Mrs. Harwood's Blog

November brings with it the completion of progress reports and parent-teacher interviews. Interviews will take place on the evenings of Thursday, November 10 and Thursday, November 17 and during the morning of Friday, November 18. Further information and a chance to request your preferred interview time was sent home in a note in your child’s agenda on October 31. If this note was misplaced in transit, please let me know by writing a note in your child's agenda and I can send another copy. Confirmation of your time slot will be sent home in home folders on Friday for anyone who has returned the preference sheet at that point.

Our patterning math test will take place on Wednesday, October 26. It is postponed one day in order to allow us a little extra time to review key concepts from the unit. Several students struggled with the mid-chapter review completed earlier this week so we worked through it in class, rather than it being collected and marked. I have suggested to anyone who found it challenging that they may wish to spend some time on their long weekend completing the review sheets for the unit sent home in Home Folders a week ago.

A few pieces of information/reminders:

-new book orders went home today and are due to Ms. Hendy by November 4.

-we are waiting for a few students to finish up their social studies test on government/the election process. Tests should be able to be handed back after the weekend!

-a reminder of our school trip to the Wizard of Oz on Tuesday, December 13. The cost is $25 per student but it will be our class fall trip for this year so hopefully we will all be able to attend!

-Friday, October 21 is a P.A. Day. There is no school for students on this day.

 I was away from school yesterday and returned to find that there had been some issues throughout the day. As these issues reportedly involved a large majority of the class, we spent time today taking steps to hopefully rectify the situation.

Some steps we took include:

- reviewing our classroom agreements: attentive listening, mutual respect, active participation and no put-downs

- sharing our thoughts and feelings about the day and how we thought the people involved felt

- rearranging the classroom setup so that student desks are placed in partners or triads.

- returning to an emphasis on exemplary listening behaviour when it is someone’s turn to talk (teacher or classmate) and on accountability for our whereabouts (being in seats unless permission is given to leave the room or to be working in another area of the classroom)

- placing renewed emphasis on our Tribes program which helps us build inclusiveness and a sense of community within the classroom

- revisiting a book "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?" that we read with Mrs. Hope earlier this year and reminding ourselves how we can fill the buckets of those people around us today and everyday (your child can explain the concepts in the book if you are not familiar with it)

- we are working towards earning the trust of all teachers back so that freedoms and privileges that were previously a natural part of our day can be restored: choosing the partners and groups we work with throughout the day, special events in our week like P.A.T. time or public library visits, etc.

Happily by the end of the day, we were successfully working in groups that students had input in choosing in order to begin the science reports and models we will create about the different systems of the body (i.e. digestive, circulatory, respiratory, etc.). I am expecting that we will continue this positive behaviour as the days progress and just wanted everyone to be aware of our current social emphasis at school!

As the weather is looking pretty rainy for our scheduled public library visit on Wednesday, we will plan in advance to postpone it for a day and will try to visit on Thursday instead. This will also allow a little extra time for the books we are waiting for that will help us research our new science topics (different systems in the body- i.e. circulatory, digestive, respiratory) to arrive at the Palmerston library. If we are rained out on Thursday as well, we will reschedule our visit for one day next week and I will let you know details once planned.

We have wrapped up our first social studies unit on the rights and responsibilities of Canadians, the structure of the federal and provincial government, the responsibilities of the different levels of government, voting and the election process. We will have a short test on Monday, October 17, and in preparation for this we completed a review in class today. Students completed this activity in groups and we reviewed the answers in class. Each student has a copy of the review, which should be found in their Home Folders this week. (Home Folders were sent home today, Thursday, instead of Friday as we have many class members away at the cross country meet tomorrow.) You may wish to encourage your child to share with you some of the key concepts they have learned during this unit to help them consolidate their understanding. Participating in Student Vote and creating posters to present to others the platforms of the major political parties in our riding has really helped to make the learning in this unit very real and understandable.  

The results of Student Vote 2011 are in...

Our school, like Ontario students as a whole, voted for an NDP minority government with the Liberals forming the opposition. At our school, the Green Party came in a close third!

We learned a lot about the government and electoral process through preparing for and taking part in Student Vote. All members of our class played a role on "election day", either as deputy returning officers, poll clerks, scrutineers or as volunteers who greeted voters and directed them to their polling station. I'm sure your child (if they haven't already) would love to share with you what their role was, as well as their understanding of what the job of each election official is.

As one of our class novel studies for first term, we have been reading "The Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum. Our Wizard of Oz unit will be a cross-curricular one as we will also incorporate it into media literacy and the arts with activities like watching the movie and comparing it to the novel, analyzing dramatic techniques used within the motion picture and putting on our own mini-play, complete with simple sets and props. We have been given a further opportunity to extend our learning surrounding this story by seeing it produced as a musical by a professional theatre company. Our school has the opportunity to travel to St. Jacobs on Tuesday, December 13 to see the play at 10:30am. This wonderful cultural and artistic experience is open to all students in the school. It would be wonderful if every member of our class was able to attend to enhance their learning and understanding of a story that has been and will be such a focus for us this term. In an effort to minimize the amount of money you are being asked to pay for class trips this year, I have not scheduled any other fall class bus trips (though we will still attend Earth Keepers as our year-end trip in the spring) so that all students will hopefully be able to participate in this experience. If the price of the trip is the only aspect that is holding you back from having your child attend, please speak to me or send me a note and we can work something out that will allow your child to attend. (You will see on the order form that you have the option of paying in installments which could help as well.) Order forms will go home tomorrow with oldest and only children. If you do not receive one in the next few days, please let me know and I can send home an extra.

On Wednesday, October 5, the students make their choice for who they would like to see represent Perth-Wellington in Toronto! In advance of the provincial election, our class will be participating in Student Vote, which gives students across the province the chance to experience the voting process first-hand. Students fill the roles of all traditional election officials and have the chance to cast a vote in an authentic voting situation. This extends our current Social Studies learning where we have discussed rights and responsibilities of Canadians, created posters to convince others why voting is important and have researched the party platforms and candidates of all the parties running in our riding. We will share Student Vote election results after the actual provincial election- student deputy returning officers who count our votes are sworn to secrecy until then!

Students are beginning to return home reading sheets from September. Please send these yellow sheets back to school so we can count your child’s reading minutes toward our class goal of 20 000 minutes of reading. So far our "minutes read" total is 615 minutes!