We are 100 days SMARTER!

The grade 1s have been keeping track since the very first day of school and are very excited to celebrate their 100th day of school tomorrow!

Your child may come home and excitedly tell you that we are having a PARTY. Please don't panic! You do not need to bring anything in or do anything special. We will be having a regular day with some fun, 100-themed activities in math, writing, reading and more! 

Thank you for your continued support in your child's education and looking forward to a fun day:)

Welcome back!

Welcome back from your long weekend!

We started off our week by doing activities with our new sight words: more, look, two, has and time. We have also continued to work on our Very Hungry Animal stories by adding in some juicy, descriptive words!

For math we have been practicing using our mental math skills to solve math problems. This week we focused on our doubles and doubles + 1 strategy.

Our plants have grown so tall that we needed to re-pot them in separate pots,  add soil and place them in the window of our classroom. Ask your child how they plan to help take care of our class plants!

I have started getting the Family Interview questionnaires back from the students;  thank you! In case some of my students lost their sheet I will be sending another one home soon so that we can start presenting next week.

I hope everyone enjoys the rest of the short week:-)

Our Short Week!

Just a REMINDER that there is no school on Thursday, February 16th, Friday, February 17th and Monday, February 20th due to Teacher's convention and family day.

The students in room 119 had a fun, short week! On Tuesday we did a Valentine's day craft, listened to some music and discussed ways that we have shown HEART here at Ken Taylor this year. I am going to start keeping track of students who get "caught" showing the HEART values and other students can also nominate their peers for being helpful, accepting, empathetic responsible and truthful.

For Science, we used our senses to describe our basil, dill and parsley plants. We even used our sense of taste today! Some of the students liked the taste of the plants while others did NOT!

We then drew diagrams of our plants, with labels, and wrote some describing words to explain the taste. Ask your child which plant tasted the best!

For literacy, we have been working on a new wall story. This week it was 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' by Eric Carl. Our book, of course, is illustrated by us! We read it every day and find sight words, new vocabulary, patterns and punctuation.

We are using the pattern in this book to write a story of our own. Each student picked an animal and then followed the pattern of the story to create their own, sometimes silly story! We are going to do some research next week about our animals and find out what sorts of things they like to eat. The vocabulary we are focusing on with this activity is the days of the week, numbers words and some tough words like 'through' and 'hungry'. This also ties into our science units of the senses and our upcoming unit, the Needs of Plants and Animals. Ask your child which animal they are writing about!

Enjoy your long weekend with your families and I will see you all On Tuesday, February 21st when classes resume!

~Ms. Carstairs

Valentine's Day

For Valentine’s Day tomorrow, our class will be participating in holiday themed activities; we will not be having a ‘party’. If your child would like to bring Valentines (this is not mandatory!) please bring for the entire class to ensure no one feels left out! I sent home a list of student names with your child today; we have 12 boys and 12 girls.

Thanks!

OPENING CEREMONY Reminder!

Dear Parents/Guardians:

As you know our School’s Grand Opening Ceremony will be held next Friday, February 10^th at 1:00 pm.  This is a great opportunity for the CBE and the provincial government to acknowledge the importance of public education.  Through a variety of ways, our students will be expressing their appreciation for all the many hardworking people required to build our school.  Additional highlights include a few words from an Elder and several government officials, both provincial and civic, who will be present to share their support.  We are especially fortunate to have Ken Taylor’s wife, Patricia, join us to share some words and share in our celebration as well. 

As our limited space will not allow for a general attendance we will have tickets available on-line for both the official ceremony and at the dress rehearsal on Thursday, February 9^th at 1:00 pm as well.

Each person attending the evening performance needs to have a ticket. This includes all children who require a seat. Please be aware that due to limited space, strollers are not allowed in the gym.

Ticket requests for the dress rehearsal and Grand Opening Ceremony will be available online through a web-based booking tool called Eventbrite. To use this application, you will be required to give an active email account. To register and complete the ticket request process, please follow the steps below by the outlined dates.

Steps to request tickets:

Access the following internet link contained in this email on your computer (you must have an active email address to set up an account):    https://kdtopeningceremony.eventbrite.ca

You will come to a page titled:  Kenneth D. Taylor School Dress Rehearsal and Grand Opening

1. Below the title Grand Opening  Click the green register button and enter email information.

2. Under the section Ticket Information there are two options displayed:

·         Thursday, February 9^th, @ 1:00 pm – Dress Rehearsal -    you can request up to a maximum of 2 tickets per family.

·         Friday, February 10^th, @ 1:00 pm – Grand Opening Ceremony - you can request up to a maximum of 2 tickets per family.

·         All tickets will be issued on a first come, first serve basis.

·         Click Check Out

3. You will arrive at a screen where you need to input your information.  Complete the information and click the green complete registration button.

4. You will arrive at a screen that confirms your ticket order. Your tickets, along with information about the event, will be emailed to the account you gave to register.   Please provide paper or electronic tickets on the evening of the performance.  

We greatly appreciate parents requesting their tickets using this online process.  We look forward to seeing you on either the afternoon of February 9^th or 10^th, 2017.

 

Sincerely,

David Dyck

Our week

This is going to be a busy week preparing everything for the big opening on Friday! Today the entire school participated in a video that will be played at the dress rehearsal on Thursday and the opening on Friday, so stay tuned ;-) The confetti pictures are a clue!

For literacy, our sight words this week are: them, these, so, some and her. I will send home some practice activities in the yellow folder.

We finished illustrating our first Wall Story and I have turned it into a class book! Tomorrow we have a new story to learn and illustrate.

In Math we will continue to practice our mental math strategies in order to strengthen our number sense. Again, I will send home some activities in the yellow folder.

In social studies we are continuing our unit on family and belonging. Students will be interviewing their families at home and presenting to the class in a couple of weeks. Please look for the white interview form if you did not receive it from me at conferences.

For science we are going to use our 5 senses to TASTE our plants and describe them, now that all three have grown! The plants are basil, dill and parsley. Please let me know if you would rather your child not taste the herbs and they can just use their other senses:-)

Hope to see parents at the dress rehearsal and/or opening and am looking forward to a busy week!

Student Led Conferences

Student-Led Conferences: Please bring your child to the conference as they will be leading it.

This round of conferences will be student led.  This means that your child will take you to centers within the room and demonstrate their learning by completing tasks for you. Each child will receive a 'passport' that has a list of the centers that they will show you. The centers are Reading, Writing, Math and Teacher centers. I will be available in the classroom to have a quick chat and assist.  There will be multiple families in the room at once, so there will not be the opportunity for lengthy or private discussions about your child's progress.  If I need to discuss your child's progress in depth, or you have something you would like to speak to me about in private, please contact me to book a meeting outside of interview time.

Book fair this week!

Wednesday, February 1st
 Book Fair viewing/ purchasing for students in 119
Thursday, February 2nd
 Book Fair open to families at conferences

 3:30 – 7:30 Student–Led Conferences 

Friday, February 3rd
 Book Fair open to families at conferences No School for students
 8:00 – 1:00 Student–Led Conferences


UPCOMING DATES TO NOTE: 

• Feb 10th Grand Opening Ceremony – 1:00 pm• Feb 16th & 17th Teachers Convention - No School for Students!
• Feb 20th Family Day – No School!
• Feb 22nd Fun Lunch
Thank you,
Ms. C