Parent Information

                                 

 

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