Once Upon a Time....

Dear Parents,

We have started our unit on Fairy Tales and are learning how to create them. I have been teaching the children about story mapping, which involves learning how to create a setting, characters, problem and solution. This all ties into Narrative Writing and how to write a story so that it makes sense by incorporating a setting, characters, a beginning, middle and end. We made a class fairy tale together with everyone's input and it turned out to be quite a lot of fun.

The children have asked me to put it on the Blog so that you could all read it. As well, I am going to type it out and they will have to illustrate it. From there we will then begin to create our own individual tales. So...without further ado here it is!

The Lost Princess

Once upon a time there lived King Hayden, Queen Kate and their two sons, Prince Owen M. and Prince Cuan.

One day the two princes decided it was time for them to get married. They looked all over the kingdom to find a beautiful princess. All their brave and courageous knights helped them search but to no avail. Nearby in a dark, deep and black cave lived a mean and ugly Witch Laura and her fierce pet dragon, Dimitri. Witch Laura heard that the princes were looking for princesses to marry. She decided with the help of Dimitri to capture all the princesses in the land. Dimitri the dragon went into the Kingdom and burned down many castles with princesses. There was only one princess and her faithful lady-in-waiting who survived the fire. They fled into the forest. Princess Savannah and her maid Lady Chantel were left lost and wandering through the dark woods.

Meanwhile, back at the palace King Hayden and Queen Kate were conferring with their wizard Mateo. He looked into his magic, crystal ball and saw the two maidens wandering in the woods. King Hayden summoned his nine brave knights, Sir Ewan, Sir Spencer, Sir Sam, Sir Lucas, Sir Jesse, Sir Ryan, Sir Ethan, Sir Nikolas and Sir Owen S. He sent his knights out to rescue the beautiful maidens.

Back in the forest, the two maidens suddenly saw a bright and shining light. It was a beautiful fairy godmother Maya. She waved her magic wand and the two maidens suddenly had new, lovely gowns and golden slippers.

Meanwhile, Dimitri the Dragon was wandering the forest looking for more princesses. The brave knights came upon him and Sir Ewan, Sir Ethan and Sir Spencer charged at him and threw a steel netting over him. Then Sir Jesse, Sir Ryan, Sir Sam, Sir Nikolas, Sir Lucas and Sir Owen S. cut off his head to show the king. The gallant knights rode on and found the princess and her Lady. They took them back to the castle and the wizard Mateo turned the Witch Laura into a cuddly puppy for the king and queen. The wizard changed her brain so that she would be a good and faithful dog.

Prince Cuan and Prince Owen M. were delighted with the two young maidens. Prince Cuan married Princess Savannah and Prince Owen M. married Lady Chantel that very day and they lived happily ever after. Dragon Demitri was left wandering the woods without a head for the rest of his life! And that is the end of the tale!

I hope you all enjoyed it.

News from Room 156 March 26th/12

Dear Parents,

I would like to thank Mrs. Mellon, Mrs. Gray, Mrs. Oreopoulos, Mrs. Stecher, Mrs. Doig, Mrs. Vaughan and Mrs. Valdes-Collette for volunteering to drive us all to see the movie "The Lorax". It was a delightful show and the children loved it. It ties in nicely with our science unit on Air and Water, and I will also tie it into Earth Day and planning posters for media works.

We will continue our science unit on Air and Water into mid to late April and then we will be learning about different species of animals. The children will be choosing an animal of their choice and will be doing a project on it. This will be presented in class.

In social studies we are continuing to learn about Canada, mapping skills and how other countries have different customs and traditions. As a class we will divide up into groups and study four different countries.

We just finished an art project on cracked crayon. The children learned about contrasting colour and how to copy from a thumb nail sketch. The results were terrific. You might want to stop by and see them on our class bulletin board. We will be continuing to work on contrasting colour in our next assignment as well.

In language arts we have just finished up on our procedural writing. Our next writing focus will be on descriptive writing and then we will be moving on to writing fairy tales which is quite a large unit. This of course will focus on beginning, middle, end, problem, solution, characters and setting.

The children will be creating their own fairy tale and writing it for others to read. Drama will also be involved in this unit. We are hoping to perform for you !!

In math we are learning about addition with regrouping. We are also learning our timestables 2's and 5's. This week I will be introducing the 10's. Each day we have a two to four minute quiz on them and we also play a timestable game. I am encouraging the children to practise each night for 10 minutes to help them memorize them. We will have a final contest after we cover the tables 1's, 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's and 10's. This will give the children a good head start for next year. We are also focusing again on number facts to 18. This all ties into our number sense and numeration strand. It really makes it easier for your child to work on their addition and regrouping when they have these facts memorized.

Thank you all for your continued support.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION RE THE LORAX

Please read the following information carefully: It contains important details concerning our excursion to see The Lorax this Friday, March 23^rd. I regret that the details are coming to you at such short notice — Cineplex confirmed the time and other information this evening.

Times

The movie begins at 12:30 p.m. It is best if we arrive well in advance, as I must pay for the tickets for both classes, and, the cinema will be very busy — The Hunger Games premieres on Friday.

we plan to leave the school by 11:30 a.m.

We would like to arrive at the cinema at 11:45 a.m. Accordingly,

NEWS from Room 156

Dear Parents,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my volunteers who helped out with our skating excursions. The children had a great time and really enjoyed the cookies/muffins and hot chocolate afterwards!! Thank you to Carrie Doig, Carola Gray, Laura Stecher and Karen Mickelson for the hot chocolate and the treats and thank you to the moms who came out to help tie skates.

I would also like to mention our globe making volunteers!! What a messy job!!!

Special thanks goes out to Joanne Mellon, Sheryl Strother, Elizabeth (Owen Mellon's nanny), and Emelda (Ewan's nanny). We will be painting the globes this week. The children are all very keen to finish them and bring them home.

Beginning this week, we are going to start working on place value in math which falls under the Number Sense and Numeration strand. Place value naturally leads into addition and subtraction with re-grouping, or “carrying” and “borrowing” as you may remember it.

I am also going to start a little contest on learning our multiplication tables. This week we will be focusing on the two times table. The children will be writing them in their planners each day until the end of the week, when we will have a quiz. There will be small, little incentive prizes that will be given to the children who learn them each week. We have just finished up our unit on measurement.

In language we are continuing with the Famous Artists study and the stories from the Nelson Anthologies. As well, the children are learning about procedural writing. This writing will be a focus until March Break. You can enhance their learning at home in this area by talking about the steps you might take to bake cookies, brushing your teeth or getting ready for bed.

In science we will be starting a new unit on Air, Water and Energy.

In social studies we are continuing with mapping skills and learning all about Canada and it's provinces. As well, the children have also learned about the seven continents, the equator, and the north and south hemisphere.

Once again thank you all for your continued support.

NEWS from Room 156

Dear Parents,

When is it going to snow so our kids can get out there and enjoy a good old Canadian winter?!! We will be skating at the school rink on February 15th (Day 3) and February 23rd (Day 2). It will be in the afternoon from1:45 to 3:00. Parent volunteers are most welcome to help out with the tying up of skates. Helmets are mandatory for everyone who skates including parents and teachers.

On February 22nd we will be making globes with paper mache. I will welcome lots of newspapers into the classroom beginning the week of the 13th.

Reports will be coming home on Monday, February 13th. I will be contacting those parents who I would like to see for an interview. If you have a concern you would like to address with me, please let me know and we can set up a time to speak. At this time I would also like you to keep in mind that even though your child may do well in a test, their mark is also based on their daily performance in class.

In language, we are continuing to work on our Great Artists study and anthologies. We have been learning about making inferences through the use of some wonderful illustrations by Harry Burdick. This is helping the children with their reading when trying to make predictions, using our own experiences (schema), picture cues and the written word. We are learning to make connections with what we are reading.

In math we are continuing to learn about measurement. We will be learning about perimeter and area next week.

In science we are continuing with the unit on simple machines.

We are working on mapping skills in social studies, which also relates to Canada and the world. The children have been very interested in our global work. If you have a globe at home, it is important to reinforce what we are learning at school by helping your child find the Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere, equator, the continents and the many countries of the world.

Valentine lists went home today with the children. We will be making our valentine bags next week. Please make sure your child brings in his/her cards by February 10th. We will be having a low key Valentine Day party!

The 100th day of School is next week on February 10th!! I would like each child to bring in a collection of 100 things, in groups of 2's, 5's, 10's 20's,25's or 50's. I have explained to the children that they can choose how they would like to group their collections. Bringing in 100 things that aren't organized into groups is what the children have already done in kindergarten and grade 1. I want the children to put a little more thought and effort into their collections this year.

Thank you for your continued support.

Mrs. Seitz

Scientist in the School

Dear Parents,

We are having Scientist in the School on Wednesday afternoon. Would you please send in $5.00 to help cover the cost of the workshop. Parent Council will make up the difference.

Thank you.

MATH TEST

Dear Parents,

I have changed the date for the math test to Friday. I will be sending the workbooks home tomorrow so that you will have a couple of nights to review with your child. Please send the books back on Friday.

The following will be on the test:

- telling time to the hour, to the half hour, and quarter to and quarter after

- being able to write the different ways of saying these times (i.e., half past, 1:30, quarter past 8:00 and 8:15, quarter to 8:00 and 7:45)

- being able to figure out the passing of time to the hour (i.e., Billy left school at 4:00 and got home an hour later. What time did he get home?)

I hope this will help you in studying. I will also send home a clock that you can use with your child. Please ensure that it is returned by Friday.

There may also be some pages in your child's workbook that you can complete together.

Thank you for your support.