The Halloween Parade!

Twentieth Street's Halloween celebrations will take place in the morning on Friday, October 31st. To assist in making our Halloween celebrations successful, please have your child come to school in their Halloween costume. After announcements and attendance, children will participate in a Halloween parade at 9:30AM. This will be a community walk north on 20th St. and south on 21^st St.. Upon their return to school, students will go back to their classrooms.

Please ensure that your child is wearing a Halloween costume that is appropriate for school. They should not wear high heels, masks that cover their mouth or eyes, and no weapons of any sort should be brought to school. 

If you are sending in treats for the classroom, please ensure they are of the healthy variety. 

All parents are welcome to attend the parade and be a part of the Halloween Celebration.

Thanks!

'Take Home Books' begins this week!

Starting today (Monday), students in room 214 will begin the 'Take Home Books' program. Students were assessed early in the year to determine their accurate reading levels and have been practicing their voracious reading ever since. Initially, students were given full autonomy to choose their own books to read using the comprehension strategies of:

• Read the words
• Read the pictures
• Retell the story. 

Students will now be asked to take these strategies home with them. Students will sign out black and white levelled books on Mondays and will return them on Fridays.

Once we have a routine set up, after a month, students will be asked to write book reports on the books they are reading. This means they will be required to have read the book at home first, as very little time will be provided for reading these books at school. Please sit down with your child once a night to read the stories they bring home (repeatedly reading them is good, not bad!) and take the time to ask them questions according to our 'CAFE' menu. We will be using these take home books to build a comprehensive literacy program that includes the 'CAFE' menu of:

• Comprehension (understanding what is being read)
• Accuracy (reading the words and decoding the text)
• Fluency (reading with expression, getting into character)
• Expanding vocabulary (increasing the number of interesting words we know)

Our Trip to High Park!

Last week, students from room 214 took to the trails in Toronto's biggest city park to explore, play, and also to learn about how animals and plants prepare themselves for the winter season. Students forgot very quickly that the weather was a little rainy, instead spending their time looking for acorns, 'toppings' for their nature pizzas and anything else they could find. I soon found myself referring to students as squirrels and chipmunks because of the amazing things they discovered at every turn of the trail. We even had time to take a walk through the High Park Zoo!

Thanks so much to the High Park Nature Centre for hosting us, and to the Halsall Family Foundation for sponsoring our amazing field trip experience!

Some of the awesome nature we found (according to students):

Snake pit in the bowling field

The corn snake (Snappy)

Chipmunks

Squirrels

Acorns

White fungus

Bob the frog

Squirrel Dreys (nests)

Snails

Slugs

A fox (maybe)

The zoo

Larva inside an acorn

Some photos from the trip:

Making pizzas for squirrels

On the tire swing in the castle playground

Lamas in the High Park Zoo!

On the tranquil trails in the woodland

Room 214's October Newsletter

Grade 1 Science Unit - Animals!

A message to parents and guardians of grade 1 students:

Animal Groups: Birds, Reptiles, Amphibians, Mammals, Fish, Insects

Grade 1's have just begun a unit on animals for which they will be asked to complete an individual project and presentation that will require some work and research outside of the classroom. For this project, students will be asked to research two animals, each from different animal groups, and find out as much as they can about their chosen animals' needs. They will then combine these animals to create their own unique 'Scranimal' that will be presented to the class in the last week of October.

            For this unit, I would love if students could bring in any resources they have about animals (books, artefacts, magazines, pictures etc…) to be put on our Animal Resource Table. This will be a place that students can go to for ideas and inspiration. I also want students to try using at least two resources for their project and to not limit those resources to books. They may observe animals in the neighbourhood, use the internet, watch a film or visit a pet store. Library books from your local library may also be very helpful. I will also provide some from our own school library.

The culminating task will also include an art piece of their Scranimal inspired by the prolific author and artist, Eric Carle. I think this will be a very engaging project but it will be better if students are also talking about animals and different animal life cycles at home. Please encourage your child to discuss what they are learning about animals so that the learning is cemented.

Events This Week

Well the fall season is now in full swing and students in room 214 are getting really focussed on building reading stamina (which is now at a whopping 12 minutes!). We have also begun practicing our printing skills each and every school day so that we can becoming better writers and readers this year.

Last week, we had our monthly character education assembly and the character education focus for this month is RESPONSIBILITY. We always try to talk about what responsibility means in our classroom and across the school, but it always helps if it also becomes a word used at home. Please talk to your child about what responsibility looks like and how we need to be responsible for ourselves, and each other. It is when students see the connection between what we talk about at school and what becomes dinner conversation at home that the best learning connections are made for developing brains.

This week, Officer Rich will be back to visit with all Grade 1 students to talk about how to have fun and be safe in your community. We always look forward to Officer Rich dropping by because he always has some great stories to tell, and some great advice to give.

We also have Photo Day! happening on Thursday, October 9th. That's this Thursday! Please try to make sure your child can attend school that day and is dressed appropriately for photos.