encouraged to bring in a collection of 100
Friday, Feb. 24 is Poem in A Pocket
March 2 Early Dismissal - student led conferences
March 3 Conferences (No School)
March 8 - Bake Sale for SPCA (bake goods needed)
March 9 - Skating in the afternoon
March 10 - Club RED Celebration (wear red)

February 3rd

Spelling started this week as you hopefully have seen from the planner, the letter and/or from your child bringing their duotang home to finish up their spelling activities.  I have also included Spelling City on the useful links on the front of the blog - this is a great way for your child to practice their words and the spelling focus for the week.

Club RED also started on Wednesday, so hopefully everyone one from Div. 7 is reading every day and recording it by colouring in their heart calendar (parents please remember to sign each dated box after reading).   Everyone participated in pajama day today and hallway reading was a big success - Div. 7 were all big buddies which they loved!

For  anyone who wants to get started on their valentines below are all the names of the students in Div. 7...

     Alanna     Melissa   Claire     

Angelina   Eli  Sienna  Sarah    

Gavin   Rachel    Averyelle   Sam

Carson   E.J.   Nathan  Mason   Luca    

Adam   Shayla    Joe     Ashton   

Brooklyn   Gianna   Jake  Charlotte

Hundred Day is on Thursday, Feb. 23 - so you can also think about some kind of collection that you want to make.  I will be handing out paper after Valentines is over.

We are completely out of Kleenex so if anyone could donate some boxes to the class that would really be appreciated.

January 27th

Our field trip to Save On Foods was excellent.  Thank you to Adam, Mason, Sienna, Luca and Ashton's moms and E.J.'s dad for helping with out this trip. Not only did we learn so much about the 4 different food groups but we also followed Mrs. Roberts class' coding instructions to make sure we went the best route and reviewed the directions N S E W plus left and right.  Yesterday we calculated all those steps and discovered that we walked 2,928! We added all the steps together and then multiplied it by 2 to get our total.  This didn't count all the steps we took in the store so we were well over 3,000!
Please continue to send in cereal boxes and food flyers for our buddy project and nutrition unit. 

I was away today at a workshop on Performance Standards (our district is trying to have every teacher attend this year) but I heard that Twin Day was a big success.  All week we have had many students away due to illness.  Hopefully everyone is feeling better soon and please remind your child of the importance of washing their hands well. We have also had lice reported so please do regular checks and treat if needed.  Thanks.

We will be starting our spelling program on Monday.  You will be receiving an important letter in your child's planner which explains the program we will be using.  We realize that the words on the list may appear quite easy for some children but we will be doing a variety of activities around these (adding prefixes, suffices, defining, looking for word patterns etc.) and will also have surprise 'Bonus' words each week that follow the same pattern.

'Club Red' will be starting on Wednesday.  Papers will go out Tuesday. Students will be expected to read every day for the month of February and parents will need to sign each day as it is completed.  There will be a big school wide celebration at the beginning of March and there will be an opportunity for prizes to be won for those who participate.  There is also the possibility of winning a class pizza party if all of the calendars are signed/coloured/returned at the end of the month.

Looking ahead...
We will be celebrating Valentine's Day on Feb. 15th and I will be putting a list of all the names next week so students can start to work on valentines if they wanted.  Please note that if your child is going to bring valentines it is important that they have a valentine for every child in the class so that everyone is included.  Thanks for your support with this. 

Hundred Day will be Thursday, Feb. 23 (students should be thinking of collections of something ?? be creative that they'd like to bring in).  More info on this soon. 

We have now confirmed a third opportunity to go skating on the afternoon March 9th and we are going to see a play at the ACT theater on April 20th.  You will receive portal announcements on both of these events closer to the date.

January 20th

Another busy week in Div. 7...   Thanks to those that have sent in 
cereal boxes please continue to do so - we plan to use them on Thursday.  We also need any food flyers so please send any in.  We also need any fabric that you could donate to make clothing for our cardboard people. Thank you.

We will be walking to Save On Foods this coming Wednesday.  We have just started our nutrition unit so this trip will be an excellent opportunity to learn about nutrition.  Even though some students went to Save On last year their knowledge about nutrition is quite limited. 

This week all students got new JRR books.  Please ensure your child is bringing those books back and forth to school daily as we do use them in class too.

Just for your information, the Maple Ridge Library is hosting Family Literacy Day January 28th so you might want to check it out.

I have been away a lot recently which I really don't like but the reason I have been away is to attend different meetings which I am very excited about.  I am part of the Literacy Network and we are developing our Language Arts program with the support of great helping teachers.  On Tuesday morning I was at a Curriuculm Inquiry session which is where we are developing  our whole unit on courage.  We heard a fantastic presentor who really inspired and educated us,  Every Wednesday Ms Roberts, Ms Neufeld and I are working together in the library to help the students learn about courage, help them understand the different feelings involved and how to react to situations, not to mention help them develop their confidence and become more aware of their feelings and others.
The other workshop  I went to was on how to teach children to code - something I never thought I would be doing but it was very exciting and we will be starting in our class next week.  Fairview got 5 new Sphero  (little robots) the students will learn how to code and manipulate!  Should be fun!  We will keep you posted. 

January 13th, 2017

Friday the 13th!  Hope you have still had a great day!

With our buddies this week we learned about Martin Luther King and his dream for equality.  We also discussed their own dreams of how to make our world a better place.  If you could discuss this more at home that would be great to strengthen their understanding and empathy of others.  

We made some cool snow angels which you will need to come see outside our classroom.  

I have extended the Scholastic deadline to Tuesday as a few parents and students said they were interested.   
The PAC bottle drive is tomorrow, Saturday, Jan 14th between 8 - 1.   Please bring by any bottles and come help out if you are available.   Thank you, we have such great parents and PAC at Fairview which gives all the children so many great opportunities, playground equipment etc. (the list is endless!) 

A few students have brought home some theme work to finish up over the weekend.  I also didn't end up changing JRR books as many students needed more time with their old books but will do it on Tuesday.  Please ensure your child brings back all their books (if they are in the middle of a chapter book though they can of course keep it until they are done).

Just a reminder to everyone who has not sent in the $10 for the memory books pleas do so as soon as possible.  Thanks!

Please remember that there is no school on Monday for students as it is a Pro D day for teachers.

Have a great weekend!  

January 9, 2017

Happy New Year everyone!  Hopefully you had an enjoyable, relaxing holiday with family and friends.  Winter has definitely stayed with us so we decided to spend this first couple weeks actually studying snow and winter.  Ask your child about some of the experiments we have done this week.  They enjoyed drawing these cool winter snow tree pictures!  Don't they look cool!

We were all excited to finally share the bat books that we worked so hard on.   Your child has brought home an odd/even New Years game that would be great to play this weekend.

Just right reading will be changed at the end of next week so if you didn't have much time for reading over the break please do it over the next few days.

As you can see the students had a great time out in the forest on Thursday.

Our field trip to Save On Foods will be on January 25th from approximately 9:30 - 11:30.  We will need parent volunteers.  The January calendar has been updated so please check this,
Fairview PAC is putting on a bottle drive on Saturday, Jan. 14th.  Each of your children will have brought home a form looking for volunteers.  If you are unable to volunteer but have bottles that you would like to donate, please drop them by the school tomorrow morning.  Thanks so much!