St. Gabriel School 2012-2013 School Year
Dear Clifford Class
Parents/Guardians,
Our year is underway and we seem
to be settling in and enjoying grade 1! My group of grade one's are an awesome
group. We have been working on listening skills, making positive choices,
making and keeping friends, working independently without bothering our
neighbors, responsibility, what is the student's job and the teacher's job, and
our BIG concept is self-control. All the above will be an on-going process in
our classroom. Daily reminders and circle discussions will help our grade one's
become more responsible and hard working citizens.
Beginning learning experiences:
Our grade one's have been busy
studying the author of Clifford the Big Red Dog books, Norman Bridwell. We have
been working very hard in all subject areas. We have started Jolly Phonics and
are already printing, spelling and reading words. In math we are learning about
patterns. In the social studies program we are studying people and the
relationships with their social and physical environments as well as their
decision making skills, we are focusing on rules at school, at home and in our
society. In science we are learning about Earth and Space. In religion we are
learning about love and belonging, In Fully Alive and health we are learning
about ourselves. So as you can see all our units of study lends itself to one
another. The students learning experiences won't be isolated and therefore,
more intellectually
stimulating. Our
grade one class will be using a Balanced Literacy approach to language arts
this year. Basically it means that we will take the children from complete
support to independence, as they become ready to attempt reading/writing tasks.
During the morning the children will do a variety of activities that involve
working with words in order to develop phonics skills, spelling skills, as well
as instant recognition of high frequency words (word wall words). There is a
great deal of teacher modeling of reading and writing as well as shared reading
and writing where the children, under the teacher's guidance, read and write
together. Most importantly, children are given daily opportunities to
independently practice reading (at an appropriate level) and writing skills. We
frequently ask the children the following questions: Does it make sense? Does
it sound right? Does it look right?
Home work:
A
"home reading" program will be implemented in October, where your
child will bring home books to read independently to you. This extra practice
is essential to successful reading progress. Children need to be free to
experiment and attempt tasks without fear of failure. Our role as teachers, is
to create an environment that is safe, where children feel comfortable enough
to take risks with learning. There are leveled benchmarks that we would prefer
to see the students reach at the end of grade one. I will go into more detail
of these benchmarks throughout the year. There
may be some additional smaller amount of homework each night for your
child in grade 1. It is important that you complete the work when it comes home
because it will reinforce concepts we have taught in class and much of the
learning in grade 1 is reinforced through repetition. Examples of homework may
include; practicing printing skills and the sounds of each letter, reading
books from our home reading program, practicing weekly spelling words
and some math concepts like number recognition, counting and addition and
subtraction. Homework in grade one is very limited. If work does go home, I
suggest that you work on it with your child for no longer than 15 minutes.
Reading
stories to your child everyday is extremely important to develop early literacy
and story language necessary for learning to read and write. Your child will eventually
be bringing home books to read to you each night. Please discuss some of the
books you read with your child. Talking about why the characters acted the way
they did in the story; as well as retelling the important events greatly
enhances comprehension.
Prep
teachers:
Some
of the subjects in grade 1 are taught by prep teachers. Mrs. Chicilo will teach
physical education and Mrs. Bresciani teaches them drama, dance, music, and
visual arts, and Mrs. Scott will be doing book exchange. Math, science, social
studies, health and language arts will be taught by me.
Big
Buddies:
Our
big buddies will be the grade 5 class. We have had a meet and greet activity
with them today for the first time. Our big buddies are very excited to partner
up with us. We look forward to many happy meetings and activities with them.
Nutrition Breaks: - We
will have one Nutrition Breaks every day, each with 10-15 minutes for eating.
We encourage the children to eat their ‘brain foods” (ie. nutritious items)
before any treats. Healthy food choices are discussed and encouraged throughout
the year. St. Gabriel School is NUT-FREE. Please ensure that your child’s lunches
and snacks do not include anything containing peanuts, almonds, hazelnuts, and
any other kind of nut.
Agendas: - Please check and send in your child’s planner every day, as this is a
great way for us to correspond with each other. Notes can be written on the
right hand page (please remember to date your note) if you write on the left
hand page then your child is frustrated that he/she is unable to use that
space. Thank you. We will sticker or stamp the agenda daily. Please initial
daily, so we know you have seen the planner.
Scholastic
Book Club: – this is an
opportunity to purchase quality books for you and your family at reasonable
prices. This is a VOLUNTARY program and there are monthly book orders with many
different books available each month. If you are interested in purchasing any
of the items in the flyer, please complete the order form and send a CHEQUE made
out to SCHOLASTIC CANADA LTD. and send it to school with your son or daughter.
See the class calendar for the due date for all orders. Please remember to put
your child’s name on the order form. We are sorry, however, we are unable to
send cash into scholastic. We will start book orders in October.
Weekly Helpers: At the beginning of the week
I choose helpers by pulling their name out of a jar to ensure all students get
a turn at a job. I will post the weekly helpers on the blog site. Our helpers
have been very efficient with their daily jobs.
Toys
From Home: – Please ensure
all toys from home stay at home! Toys that are brought to school have a
tendency of getting lost or broken, and we don’t want anyone to have that
happen to them.
Birthdays:
When a child celebrates a
birthday in grade one, we sing Happy Birthday and your child gets a treat and a
birthday certificate. If the birthday child would like to bring a small treat
for the class I welcome it, but this is completely optional.
Please make sure that whatever is sent is pre-cut and ready to serve. Also
please remember that we are a nut free school, so all snacks must be free of
any nuts. If a student has a birthday on a non-school day or during the summer
we will pick a day to celebrate an un-birthday and let you know through the
agenda book which day we have chosen. We will celebrate all summer birthdays in
June.
Contact:
Check
out our grade one blog site: Lucegradeone.blogspot.com
Clifford
Class Expectations:
I
want to thank you for your FABULOUS support in implementing our
"Bee-Havior" contract. I am very impressed at how we were able to
work together to create a safe and efficient learning environment for all
students. We have discussed what kind of year we would like to have and the
things that each of us needs to do in order to make that happen. We discussed
negative (not bad) choices and positive choices and the students understand the
expectations and are already following wonderfully. I have seen some awesome
positive choices being made. We will continue to use the card system as it has
been working wonderfully. I have seen the difference it is making each and
every day. Please remember even if your child gets a red card, tomorrow is a
new day. It simply means they made a negative choice and they are only little
humans. I make mistakes all the time and I let the students know I
say...." Miss. Lucey made a booboo, I guess I'll have to pay more
attention next time." I am not afraid to let them know I make mistakes. Thank
you in advance for your continued support. Note: I don't believe in
sending your child in the hallway as a time out. However, I won't hesitate to
move their desk if they are making negative choices and are disturbing others.
They will be moved back later in the day to give them another chance to fix the
problem, if it persists I will certainly let you know via the agenda. It is not
often I send children to the office but I will invite Mrs. Perras in to observe
and take note of the issue at hand. Again, I will keep you informed.
I
have had an enjoyable but exhausting start to the year. I look forward to
working with you and your child this year. Please don't hesitate to contact me
through notes ( note bucket ), or through the agenda.
Thank
you very much for your cooperation thus far!
Sincerely,
Mrs.
Mavis Luce
