First, I would like to thank all our families for taking time to meet with me, either in person or virtually. After a few years, it was so nice to be able to welcome our families into the school for conferences. I enjoyed reconnecting with our returning families and learning more about our new friends!
On Monday, students joined the school in a moment of silence for Queen Elizabeth II. During our shared learning, we took some time to learn more about the Queen, in age and developmentally appropriate ways. During one part of our shared learning our focus is on building our literacy skills through phonemic awareness. During the school year we will cycle through all letters of the alphabet a number of times, with a special focus each time. Letters are not presented in alphabetical order. We start with the letters that are most present in the names of our students. In the first cycle, our focus is on the letter sound and isolating that sound in both the beginning and end of words. So far this year we have looked at a, n, o, i, s, and l. On Monday, as one way to learn more about Queen Elizabeth II, we looked at the letter Qq.
We also examined other places we would see the Queen being represented. We took a look at our Canadian currency, paying special attention to the picture of the Queen on each of our coins. I also learned something new during our discussion of the Queen, I love when my friends get to teach me something I didn't know! When talking about the Queen one of the students told me that she was a character in the new Minions movie. Together we did some research about the movie, learning more about the role the Queen played in the movie.
This week we also took time to honour Terry Fox and participate in the nation wide Terry Fox Run. Before the run we learned a song that taught us about who Terry Fox is and why his story is so important to us. Here is a link to the song https://youtu.be/Ov3xisvrFII. We also took a look at a story that talked about Terry Fox's journey. After our shared learning, we went out at the same time as all of our EMJ community, and as our school friends ran around the school field, we ran around the adjacent ball diamond with our friends from 2. As we are just learning about school and playground safety, our students run in the fenced in ball diamond. As the year progresses and we become more familiar with our students and school environment, we will have opportunities to join in other whole school events and activities. After the run, we paused our Apple themed inquiry and did some journal writing on the event. When we are journal writing, students are presented with a cloze sentence activity. A cloze sentence is a sentence that is presented to the students with intentionally omitted words. This sentence focussed on what the student did (run, walk, wheeled) and who they were doing it for (family, friends, loved ones, everyone). The student choose from a visual choice board the visually represented words that best suits them, and then cut-out and glue them into the correct space. Some of our students will also write the correct words in the blank spaces.
Next week, our learning focus will be on helping us understand more about Truth and Reconciliation. We look forward to sharing this important work with you in our next blog. On Thursday September 29, we will recognize Orange Shirt day, please feel free to wear orange or your favourite shirt to school. There will be no school on Friday September 30th, National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Upcoming Dates
- September 26-30 - Truth and Reconciliation Week
- September 30 - National Day for Truth and Reconciliation Day (no classes)
