The week ahead

The week ahead is a short one, but we will be hoping to pack a lot into it as we are right back into the swing of things in 2015!  To start off, I want to acknowledge Katey and Ethan, who are the two student that put the most time into IXL math at home this past week.  They both came close to almost 100 questions this week, so well done.  Again, if your child is trying, and is not able to access IXL at home, please let me know.  The link is on our class blog, and they all have simple passwords and logins, so I should be able to help you set this up easily.  There is even a simple app that makes it easy to access from an Ipad, Ipod, or IOS device.

Thank you for your support with the homework that students worked on last week.  The search for family stories seemed to really excite the students.  We are going to use the stories that students gathered to develop some oral communication skills, as we select each students' strongest (out of the three they gathered) and work on building rich language to help perfect the delivery of the stories.  We hope to develop our stories and film them in the coming weeks.

Our third skating session is coming up at the end of the month.  If you can make it out, please let Ray know.  We need two volunteers for the bus ride over, and as many as can make it to help with skate tying once we are there (we skate from 10 to 11).

Our literacy logs will not be going home this week, as it is a short week.

Bordenball was a big success as an intramural, and when we took the students to an alternative schools tournament in December.  Triple ball (a version of volleyball) is starting up.  Ask your child if they are going to get involved, as it will be a great lunchtime option for weeks to come, and will lead to another fun alternative schools sport day in March.

In math we have moved into work with decimals, as well as fractions, in language we are looking at comprehension, main ideas, and how to use facts from the text to support our connections, in Social Studies we continue to look at how Canada interacts on the global stage, and in Science we will move from our exploration of static electricity, to work with current electricity.

FYI - As I am sure many of you have noticed, we changed our approach to the use of our agenda in December.  Students are now asked to write down the day's schedule off of the board each day, and at the end of the day we make additional notes home regarding important messages that need to be relayed.  This is a step we are taking in hopes that you can be better informed as to what we have done each day.  Typically it will include subjects, and a brief word about what we are doing in each.  Use this as a tool to help you engage your child in discussions regarding what they have done in school each day, as well as to stay on top of important events happening in the class.

Pizza forms are due by Wednesday.

There is no news on the baby front so far, but it could be any day now...I will keep you informed.

Regards,

Ray Kalynuk