September 29th

I'm going to try writing this before school today, as Friday's are generally pretty busy for me.

Thanks to everyone for coming out last night to Open House, it was great to meet so many of the parents. 

To those of you who were not able, sorry I missed you, but my door is always open.  Send me an email and we can arrange something.

Last night I put up an interview schedule for the conferences to take place after the Progress reports go home in November.  If you didn't get a chance to sign up, or want to change your times, please do. If none of those days work for you, send me an email and I'm sure we can arrange an alternate time.

Here is the link to the schedule:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1poQmlqIugsO5A2cC6jKfHhcbfWCftp9X7J0N2GCJocw/edit?usp=sharing

Lastly, thanks to the volunteers for helping out yesterday with yesterday's field trip!

OK...here is what is suppose to happen today!

Period 1- We'll have a circle, do read some of The Scarecrow Walks At Midnight (said in a creepy voice).  Next, some independent reading.

Period 2 we'll work on our readers writers workshop.  A quick mini lesson on how rearranging words in a sentence is a powerful revision technique.  Then we'll write (they're so awesome at this)

Period 3 we have the computers.  I'm going to give them some time to work on the 2 (and 3 for some) digit addition with assignments I've set up on math prodigy.  There might be a little time for some 'free time' (it's Friday after all) towards the end of the period.

Period 4 we have gym.

Period 5 and 6 Orchard Park is going to have it's first Panther Pack day.  We're going to mix the kids from all grades and both streams into groups and work on strengthening the community here at OP.  

September 27th

Another good day so far...

We started off the day by talking about what makes a good partner and what makes a 'not-so-good' partner.  We came up with some great ideas.

Then we read a couple of awesome chapters of The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight.  Then we had some independent reading time.

After that we started our Writer's workshop...we looked closely at what makes R.L. Stine's writing so interesting.   We were so in to our writing, that I lost track of time and the bell rang before our Author's Chair. 

So after nutrition break, we had Grayson, Lara and Melissa share their wonderful writing. 

We did a number talk then talked about 2 digit addition.  I let kids choose their worksheet (easy, medium and hard...).

Quite a few kids are struggling with re-grouping...might not be a bad idea to practise this with your children at home if you notice them having trouble.

Period 4 Mrs. Smith came in for social studies.

Period 5 Mrs. Djononvich had the kids for music.

Period 6 We'll be finishing up some math.

REMINDER -Tomorrow we're on our field trip all day to Kelso conservation area for the Halton Water Festival.  Please make sure your kids are prepared to be outside all day (hats, sunscreen, lunch).  Also, tomorrow night is open house from 6 - 7:30...so I apologize in advance for the state of my room!

September 26th

Something is up with Weebly...and I've been thinking about switching to Blogger for a while now.

Why not start today?

I'm hoping that through blogger I can somehow send email notifications to parents of when I blog...I apologize...I'm still learning.

The PD day on a Monday has  really messed me up!

Period 1 we had our weekend round up.
Period 2 we had some independent reading then our writers workshop.  The kids are really getting into the spirit of the workshop.  Some amazing writing already happening our class.
Period 3 Ayla, Maanit and Ellene shared the 'author's chair' to share some of their writing.  We had library.
Period 4 (now) Mrs. Smith is teaching social studies...while I'm figuring out how to use this website?
Period 5 we have the computers.  I've created some addition questions on Prodigy.
Period 6 we're going to be playing some math games to help us with our addition.

https://www.hand2mind.com/pdf/40975_sample.pdf

Any extra practise you can do at home to improve confidence (starting with addition, then moving to the dreaded subtraction) will definitely help your child!