Sunday, July 1, 2018
Update from Ms. R
Ah! The last week of school before the summer holidays and my last week in Room 204! The children were very understanding as the room piled up with more and more boxes to be moved to Vaughn Road.
We had a wonderful year of learning in Room 204. It’s been a privilege and a pleasure to teach this amazing group of learners (and I learned so much too). Thank you so much for the lovely cards and very generous gifts. They are not necessary, but they are appreciated!
I would like to wish everyone a safe and happy summer holiday!
PARENTS! Please keep encouraging your child to read, write, type and practise math skills over the summer. For many students, these skills fade over the summer. Teachers call this phenomenon “The Summer Slide”, when students in September are at lower skill levels than when they left school in June. Here is a short article about this, with some suggestions for parents:
http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/ask-dr-lynch/preventing-summer-slide.shtml
Important Dates:
July 21 - Davisville Open House - Say “good bye” to the old school building (9:00-12:00)
September 4 - First day of school for the 2018-2019 school year (@ Vaughn Road Academy).
News for June 28, 2018
News for June 28, 2018
This four-day week the students finished their sock monkeys, wrote thank you notes to the adults at our school who help us and learned the sport of Speed Stacking.
The children all finished their sock monkeys this week by sewing on their button eyes. The students continued to work in their groups to create and rehearse sock monkey movies. They also made the title cards for the credits and used recycled cardboard to create props and scenery for their characters. On Wednesday, the movies were filmed and all the movies can be seen in a separate posting.
The class watched one last movie together. “A Grand Day Out” is a stop-motion animated short film that was nominated for an Academy Award. The class is now so good at analyzing stories they easily pointed out the story elements (characters, settings, problems, solutions).
On Tuesday, the class went outside to the playground to say “good bye” to the old silver maple tree as it will have to be removed to make space for the new school building. Our class has measured the tree, calculated it’s age (almost 125 years old), drawn pictures of it and given it hugs. We thanked the tree for the oxygen it makes, the shade it gives and the beauty it shows us. We toasted the tree with homemade brownies and gave the tree some more “thank you”
hugs.
The children helped to create posters using sticky notes to say “thank you” to the adults in our building who have helped us all year. We made posters for Mrs. Farrelly, our principal, the office staff, the lunchroom supervisors, the caretakers, Ms. Francesca, Ms. Konjhodzic and Ms. Endert. Everyone was surprised and grateful to receive our kind words.
The students FINALLY opened our time capsule box! Inside was our “Flash Domo” stuffie, the individual time capsule books and a BIG letter that the children wrote last September to the “future Room 204”. It was fun to read and talk about what changed, what didn’t change and if their wishes and predictions came true…
The class took on a creativity challenge…aluminum foil! What can be made using foil? After a quick lesson on the properties of foil and some tips on how to make successful models using foil, the children used over 30 metres of foil to create little people, letters, insects, buildings, food and much more!
Finally, the children learned about the sport of cup stacking, also known as Speed Stacking. The challenge is to stack and un-stack cups as fast as possible. After watching some videos of children doing this sport, everyone had a chance to try it. After two days of practising, the class had a friendly competition to see who was the fastest. Congratulations to Nihar and Romaisa, the fastest speed stackers in our class. Well done everyone!
The children cleaned out their desks and helped me to label their desks and chairs to be moved to the Vaughn Road school building. Finally, the students talked about celebrating Canada’s birthday on July 1st, (Canada is now 151 years old), and received sunglasses with Canadian flags on them. I also shared that my favourite candy when I was a child was a “Toostie Pop” sucker and everyone had a chance to try this candy too.
Books read aloud this week:
Fish Out of Water by Helen Palmer
The Blue Whale by Jenni Desmond
Keith Haring - The Boy Who Just Kept Drawing by Kay Haring
A Grand Day Out - A Wallace and Gromit Adventure (DVD)
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