October Newsletter 2016

It’s hard to believe that it’s already October! The first month of Grade 3 has flown by! We’ve been working hard on learning routines and have jumped into all of our beginning units.  Here’s a quick peek at what’s been going on in the four cores!

LA: Daily 5, Reading Across Canada Challenge

Reading Strategies: Read like books are gold! / Choose within reach books/Make Predictions

Math: Patterning Unit

Science: Scientific Method/ Hearing and Sound Unit

Social: Mapping Unit

Themes: Terry Fox, Roald Dahl, Orange Shirt Day, Fire Prevention Week, Bats

Words of the Week: Ethical Citizen and Engaged Thinker

Spelling Program

We are starting our spelling patterns program this month and you will see some spelling homework coming home tonight!  The spelling books will come home every Monday with a new word list written by your child. The students will be working on these words in school but will also have a list of activities to choose from each night. Please take 10-15 minutes each night Monday through Thursday to help your child choose which activity they want to try out and to complete the work in the spelling book provided.

These books will come back to school on Friday for me to look at and a spelling test will also happen every Friday (unless there is no school, then we will have it on Thursday). I have completed a spelling inventory of your child’s strengths and weaknesses in relation to spelling patterns and have grouped them so each child is getting instruction on the patterns they struggled with. We do word sorts and hunts with these patterns throughout the week with the goal to help your child recognize these spelling patterns and to apply them to other words rather than just memorizing for the test and then forgetting when applying during real world writing or typing. Each Friday your child will be tested on the 5 new words, 5 old words (to keep them mastered) and 2 surprise words that fall within the same spelling pattern to see if they are able to generalize the pattern to new words.

Thanks so much for your help getting this program up and running! Your time at home is greatly appreciated and I hope to see some great gains for our spellers this year!

Important Dates to Remember

Oct. 4, 18, 25 Junior Choir

Oct. 10-14 Fire Prevention Week “Don’t Wait Check the Date!” Replace smoke alarms every 10 years

Oct. 10 Thanksgiving: no school

Oct. 11 Professional Learning: no school /Minister David Eggen visits MMH 1:00-1:30

Oct. 12 Mission Impossible starts in the gym 

Oct. 13-18^th Scholastic Book Fair 8:00 – 4:00 / except Friday 14th 8:00 – 12:00.   

Oct. 14 Deadline for hot lunch orders

Oct. 17 Picture retake day

Oct. 20 Dismissal at 11:35 today/ no school in afternoon due to Professional Learning Da

Oct. 21 Professional Learning day: no school

Oct. 25 Hot lunch gr. 1-3

Oct. 31 Halloween parade 12:45 (students will change into costumes at noon) (Thanks for volunteering to send treats for our party, if you signed up you will be receiving an email soon! We have 26 students and no nut allergies!)

Bird Projects, Face Painting, Beach Day and Picnic Time!

As part of our bird project we had Mrs. Price offer to come in and face paint all the different types of birds that we were learning about. She did an amazing job of the long billed curlew, black capped chickadee, white american pelican, great horned owl, swainson's hawk, and mallard. WOW! Thank you so much for your time and talents, these were fantastic! 

Of course we had to mix in some amazing sea creatures for our Beach Day theme! Check out the seahorses and sharks! Rumour has it there will be even more face painting at the  Year End Picnic on June 28th.

Watch backpacks this Friday for a note coming home with reminders about the Year End Picnic. Special thanks to everyone who has already volunteered to bring watermelon, drive supplies, help supervise, cook and so much more! 

June 29  Last Day of School / Class Party-thanks so much to everyone who has signed up to send treats on this day :)  Also, just a reminder that this is a  HALF DAY.

Twins Triplets and Shaved Heads!

Whoever thought you'd see those words together in a sentence? That's what happens when you combine an MMH spirit assembly and some amazing students, parents, and teachers to support cancer research! Take a look!

   

How To Make Your Grade One Teacher Cry!

Colour me surprised! and colour me blue!  Imagine how it felt to walk into a sea of blue shirts and dresses on Friday in support of Autism Awareness! You got me! Even my own husband and children were in on the surprise and did a fantastic job of keeping it a secret! How do you get 25 first graders to keep a secret that big? Amazing!  Here's a few pic's of Mrs. Payne's big surprise!

  

May and June Upcoming Events!

Hello all!

The last months of school tend to get very busy so I thought I'd post a little update of the events I have booked so far!  A couple are tentative, but I will post more as the dates get closer! Hope this helps for those of you needing to plan ahead!

April 25: Fieldtrip to Lowe's 

Thanks so everyone who responded so quickly! I have enough drivers and volunteers and all the waiver forms are in! :)

May 9: Fieldtrip to the Galt Museum
I will be requiring at least 4 parents to help supervise on this trip.  We will be leaving the school at 10:30am by bus and the program will finish at 12:20am.  Volunteers are welcome to ride the bus with us or meet us at the Galt. 

May 17: Fieldtrip to the Helen Schuler Nature Center  I will be needing several parent drivers for this trip as well as to help supervise at the center.  We will be leaving MMH at 12:45pm and will be leaving the Center at 2:30pm.  
TENTATIVE: June 27 Sports Day:   We will need a few parents to volunteer for the entire day to run a couple of stations. 
TENTATIVE: June 28 Grade One Year End Celebration at the Elks Compound.  We will need a few parents to volunteer for the entire day, but ALL parents will be invited to join their child for a picnic during the lunch hour!

June 29 -Last day of school with picture slideshow in the gym

Fundraising for the Canadian Cancer Society

 Mike Mountain Horse is working hard to raise funds for the Canadian Cancer Society. This week on Wednesday and Thursday we will be hosting daffodil sales in the main foyer and in Mrs. Wik's room for $6 per bunch while supplies last. We will also be selling daffodil pins in the office for $2. We will be doing a cancer walk and are asking our students to collect from family to help with our goal of raising $3000.00 for cancer research. Our beloved Mrs. Wik from preschool will have her head shaved at an assembly on April 19. Thanks so much for your support! Here are a couple of exceptional students who have already raised $75 by setting up a lemonade stand over the holidays!  The Price Girls are now famous for their kind and generous spirits! Way to go girls!

April Newsletter!

Important Dates to Remember

April 4-19 Cancer Fundraising weeks

April 5 Project Based Learning (PBL) Launch! “What makes a bird a bird?”

April 8, *14, 22, 29  SHARING DAY!

April 6, 13, 20,27  Library days

April 12 Cancer Walk at 2:05

April 15 Professional Learning Day
No School for students

April 19 Twin & Triplet Day 8:30 Spirit 
             Assembly
April 22- Earth Day

April 25-Fieldtrip to Lowes 1:00-2:30 Drivers needed please. Return sign up form in corner or email! 

April 26- Hot Lunch Day

Science

We have almost finished our Building Unit and will be starting a plant/animal unit very soon led by our PBL planning.  The children get to immerse themselves in bird habitats, physical adaptations, food, survival behaviours and so much more! They will choose a bird to research and present findings to the class

Lowe’s Fieldtrip!
Our bird and building units tie nicely together with this fieldtrip to build birdhouses (and other fun creations) on Monday April 25th. Thanks to everyone who has responded already!  We have enough drivers for the trip! 

Language Arts
We are launching a big Project Based Learning (PBL)Activity based around the question “What Makes a Bird a Bird?” We’ll be looking at phonics skills like r blends, ou/ow, y as a vowel and continuing with editing skills and research writing all through the theme of their favourite bird.  We continue to work on reading strategies and are zipping along with Daily Five! A HUGE thank you to my reading group parent helpers for your many weeks of service! You made a world of difference for our little readers!

Social

We will be starting a quick little unit on caring for our environment that ties in nicely with Earth Day! After that we dive into a big unit called Moving Forward With the Past!

Sight Words 
April 4-8      open, over, put, round

April 11-15   thank, some, stop, take

April 18-22  them, then, think

April 25-29 when, were, walk

 Math
We continue with Geometry for a little bit longer and squeeze in  Numbers to 100.  This unit includes place value, fact families,  grouping numbers to 100  by 2, 5, and 10 , comparing, representing and , describing numbers to 100. The new mental math strategy is Making 10. We discover all the combinations of numbers that add to make 10!