Nov 28 - Dec 2, 2022

Brrrrr, was it ever cold this week! We kept warm indoors all week with lots of different learning activities and free choice play. 

This week we introduced our December calendar. Music is incorporated into almost every aspect of our day. The students all love combining music with their learning. Here is another example of how we incorporate music into key learning outcomes, such as with our December calendar song https://youtu.be/XGwIXvG1fjQ. Students are learning the functional skill of how to create a calendar by numbering each day of the week, labeling important personal dates, like our two friends who will celebrate their birthday in December, and other important events as a part of our morning shared learning. 

We are continuing to build our classroom sound wall, working first with the consonants. This week we introduced the sounds /n/ and /m/. Part of our time working with these sounds is learning what our mouths, lips and tongues are doing.  These sounds are highlighted on our classroom mirror, that hangs above our sink. Students are encouraged to practice these sounds while at the sink washing their hands throughout the day. One of the activities that the students enjoy is our interactive sound sorting game. This week they had to sort the sounds onto the different pirate ships. When the correct sound was put onto the correct ship, the pirates fired their cannon! We also continued to learn how to write these sounds using both horizontal and vertical writing surfaces. 

This week we viewed another silent animated short High Diving Giraffes, https://youtu.be/nPrWo5pEvyk. Similar to last week, we followed a predictable writing format. After viewing the video together on the first day, we then brainstormed some vocabulary.  On the second day we watched the video again, highlighting our vocabulary words while watching. We worked on creating different sentences together.  On the next day students used picture symbols, our classroom AAC devices, traditional writing, and typing to create their sentences. The last day after viewing the video, students presented their sentences to the class in our special Authors Chair. During our Author's Chair, our students are also learning how to listen carefully to each other, look at the speaker, and clap appropriately after the author is finished reading their sentence.  

Free choice play is an important part of our program. During play, students are supported by our team in many different ways from regulation to cooperative play. Here is an example of how communication is being supported during play. The student is presented with a preferred toy, enclosed in a container with a see-through lid.  As the student is trying to get into the container, a visual for the word 'help' is shown. The supporting adult might say "it looks like you need help opening?" while emphasizing and pointing to the visual for help. When the student points or visually focuses on the word help, the supporting adult will open the container and the student can access the preferred toy inside. After some time with the toy, the adult will put the toy back into the container and start again. 

Next week we look forward to the weather warming up a bit so we can finally enjoy some outdoor time! 

Upcoming Dates

• Dec 5-8 - Scholastic Book Fair
• Dec 5 - Deadline for Gingerbread House Decorating Night
• Dec 10 - Deadline to donate to Christmas Hampers
• Dec 10 - Deadline to order for Dec 15 Healthy Hunger Lunch (Mucho Burrito)
• Dec 15 - Gingerbread House Decorating Night
• Dec 22 - Last day of classes (8:00 am to 2:30 pm)

Book Fair: December 5-8

• Volunteers Needed: The Library is looking for Volunteers to help out during EMJ’s In-School Scholastic Book Fair 8:30-12:00 noon, Monday, December 5 to Thursday, December 8.
• If you are able to volunteer, please contact Ms. Belisle at cdbelisle@cbe.ab.ca .
• Students will be able to shop and purchase items from the In-School book fair December 5-December 8.
• We will share more information in the weeks ahead for the Online Virtual Book Fair.

November 21 -25, 2022

Thank you to all the families that were able to take time out of their busy schedules to connect during our student conferences. I  really enjoy being able to share your child's progress with you. I am so proud of all the students in room 3. I look forward to connecting with a few more families next week. If you did not have the opportunity to connect, please feel free to reach out and we can arrange a time to meet. These meetings will be held virtually.  

Over the past few weeks we have started creating our classroom Sound Wall. A sound wall is a way to organize and display the different sounds, phonemes, we hear in speech.  Our sound wall highlights what our mouths and tongues are doing when they produce the sound with both real and graphic photos.  During our shared learning we have explored the sounds /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, and /g/. During our shared learning students practice making the sounds while some students are using the phonetic alphabet on the AAC device to make the sounds. A sound wall matches our speech sounds to the written representation of the sound, grapheme. On individual whiteboards students are practicing or exploring printing the letter. Another activity that the students really enjoy is our item sort.  In this activity we are showing an item and then isolating the initial sound of that item and sorting it accordingly. We look forward to sharing more of this work with you in future blog posts. 

This week we had some fun during literacy with the Pixar animated short For the Birds, https://youtu.be/Q6X80IWdS6s. After viewing the video, we brainstormed the characters, the setting, and a few of the events that took place in the short. Using our generated list, students created their very own writing. Some students used predictable writing and visual picture symbols to create I see or I liked sentences.  Students then got to share their writing with their classmates in our special Authors Chair. 

This week we took advantage of the beautiful weather to go on a community walk. Before the walk, we read a social story about crosswalk safety and then watched a video about how to safely cross the road. During our walk we pointed out the different street signs and talked about their meanings. Next week some of our morning tasks will focus on the different environmental print we can see all around us. We walked to a nearby community playground and had lots of fun playing on the different play structure. 

If you are looking for a way to give during this holiday season, please think about supporting our community hamper. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to reach out to me. 

The predicted forecast for next week might have us enjoying more activities indoors. We still try to get outside whenever possible, even for short periods of time. Keeping to our routines and schedule helps some of us stay regulated throughout the day. We will continue to take outdoor breaks until the temperature drops to -20 degrees with the windchill, so please be sure to pack extra's hats, mitts and socks for the cold weather.  With all the extra's around the classroom, please take a moment to label your students belongings. This is greatly appreciated! 

Upcoming Dates

• Dec 2 - Community Walk, weather permitting
• Dec 5-8 - Scholastic Book Fair
• Dec 5 - Deadline for Gingerbread House Decorating Night
• Dec 10 - Deadline to donate to Christmas Hampers
• Dec 10 - Deadline to order for Dec 15 Healthy Hunger Lunch (Mucho Burrito)
• Dec 15 - Gingerbread House Decorating Night
• Dec 22 - Last day of classes (8:00 am to 2:30 pm)

Have a great weekend!

November 14-18, 2022

This week, as a part of the Fall Showcase, we took a closer look at each of the four seasons through targeted tasks, songs, stories and art. Our focus was on learning to identify the season using weather patterns, a tree's life cycle, and the different types of clothing that can be worn in each season. Although it looks like winter outside, students learned that the seasons change every 3 months and that it is actually still Fall or as some call, Autumn. Our targeted tasks included reading comprehension where some students had to read a statement and pick the corresponding season visual that most closely matched. Other students worked through a task where they were shown a picture and given a choice of three different clothing options and had use a clothespin to indicate the best clothing choice.  Some students worked on sorting different pictures into the four seasons. In another task, students matched like pictures of the seasons most common traits.

During our morning shared learning, students get to choose songs, stories and activities that highlight key concepts being learned such as proper greetings, days of the week, months of the year, weather and seasons. Here is an example of our Seasons page, where each picture is a link to a targeted song or book. Students have to take turns making their choices. Following verbal and picture directions, waiting for your turn, not having your preferred song chosen, and dealing with disappointment are all skills that are reinforced during this time. After the song or activity students are asked different types of questions and respond verbally or by using our classroom AAC device to help them develop a deeper understanding of the concepts being presented. 

The story we highlighted in our shared reading this week was the book Tap The Magic Tree by Christie Matheson. This story was also the inspiration for our artwork. This is a fun and interactive story where students got to tap, rub, shake and even blow on the book to create changes to the magic tree and follow its cycle throughout the seasons. After reading the story, the student's created simple pointillism inspired art pieces using their fingertips or the tip of a pencil to paint Magic trees of their own. 

Student Conferences are coming up next week Thursday evening 4:30-7:00pm and Friday during the day 8:30am-12:30pm. These conferences will be taking place virtually using Microsoft Teams. When booking a conference, please do not forget to book 2 back-to-back times slots for a total of 30min. If you are unable to book a time, or need to make alternate arrangements, please do not hesitate to reach out. My email address is rlmyroniuk@cbe.ab.ca  

Please see the message below from your EMJ Parent Council about Healthy Hunger lunches. These lunches are optional and there is a fee for these lunches. Please note that the deadline to pre-order for this Thursday's lunch is tomorrow Saturday November 19. 

Healthy Hunger Lunches at EMJ

Dear Families, 

 

The EMJ Parent Council is excited to offer fun lunches, through the Healthy Hunger lunch program for Grades 1-6.  The first lunch (CocoBrooks) is next Thursday, November 24 (deadline to pre-order is Saturday November 19).

 

To register on the Healthy Hunger website, please go to: www.healthyhunger.ca  

Once there, you will be able to register your child(ren) by following the simple steps below: 

 

1.      At the Healthy Hunger home page (healthyhunger.ca) click on the icon “register student” 

2.      Fill in the information as asked - remember, your email address will be your login 

3.      You will be prompted to add a student (or multiple students) and to fill in all the required information (so convenient to be able to add multiple students!) 

4.      Once you have added your student(s), you will be sent to the calendar – scroll to the current month and click. 

5.      The menu will appear and you can choose your meal(s) and proceed to pay 

6.      The Healthy Hunger website will only accept orders up to five days (5) before the Fun Lunch date 

 

Easy as that! We are looking forward to being able to provide more fun lunches with this more efficient system of ordering.. 

Any questions, please connect with EMJ Parent Council - emjcouncil@gmail.com

 

In order to participate in the Healthy Hunger Fun Lunch, you will need to register your child(ren) on the Healthy Hunger website. For those who participated previously, you will need to re-register for this school year.

Important Upcoming Dates:

November 24 - Healthy Hunger Lunch (see above message if interested in purchasing a CocoBrooks Pizza Lunch.  

November 24 - Community Walk - weather permitting

November 24 & 25 - School Conferences - No classes November 25

December 5-8 - Book Fair

December 23 - January 6, 2023 - Winter Break - no classes

 

Nov 7 - 11, 2022

This week Room 3 spent time learning about why and how we honour Remembrance Day. Our central focus was on the importance of the Poppy as a symbol of remembrance. Everyday students mark their presence in our shared learning circle with an interactive activity that works on identifying themselves among their friends. For this activity, we start with the students first name and their picture. As students demonstrate mastery of identifying themselves with their name and picture we add their last name. After working with their first name, last name and picture we will remove their picture and they learn to recognize their printed first and last name only. This week, to honour Remembrance Day, students names and pictures were attached to a poppy and student's moved their poppy onto the steps of the Tomb of the Unknown solider, a monument found at The National War Memorial in Ottawa. 

We worked on learning the famous poem In Flanders Field, using an adapted version of the poem with picture symbols to assist us in identifying some of the words in the poem. Students worked to create their own Flanders Field pieces of art to help decorate the gym for our school wide assembly. 

We spent time this week practicing for our school wide assembly. The Remembrance Day assembly is an important time to gather together to remember those that have given their lives, those who have fought and returned to their homes, and those who are currently in service for Canada. We learned to sing Oh Canada, https://youtu.be/ehOZC52thsA with the children's group The Wiggles. We also practiced for our moment of silence using a calm breathing bubble https://youtu.be/iaQed_Xdyvw  We listened to the Last Post and the Reveille. Together, we used our handprints to make a poppy wreath to lay at the Remembrance Day assembly with wreaths from other classrooms. We had an opportunity for one student in our class participate in the wreath procession during our assembly. During our group learning we also used a core vocabulary picture board to highlight vocabulary that is associated with Remembrance Day. Students practiced their fine motor colouring skills while colouring a book that used some of our key vocabulary in a ''here is" repeated pattern book. During our morning work, poppies were used as part of our put-in tasks and numeracy work. 

Next week we look forward to learning more about the 4 seasons as we prepare for the Fall Showcase. Student work will be a part of the Fall Showcase however our EES students will not be preforming live. Next week's blog will highlight the work that is a part of the showcase. 

Important Upcoming Dates:

November 17 - Fall Showcase starting at 6pm. (no childcare available)

November 18 - Booking for School Conferences start. Please book 2 back to back time slots as EES students are given 30min per conference. 

November 24 & 25 - School Conferences - No classes November 25

December 5-8 - Book Fair

Oct. 31 - Nov. 4, 2022

 

What a fun week we had, starting off with a Halloween celebration on Monday. Students were greeted after their morning routine with some fun and educational Halloween morning tasks.  One of the favourite morning task of the students was the Witches Brew. This task combined number recognition with 1-to-1 correspondence, the ability to pair an object counted with a number, and following picture directions to make a witches brew. Other numeracy tasks such as counting a specific number of google eyes on different monsters, putting clothespin legs on spiders and matching 2 digit numbers to their base 10 blocks were completed by some students. There were different fine motor tasks such as stacking pumpkins on our "gate", from the story last week, putting spider rings on tubes, putting erasers into a container and tracing Halloween pictures. Finally, some students worked on matching different pumpkin shapes and sorting Halloween themed wooden shapes. We continued these tasks all week. 

On Monday we had an opportunity to go on a community scavenger hunt, trying to find all the items on our list. It was so fun to see the house in the neighbourhood that has all the blowup Halloween decorations out on the lawn. On our walk we stopped and at each intersection to talk about the importance of looking both ways and listening for moving vehicles before we crossed the road. I would say that our first community walk of the year was a huge success, we even found everything on our list!

We ended our pumpkin inquiry learning all about the inside of the pumpkin. All students got an opportunity to help pull the fibrous strands and the seeds from the pumpkin pulp. Some students used their hands to pull out parts of the pumpkin and others chose to use a spoon to scoop out the parts. After the pumpkin was all carved out, we had the opportunity to work together to create two a jack-o-lanterns.  Students were asked what shapes Mrs. Rachel should draw and cut out for the eyes, nose and mouth. Some of our students used our classroom AAC device to communicate their choice. Mrs. Rachel then put the pumpkins out on her doorstep in the evening to welcome the trick-or-treaters.  Our story on Monday was a social story all about Trick-or-treating. Social Stories are visual stories that support and explain social situations and  help students understand the expectations in these situations. Students were sent home with a social story strip to help them during trick-or-treating. 

At times during the day, like after students complete 3 morning tasks, students engage in some free choice. During free choice students are supported in play by our EES team. Toys, books, blocks and mazes are just a few of the choices students can make. During each day, we try to rotate the choices that are available for students to expose them to a variety of different activities. 

This is just a friendly reminder to families that we engage in outdoor activities every day, except when the temperature drops below -20 degrees with the wind chill, and indoor recess is announced for the whole school.  Please ensure that students come to school prepared for the weather conditions. If you require assistance with any items, please do not hesitate to reach out, we would be happy to help. Please also don't forget to pack some extra socks!

Next week we will focus on Remembrance Day and preparing for the Fall Showcase. Students will be participating in the Fall showcase through prerecorded videos. Some students will be filmed preforming poems, student artwork, and in-class work will also be showcased throughout the event. Families are welcome to attend the showcase, however our students will not be preforming live. There will be no childcare available during the showcase.  Our blog for the week of November 17 will also highlight the work presented in the Fall Showcase. 

Upcoming Dates

• November 6 - Daylight Savings
• November 8 - School Council & Parent Society Meeting (6 pm Online Meeting)
• Meeting Link will be shared the day before.
• November 11 - Remembrance Day (school closed)
• November 17 - Fall Showcase featuring Grades 5 & 6 and EES (show starts at 6pm)
• November 24 & 25 - School Conferences (see more information below)

October 24 -28, 2022

Happy Diwali to our friends celebrating the festival of lights this week. 

Thanks to our families that came out to join us at our Monster Mash Halloween school event. It was so much fun to be together, see the different costumes, and dance in the gym. Thanks again to our Parent Council for hosting such a fun event. If you didn't get a chance to join, don't worry, we will be having lots of Halloween fun on Monday October 31, 2022 as a class. Students can look forward to a school-wide costume parade, Halloween themed morning academic tasks, community scavenger hunt and finishing our pumpkin learning we started this week. Students are welcome to dress-up. I recommend packing a change of clothes in the event they don't want to wear their costume all day. If you would prefer your student engage in alternative learning, please let me know and arrangements will be made.

This week, due to the addition of two more classes at EMJ, our gym and music schedules have changed days and times. As much as we try to be flexible, changes to our daily routine can be challenging to understand. This week we took it slow and focused on the new changes paying special attention to our daily visual schedule.

In literacy, we focused on the story 5 Little Pumpkins and learned about the use of speech bubbles. We read a few different versions of the story and also listened to a song. Here is a link to the 5 Little Pumpkins song, can you spot the speech bubbles? https://youtu.be/cm1qvX1ygOo  This week we also finished going through all the letters in the alphabet, focusing on identifying the capital and lower case letter. Starting next week we will be introducing the students to a classroom sound wall. We look forward to sharing more about this with you in our future blog posts. 

This week we started learning about Pumpkins. Students started creating their first repeating pattern book called Colourful Pumpkins, we will be working next week to complete all the colourful pumpkins.

During our inquiry, students have been learning about the lifecycle of a pumpkin. Check out this weeks learning song, https://youtu.be/tU-GwFHQZI8. Students participated in labeling the different stages of the lifecycle. We are looking forward to learning about what is inside the pumpkin and turning our classroom pumpkin into a Jack-o-lantern on Monday! 

On Monday, weather permitting, we will be going on our first community walk. Community walks are an important part of our functional living skills learning outcomes. During walks, we focus on street safety and recognizing common things in communities. Our first walk will be about 10minutes from the school to view a house that is decorated for Halloween and participate in a Halloween Scavenger Hunt. During this time our ratio will be 4 adults to 8 students. Please reach out if you have any questions or concerns about community walks. 

Upcoming Dates

• October 31 - School Halloween "Parade" (8:30 am)
• Students will have a chance to see each other's costumes
• November 1 - School Retakes (morning only)
• November 2 - Kindergarten to Grade 2 AHS Dental Screenings
• November 6 - Daylight Savings
• November 11 - Remembrance Day (school closed)
• November 17 - Fall Showcase (show starts at 6pm)

 

October 17-21, 2022

Thanks to all the families that have signed and returned students Individual Program Plans. If you have not had the chance to return the school copy, and have questions about it, please feel free to reach out. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. Please email me at rlmyroniuk@cbe.ab.ca

It has been such a busy week of learning in our class!  Students are continuing to build up their stamina for our morning task work. Students complete three to four tasks, some independently and some with the support of adults, before enjoying some choice activity time. Our tasks focus on building skills in fine motor, literacy, numeracy and integrate from our Inquiry learning. I am so proud of all of our students in this work!

This week one of our literacy focuses was on building an "I see" sentence in both our morning task work and our afternoon inquiry. In our morning work, students are using an adapted fall book to pull selected words off a choice board to complete the "I see" sentences.  During our Inquiry learning, all students are exploring building predictable sentences using an Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) device.  When listening to the zoo song https://youtu.be/xXfOvghCu5c , the video is paused frequently and each student takes turns building an "I see" sentence with the animal they see on the Smartboard. During this time there is a focus on differentiation for each learner.   Some of our students are learning that the AAC device can be their voice and they can communicate what they see on the Smartboard with a single word, some are using the predicability of the device to create an "I see" sentence, while other students are further developing their understanding of sentence structure with a focus on punctation and developing an understanding of when to add an 's' to make a noun plural. Our AAC device is also used with tasks such as putting together a puzzle, using an "I see" sentence for each puzzle piece. 

 

In our Inquiry learning we also focused on grouping vertebrate animals using their unique characteristics. Take a listen to a learning song from this week to see the different animal classes https://youtu.be/P9ptHAClC4Q.  During whole group learning students work together to sort animals into their 5 classes on the Smartboard. This activity is repeated daily. During our work time, students are supported to complete an individual animal classification chart. Again, differentiation is used during this task and the learning outcomes are different for each student. Learning outcomes vary from further developing fine motor skills using adapted scissors, following multi-step directions, or ability to identify each animal and correctly sort it into the different classes. 

I am so proud of our students that participated in the Alien In-line skating program this week. In-line skating is challenging and our students did not give up! They all got to their feet and took steps towards skating independently. Thanks to our Alien Inline Coach "Skater" for helping us learn and have fun this week. Students who were not participating in the program spent extra time outdoors on the playground building their gross motor skills. 

With the change in the weather, please remember that students spend time outdoors each and every day.  There are a few times when the temperature is too cold and require indoor play. This decision is made for the entire school and will be announced prior to scheduled outdoor times. Please send your child with appropriate clothes for the weather. Please let us know if these items can stay at school or if you require them to go home each day. If you require assistance in getting any clothing necessary such as mittens, snow pants, or warmer jackets please do not hesitate to reach out we are more than happy to help! 

Upcoming Dates to Remember:

October 27 - Monster Mash from 6-8pm

October 28 - Non-Instructional Day - no classes for students

November 8 - School Council and Parent Society Meeting 

Please see this important message to families from your Parent Council. I am sorry that the forms did not make it into student backpacks on Friday. Forms will be sent home on Monday and a copy of the form will be digitally sent home with school messenger.  Feel free to print it out and send it back on Monday. 

Parent Council Hosted Halloween Event

Hello Families. Today forms went home with students regarding the Halloween Event this Thursday evening. It is hosted entirely by Parent Council. All tickets and pizza orders must be done in advance of the evening (deadline Tuesday October 25).

Here are the details:

• On October 27, from 6-8 pm,
• Doors open at 6 pm
• Families are encouraged to come and students must come with an adult from their family.
• Tickets must be bought in advance $2/person through this site: emjschoolcouncil.square.site
• If you wish to order pizza, it must be purchased in advance $2.50/slice
• A concession with sweet treats and beverages will be at the dance (cash only)

Please see details in the attached invite or the one sent home with your child today. If you have any questions, please contact emjcouncil@gmail.com