We made it through the first day!

Today, we practiced classroom routines and reviewed classroom rules. We will continue to review classroom expectations over the next few weeks. I appreciate your support in building a strong relationship to support your child's growth throughout the remainder of the year. Please send in all Home Reading books by Wednesday. Check back here on Friday for our 'Weekly Challenge'. Have a great week!

7 Tips to help your readers at home

1)  Set aside time to read at least 4-5 times a week.  Yes…this will be a struggle since they’re going to buck you. Be consistent… this should be a non-negotiable.  These are the types of kids to set page goals with, not minutes.  They will know every trick in the book to waste time.  By setting a page goal of say… 5-10 pages per day, this gives them some power.  When the pages are read, they are done for the day.

2)  Use incentives such as…

·       Trade time for something they love to do… certain number of pages read translate into minutes to spend watching TV or playing video games.

·       Or so many books read= a trip to McDonalds or a park.

·       Or just down and out bribe them…(yes I went there…) there are some summers I have paid a buck a book that was read (with guidelines).  But some times, desperate times call for desperate measures.

3) Read WITH your child…he reads a page, you read a page.  (I know at times this will be painful… just keep reminding yourself… Reading is important, reading is important… and who knows…maybe you’ll really get into the book!)

4) Have “reading parties” where every one brings a book and snuggles in a spot to read their book.  Sometimes just snuggling in next to mom or dad is enough motivation to read for a while.

5) If your struggling reader has a younger brother or sister, you have just scored big time!  Get them to read to their younger sibling(s).

If you have an older reader in your home, have them read a picture book.  This means the stories are usually shorter (and less intimidating) and probably at a lower reading level (which will make them feel successful when they read it).  They get practice reading and the younger sibling gets the benefit of being read to… also very important!

6) Make sure your struggling reader is reading books that are interesting to them.  Kids will read if they find the book interesting. Don’t worry about reading “high quality literature”. At this point, the goal is to get them reading… and the best way to do that is make sure they are interested in what they read.

7) If the book your kid is reading (and enjoying) is part of a series, try sticking to the series.  A series gives your reader the same format, the same characters, and often the same setting for several books.  These familiar things will help them understand the story more quickly.

Christmas Fun!

We had a busy and fun week. The winter concert was great and we did lots of fun activities.

 Wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday!

Fieldtrip to the Children's Museum

We had very fun afternoon at the Children's Museum.  Here are a few pictures!

We have been busy...

The students did a fantastic job sharing their portfolios at their Celebration of Learning last week. Bravo!

 We have been busy learning our French Christmas vocabulary and doing Christmas Math learning centres.

We have also been working hard at Read to Self for the Daily 5 program and building "stamina"! 

This week we all took part in decorating a tree. It looks lovely!

Bag Up Manitoba 2014

Today we had a surprise assembly.  We won a bench for being the second school in the province in collecting plastic bags.  Out of 171 schools, 1.6 million plastic bags were collected. Our school alone collected more than 53,000 bags. We also won a planter box. The planter and bench are made out of plastic bags and composite.

Bravo les élèves!

Dancing with the Stars

Yesterday, the kids had a blast in the gym for our annual Dance-a-thon "Dancing With the Stars".  Some celebrities stopped by to show us some of their moves... Luke Bryan, Stephanie Tanner, Katy Perry, Adam Levine, Batman, Superman and many others!