Wednesday

Hi parents,

Sorry about the lack of a blog post for yesterday, we have staff meetings at 3:00 on Tuesdays, so it's tricky for me to find time to write the blog. Plus it wasn't a very good day anyway (it was kind of crazy and loud).

Today on the other hand was a good day for our class! The students used their time well during the work period, and did some excellent advice-writing in response to the prompt: "When Mrs. Parkinson retires, she should..." We had a class discussion about 'retirement' too.

The highlight of the day was probably our "Settlers of Kanata" project. The students have clearly gotten the hang of it since our first attempt, and today, I saw more cooperation, more trading, and more strategic planning from all five of our community groups! Today I introduced the idea of the various roles a student can play within a group. I think it is a lot easier to work as a team when each person is given a meaningful job. One student in each group was given the job 'mayor', which basically means that they had the final say in all decisions that their group made. Each day, the group will choose a new student to be the mayor.

I've started to introduce the Grade 1 students to the concept of two-digit addition! This is another one of those things where practicing at home can be a complete game changer for students. We're looking at problems that look like this: 

I am encouraging students to remember to add up the numbers in the ONES column first before moving to the TENS. This is a good habit to get into, because eventually we'll do problems with regrouping (carrying the one). Please practice these types of problems at home if you have time!

Also, speaking of math, Friday is Math Shirt Day. Students are encouraged to wear shirts / clothing with patterns, shapes, and numbers on them.

Student-Led Conferences

Student-Led Conferences are coming up on Thursday, March 19th from 4:00-8:00pm and Friday, March 20th from 8:00am-1:00pm. Each family will sign up for a 30 minute time slot, and 2 families can sign up at the same time. This is a chance for your child to share their learning, rather than having a sit-down meeting with me, so please make sure they attend! We are working on a few things that we are excited to share with you! The conference bookings are now open and you should have received an email from the school earlier this week. Please do not hesitate to call the office or send me an email if you are having trouble with booking a conference.

Have a nice night,

Zac