Thanks for checking in!

Although there aren't any holidays or major events happening this month, there is still a lot going on.  Take this week, for example:
12
13 - Snowshoeing
14 - Blue & Gold Day
        Tobogganing
15 - Library
16 - Hot Lunch money due

If you haven't returned the tobagganing consent form, I am sending another one home today.  If you are choosing not to send it back, that is completely fine.  Your child can enjoy playing in the snow.  We will be going over safety rules beforehand and along those lines:

Your child MUST have a helmet of some kind.  No helmet, no tobogganing.

There should be a Scholastic Book order coming home this week.  Please have them back by Wednesday, January 21st. 

Other important days coming up:

January:
27 - Hot Lunch
30 - No School

February:
4 - Winter Walk Day
6 - Arctic Day
12 - Wear Red Day
13 - 100th Day
14-22 - No School!
25 - Pink Shirt Day

Cheers!

I hope everyone had a relaxing fall break.  I know I did!  Report cards were finished last week and they will come home this Friday, November 14th.  You can start signing up for Parent Teacher Interviews tomorrow via Conference Manager.  It is first come, first serve.  Hopefully there are enough time slots to accommodate everyone.  The link can be found on our school webpage.


There will be a Scholastic Book Fair in the library on Thursday, November 20 and Friday November 21 during interview time so you can visit with your child and choose books together.


All the caretakers in the district are collecting new socks for those less fortunate in our city.  If you would like to help out, please send them to school this month. 


No spelling this week as it is a short week.


We said goodbye to our friend, Rylie, today.  He is moving back to Australia.  We will sure miss him!

Sorry!  I definitely meant to do this sooner (especially since they wrote it in their agendas).  Thank you for checking back.

It is a busy week in grade 2 with a field trip tomorrow to Galt Museum, Chocolate Day (a few activities followed up with making chocolate), and of course, Halloween on Friday.  The spelling test will still be on Friday - I know, I'm a big meanie;-) 

If you are looking for somewhere to unload the large amount of candy your child will collect on Friday night, why not have them turn it into money?  Able Dental will buy your candy for $1.00 per pound.  They will send the candy to the troops overseas at Christmas.  Their address is 511 5 Street South and they will accept candy on November 1st from 9am-5pm.

Some things to look forward to in November:

November 7 - Remembrance Day Assembly
November 10/11 - No School
November 14 - Report Cards Home
November 18 - Pyjama Day
November 20/21 - Parent/Teacher Interviews

As report cards are just around the corner, we are finishing up several units in different subjects. 

We have finished the Small Flying and Crawling Animals unit in science.  After learning how to care for our 'pet' spider, Blackie, he (she?) was set free this past weekend.  Our next unit will be Hot/Cold Temperatures.

In math we are almost finished the Number Concepts unit which included skip counting, odd/even, ordinal numbers, estimating, representing numbers in a variety of ways, place value, greater/less than and ordering numbers.  Our next unit is adding/subtracting.  We will be working on learning basic facts with a sum or difference of 20 by memory.  If you want to get a head start, go for it! 

Happy Halloween!

What beautiful SUMMER weather we have today!  We'll have to remember this when it starts snowing.

A reminder that there is no school Thursday afternoon or Friday this week.

I haven't been giving challenge words for spelling because I thought 15 words was already enough.  Some of the students are asking for them and my answer is to make the last five words the challenge.  Learn to spell them without looking!

Last Friday was the first day that the kids were able to cash in their "fuzzies".  It's our form of currency in the class.  They earn them for good behaviour, hard work, etc.  Their purchases are cards with some kind of reward for which they trade it for.  For example, Wear your pyjamas at school, eat lunch with the teacher, bring a stuffy to school.  Some kids are taking advantage of their rewards today.  The rewards are a fun alternative to candy (although some kids are chewing gum today!) and it costs me little to nothing - bonus! 

Thank you for those who have donated food to the 'Feed the Bug' program.  We have two more days to bring some in before the tallies are counted up to see which class earns the coveted Spirit Cup. 

Thank you!

I hope you had a great long weekend!  It's a short week so there will be only 'no excuse' words (words that they should always spell correctly using the word wall or their personal dictionary) for spelling. 

Thank you for all the contributions to our Stone Soup last week.  The kids enjoyed making it and most thought it tasted pretty good.  And thank to the parents who joined us in downtown Lethbridge for our treasure hunt while learning about the history of Galt Gardens and the surrounding buildings - Mrs. McAulay, Mrs. Toles, Mr. Oshima and Mrs. Brunelle.

We are getting close to finishing up with our Small Crawling and Flying Animals unit in science.  The kids have really enjoyed learning about those little creatures.  They have each created a writing project based on the book "Diary of a Worm/Spider/Fly" and replaced the animal with their own choice.  They have worked so hard on these little books.  I can't wait for them to share.

In math we have been working on number concepts such as odd/even, ordinals, estimating, number representation and skip counting.  The latter took a lot of our focus and it could still be reinforced at home.  In grade one they learned skip counting from zero by 2s, 5s and 10s.  In grade two we are building on that skill by asking them to start at any number and skip count from there.  For example, count by 5s starting at 65 and ending at 100.  Or count by 10s starting at 7.  Feel free to give your child oral questions such as those to help them gain strength with this skill.  We have moved on to making numbers using rods (10s) and cubes (1s). 

Our Feed The Bug program has started and we are in search of some non-perishable food item donations.  There is a friendly competition between each class to see which one can collect the most items.  Anything you can contribute would be great appreciated.

Some important dates:

Now - Oct. 22 :  Feed the Bug program
Oct. 21 : Hot Lunch
               Retakes
Oct. 22 : Feed the Bug assembly
Oct. 28 : Galt Museum field trip
Oct. 29 : Chocolate Day!
Oct. 31 : Halloween - students may wear their costumes for the day (no weapons)

A housekeeping note:  If your child has shoes at school that have laces and require tying, please help them learn to tie them if they don't know already.  There are a lot of long laces trailing behind some students that are unsafe and it's a skill that should be practiced regularly at this age. 

First off a BIG thank you to the parent volunteers who drove last week to Fort Whoop Up - Mr. Oshima, Mrs. McAulay, Mrs. Norsworthy, Mrs. Fox, and Mrs. Brunelle.

Thank you for helping your child with the "no excuse" words.  Some kids were so proud that they had them memorized.  Others felt like they were cheating when I said they could use their dictonaries or the word wall.  I just explained that even adults can look up tricky words so why can't they? 

Reminder that tomorrow we are making Stone Soup.  Thank you for sending in your ingredient prepped to just plop into the pot.  Thursday is their little performance at 10:15 in the stage music room if you can make it.

Enjoy your week!

The last Monday of September!

Thank you to the parents who were able to come with us on our walks this month.  The weather sure cooperated.

You will notice that there are 15 spelling words written in your child's agenda today.  As I explained to them,  the first 10 are the regular spelling words.  The last 5, however, are different in that during the test on Friday they will be able to look in their personal dictionaries or on the word wall to help them with the correct spelling.  We call these "No Excuse" words.  They may not necessarily have them memorized but they must know where to find them and spell correctly in all their writing, not just the test.  The other 10 are mostly phonetic so they should be able to sound them out or use their knowledge of word families to help.  There are no offical challenge words this week but feel free to make these "no excuse" words a challenge.  Can they spell them without looking?

Next week we will be making Stone Soup in the classroom.  Your child will come home with a vegetable to bring on Tuesday, October 7th to contribute to this soup.  More information will come later this week.  Thank you ahead of time for your help with this.

October Scholastic forms will come home on Wednesday.  Please have them back to me by next Tuesday, October 7th.

~Mrs. Neeve