Halloween is Friday, October 31^st. The children are welcome to come to school dressed up in their costume. You are also welcome to bring in NUT-FREE treats OR NON FOOD items (stickers, pencils, erasers etc…). The students will be provided with a bag that they can decorate and fill if they choose to. Please note, the students ARE not required to dress up or bring in any treats.

Please DO NOT bring in any items such as guns, swords or other similar accessories that may be part of their costume.

Thank you for your cooperation, please feel free to contact me via e-mail ilianna.givelos@tdsb.on.ca

I. Givelos

Tomorrow the students of Room 108 will be learning the following song:

Five Little Pumpkins

Five little pumpkins, sitting on a gate.

The first one said, “Oh my it’s getting late!”

The second one said, “there are witches in the air!”

The third one said, “But we don’t care!”

The fourth one said, “Let’s run and run and run!”

The fifth one said, “We’re ready for some fun!”

Then “oooohh” went the wind,

And out went the lights,

And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

REMINDER: Scholastic Catalogs will be coming home on Monday in the Communication Folder. If you would like to order any books, please bring back the order form by November 1^st.

Thank you!

Please remember to return all books from the reading program (in reading activity folder) at the end of every week. It is extremely important to return all books to ensure we keep our classroom library stocked.

Thank you very much!

I. Givelos

What’s going on in Literacy Centres?

Check out some of the activities going on in Literacy Centres….

Matching Lower Case and Upper Case letters (mostly SK):

The students are matching upper case letters with the lower case letters using clothes pins. 

Link Cubes:

Creating uppercase/lowercase letter T t’s using link cubes. Once the students created a letter they had to confirm if they created an uppercase T or a lower case t.

Stamping in the form of a T t:

The students use Bingo Markers to stamp and create uppercase and lower case T.

Using beans to create the letter T t.

Alphabet Puzzles:

Letter of the week (T t) Art Activity:

 Tearing paper to create Turtles. 

Show and tell

The students of Room 108 will begin Show and tell next week. Show and Tell will take place on Friday mornings (one student per Friday). Your child will receive a letter on the Monday, letting them know that they will have show and tell on that Friday. Please remind your child to bring something to the class that is special to them and review why it is special to them and why they would like to share it. Please do not let your child bring anything that can break and review the rules of taking care of their item. They will keep their item in their backpack until it is there time to share, once they have finished sharing they will place the item back into their backpack. Please remind the students ONLY to bring an item in when it is there turn to share. Every student will have an opportunity to share.

 

Feel free to contact me with any questions. Thank you.

I. Givelos

REMINDERS ALERT

PHOTO DAY TOMORROW: Tomorrow, Oct 16^th, is Photo Day at Pelmo Park. The students will be getting their photo taken from 8:30am-9:30am.

COMMUNICATION FOLDERS: Please remember to bring back the Communication Folders (filled with newsletters, calendars etc… the next day after they have been sent home). Usually, they are sent home on Monday’s, PLEASE return by Tuesday.

ACTIVITY FOLDERS: The activity folders are sent home on Mondays (unless a long weekend occurs) and they contain the following:

a)      Reading Folders: with a story for you to read with your child (please write down which story you read)

b)      Letter of The Week folders: There is a sheet that you can practice the letter of the week at home with your child

c)       Fridge Printout (To be kept at home): A printout with the letter of the week is in the folder for you to be able to practice the sound and letter recognition with your child (try to ask them which is lower case and upper case).

Please return these folders by FRIDAY with both reading and letter of the week folders.

Feel free to contact me with any questions ilianna.givelos@tdsb.on.ca. Thank you!

Ms. Givelos

Check out our Fall Creation….

Every week the students of Room 108 will document the colours of the tree in our school yard. Last week, they focused on the tree as it started turning orange. The students of room 108 had a discussion on why the tree is changing colours and its transformation from green to orange. The students observed that leaves had fallen to the ground, that leaves dance in the wind when they fall and that some branches do not have any leaves. 

Literacy Centres: S s (Week of Oct 6th)

Every morning the students of Room 108 are working in centres based on the Letter of the Week (S s). This week we have various centres that involve the following (they will vary/change daily/weekly).

Creating the letter S s using noodles/beans or stickers. Once the students create the Letter S s on the template, they can try to create it themselves on a plate.

Using play dough to create the letter S s, once they complete forming the letter using the play dough (sensory) they can write it out.

Sewing letters (as they sew the letters) they sound out the words they are sewing. S (letter), sssssss (sound).

Printing Books/Practice Printing:

Group Discussion: What words have the sounds of S in them. Where is the S in the word (Beginning, middle, end).

This week (Week of Oct 14th) the students will be working on the letter A a.

Last Friday, the students of Room 108 went on a Nature Walk to collect different colour leaves in continuation to our inquiry about fall and the colour changes of the leaves. Today, the students of Room 108, categorized, named and sorted the various leaves (incorporating Math).

We also practiced our song named Autumn Leaves (sung to the tune of London Bridge):

Autumn leaves are falling down, falling down, falling down.

Autumn leaves are falling down,

Orange, red, yellow and brown!

We also finished our Fall Tree using branches collected outside and the leaves we created using coffee filters last week.

Today’s Activity

Today’s Activity was based on the book: Read Leaf, Yellow Leaf

 The students discussed the story and what happens in the fall to the leaves on the trees. We made text-to-text connections by talking about the book we read yesterday “Maple” and our conversations. We made text-to-self connections by talking about our favourite leaves.

The students created the colours of leaves by using markers, coffee filters and waters.

We then hung them up to dry.

Our next step: Cutting them into shapes of leaves and hanging them on our branches. Stay tuned….

Making Connections

Lesson based on the Story: Maple by Lori Nichols

Maple is about a little girl who was named after a Maple tree, the Maple tree grows and grows and changes throughout the season as Maple observes and grows also.

Prior to reading the story the students predicted the story would be about a little girl and a tree (based on the cover). The pointed to the title Maple and recognized that the title means “the name of the book”.

Discussion Prior to Reading the Story: The students were asked to make connections to leaves and the story and they came up with the following:
-They matched the leaves to the real leaves we have in the Science Centre (Treyson reflected on his art craft of tracing leaves which sparked many of the student’s interest)

-The connected to Maple leaves and how Maple trees provide us with syrup
-They matched the Maple leaf from the science centre and on the cover to the Canadian Flag which opened a discussion on why we think Canada has a Maple Leaf on the flag
-They connected to the Toronto Maple Leafs and we began a discussion on hockey
-discussed what is happening this season (Fall) and what we notice about the leaves

Text to Text Connection: Once we started reading the story they made a connection to the story Chrysanthemum from yesterday as the beginning of the book stated that “Maple loves her name” which is similar to the other story.

Text Interpretation: The text stated that leaves were “dancing” and a student shared that it meant leaves were falling and the wind was blowing around.

Art Activity to Accompany during Centres:
Students who were interested joined Ms. Givelos in a centre tracing leaves using different colours to reflect the season of fall.

Ideas for home: Discuss the changes of the leaves and fall and help your child make connections with the above topics to reinforce their understanding of the fall and what happens. Maybe, have your child collect some leaves on the way to school and bring them in to share with the class.