Dear Parents, Just a short and sweet note this week, as we are super busy in the land of J3T with publishing our poetry chap books and prepping for the big authors' reading while also starting our unit on division. How these little people fit it all in their brains and still have space to sort out the Pokemon thing is beyond me. :-) We have a busy week ahead celebrating Book week. I hope you can join us for the festivities! Here are the dates you are invited to keep in mind: Storybook Parade Thursday, April 28th 8:30am - 9:15am Typically all the students, faculty and staff dress up for the parade as a favourite book character. Parents are invited to watch and then leave after the parade. You can dress up too, if you would like! I will be a box of crayons from "The Day the Crayons Quit!" Book Sale Friday, April 29th 8:00am - 8:30pm As a fund-raiser for school, the children have an opportunity to buy great books! The sale is held in the Lobby and JA Gym
Pick-up after school will be in the classrooms on Friday! J3 Authors’ Reading: Friday, April 29 7:00 p.m. The Authors’ Reading is a time when the children read their work in front of their families. Imagine a poetry reading for kids. They only attend their session, and families are invited to watch. It is a very special tradition at UNIS, and the children love it! The children should arrive around 6:45 so they are ready to start at 7:00. I will find out soon which room we are in! While it is not mandatory, it is so special, we would hate for anyone to miss it. Other Dates:
That's it from me! Next week's newsletter should be packed with great photos from the week's festivities. Have a fabulous day! Ein (OH MY GOSH!!! You know you are up working too late when you typo your own name. I am keeping that there to share with the students. They need to know that I make mistakes as well!)
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Dear Parents, It was wonderful to have you all in for our student led conferences. During circle time this morning the children offered their feedback on the experience. Here is some of what they had to say: "What was the best part of Student Led Conferences?" Showing my parents the things I have worked hard on. Seeing how much I have learned since the beginning of the year and telling my parents about it. Explaining my work to my parents. Being able to answer my parents questions. Looking at my work again, all in one place. Having you (the teacher) help me to explain. "What was challenging about Student Led Conferences?" Trying to explain everything to my parents. It felt like the time went by too fast. Having parent questions that I didn't want to answer. I didn't like when you (the teacher) jumped in because I felt I didn't know the right thing to say. I would love to hear your thoughts about student led conferences as well. Please feel free to send them to me via email. It is a learning opportunity for all of us so your feedback is valuable. LITERACY This week we will turn our focus onto our unit on self expression. We will begin with a baseline for narrative writing, and then use the information gained to help guide instructions towards writing effective stories. In reading, we will focus on the elements of literature in fiction texts. We will also read poetry to help prepare our budding poets minds! This would be a great time to talk with your child about your favourite stories or poems. MATH In Math, we will be working on area and perimeter as well as volume to close off our unit on Geometry. Next week we will start our work on division. SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING This week I will re-introduce the practice of "Looking for the Wow!" This is a strategy that falls under the Happiness Habit: Express Gratitude. As springtime unfolds, it is a great opportunity to shift back into a practice of gratitude. There is so much subtle beauty to notice, and for which to be grateful. I also think that noticing the surroundings will help the children as they develop the ability to establish setting in their writing. If you are interested in writing, this exercise might inspire you while also encouraging you to LOOK FOR THE WOW! and tune into your surroundings. Below is this week's TED talk to inspire you to look around and enjoy the beauty around you. WHAT'S COMING UP.... As a reminder, we have MAP testing this week. As a collective, the grade 3 teachers requested that the MAP test be moved from Tuesday-Thursday to Wednesday-Friday so that the children had an opportunity to settle-in and reflect on the SLCs before jumping into testing. The story book parade will take place on April 28, with the poets reading on the evening of April 29. For those of you new to UNIS, story book parade is an opportunity to dress-up as a favourite book character, and then we parade around the school. It is a really fun day!! Dates to Remember:
That's it from me! Have a beautiful week. This warmer weather makes me smile from the inside out! Yours in Springtime Happiness- Erin Dear Parents,
FOCUS and DETERMINATION Those are the words I would use to describe the chidren today. From the moment they walked in the door, they were eager to get going on their GeoMetro Cities. So much so, in fact, that after Math time was over, we had an attempt at a coup d'état, with the demands to make today an ALL MATH DAY. Evidence is above. I guess this is what happens when you let children know that their voices matter! This week's message is short and sweet, as the work we are doing is all a continuation of last week's post. The children are eager to have you in for the portfolio sharing, during which time I am confident that you will have strong evidence to support your understanding of who your child is as a learner They are truly proud of the work that they will be sharing wit you, and well they should be! They have worked very hard to develop their skills! A new Homestudy Menu is posted on the Home Study page. The children will also receive some math material to support our work in Geometry. Please also continue to support the review of the times tables! Please consider this message from UNIS Fund: Please consider making a gift to the UNIS Fund. We are submitting proposals to foundations for financial support and a high percentage of parent giving is necessary to be considered for funding. Please help us achieve our goal of 80% or higher parent participation this year! (Envelopes can be found in the classrooms for convenience) Dates to Remember:
That's it from me! I look forward to seeing you later in the week. Sincerely, Erin M. Threlfall Dear Parents, Welcome back from spring break! Our morning was filled with wonderful stories about spring break adventures. I am so happy to hear that the children had plenty of time for play and exploration. Compliments of Bella Nadel, we had a great new surprise today: a new class fish! This came as a great relief being that we lost Katut just before break. After great debate, and a series of votes- almost as complex as the US Presidential election process- our fish has a name: Bubbles. If you are the parent of a boy, you may hear Bubbles referred to as Veruca Salt; many of the boys are not pleased with the election defeat and so our fish may very well develop an identity crisis. Such is the life in J3T... This week we will kick back into high gear with learning, while also preparing for the student led conferences. It's a busy and exciting time in here, full of energy. Here's what's ahead.... Unit Studies: We are continuing our unit on Self Expression that we started before spring break. During this unit,students in J3 will experience a range of authentic artistic experiences. From visual art, through drama, dance, music, poetry, storytelling and beyond, students will be given an opportunity to create their own responses inspired by what they have seen, heard and felt. Off-site visits and in- class visitors and workshops will be used to create genuine experiences. The students will understand what it is to be an artist by considering how other artists work is influenced by their experiences and the world around them. Students will ultimately create their own artistic pieces and be able to explain what feelings they hope to invoke in others as well as being able to identify possible motives in classmates’ work. The Conceptual Learning Purpose of this unit is for learners to understand that …
The Competency Learning Purpose is for learners to be able to...
And to develop the following SKILLS
The Character Learning Purpose is for students to develop the value of appreciation, tolerance, and creativity. Literacy: The children have wrapped up the writing process for their reports of information, and have moved into self reflections and goal setting. They are quite eager to share these with you at the student led conferences, and they should be! The children showed remarkable growth as writers, and have taken an important step of moving from writing about what they know to researching a topic and organizing the gathered information into a structured report. To tie-in with our new unit on Self Expression, our new writing genre is Creative Writing. The students will be writing creative narratives as well as poetry. We will focus on developing the writer's voice, and the craft of writing that includes descriptive writing, dialogue, and developing a plot. In poetry, we will explore various forms of poetry, and how we can use a wide variety of poetic forms to express our thoughts and feelings. Math: I would be surprised if you have not heard about the exciting geometry based project during which the children will use 3D shapes to design and build their own city, aptly names: GeoMetro City. After a series of lessons, the children will earn their building permit and will then select a section of the city to design. You can support our Math learning by identifying 2D and 3D shapes in the every day world. You can also play games wondering what something would look like when viewed from above , or on one side. We will move into talking about area and perimeter as the project unfolds. Please also continue to support your child as they review the times tables until they "know them like they know their name." It is important that the children have mastery of facts up to the nines tables to support the work in division that we will take on after GeoMetro City is complete. Social Emotional Learning To support our unit studies, we will focus in on the happiness habit: Build Into Relationships, with a special focus on being self-aware, and advocating for ourselves. Essentially, we are looking at the relationship we have with ourselves. During this focus time, we will talk about setting and respecting personal boundaries. We will then explore how, by knowing ourselves and being confident in what makes us unique, we can be tolerant and appreciate the differences in others. I have found Sarri Gilman and Brené Brown's work on boundaries to be very helpful as I plan for these discussions with the students. I will share two of her videos with you here, as you may find this to be helpful, as well! (These are not videos that I will share with the children- they are just for you!) Dates to Remember:
That's it from me! I look forward to seeing all of you during student led conferences. Yours in Learning and Growing, Erin M. Threlfall |
SnapshotsA peek at life inside of J3T , curated by Ms. Erin M. Threlfall Archives
June 2016
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