March 28

 Hello everyone!

We hope you all were able to enjoy some family time during our Spring Break. We were very excited to share some of the things we did over the break with our friends this morning, so we had a sharing circle to give everyone a chance to share. 

We reviewed our Wow Words from the week before the break and took some time to practice those words on our own, and then with a friend before we completed our usual review. We did really well! We also got our new Wow Words. They are:

1. home

2. red

3. us

4. blue

5. here

Our words this week helped up talk about 2 of the vowel rules on the paper that Ms. Byrne sent home right before the break! We talked about King E and how it makes the other vowel say its name. In our small reading groups, we practiced the King E rule using letter magnets by spelling words like: cut & cute, kit & kite, tak & take. We also introduced "ue" and talked about how it says the same sound as "ew," which we have practiced before. 

We decided to use the "-ed" family for our bonus words. They are: bed, fed, Ted, shed, shred. We wrote our Wow Words onto cards and added them to our word rings. If our word rings are getting full, you can remove some words that we are confident with to make room!

We filled in our calendar and did some counting songs before having snack and recess. Then, we had literacy centres.

After lunch, we had mindfulness time and then we took out our desk dictionaries to update them. We looked through our dictionary to see if we were missing any word wall words in there. Each of us added any words that we were missing. We use our desk dictionaries during writing time in case we need a reminder of how to spell one of our previous Wow Words. 

Next, we did some work using the number line. We compared how to add and subtract on a number line and talked about how they are different. We each chose a small animal figure to help us hop along our desk number lines. We used our animals and our number lines to complete some subtraction questions. We talked about how it is important to carefully count the jumps when using a number line because it can be easy to make a mistake if you get distracted! We completed some examples under the document camera to make sure everyone was able to follow along. 

After our second recess, we had some science work to catch up on! Before our break, we had watched some clips from an episode of The Magic School Bus that was all about light and colour! Before we watched the clips, Ms. Byrne gave us some questions to think about and investigate to see if we could find the answers in the clips. We had found 3 answers, but we had 2 left to complete today. We saw the students using a prism to separate white light into different colours. They also used a prism to turn all the colours back into white light! We talked about how this shows us that white light actually has lots of colours hiding in it. We wrote about this to answer our last 2 questions. Then, we looked at the rainbow art we had started before the break. We had been practicing ordering the colours of the rainbow and noticing patterns in the rainbow (primary colour, secondary colour, primary colour, secondary colour). Many of us had some work to finish on our rainbow picture, so we had time today to finish up so that we can bring them home! 

Reminders:

Sit Spot - We will be doing our next Sit Spot on Wednesday, March 30. The weather is supposed to be really nice that day, but we know how quickly that can change! Please send an extra sweater, warm coat, etc. if you think your child may need it! We will have our Sit Spot from 1-1:15. 

Student Shoutouts:

Finn & Stefan - for offering to sweep the classroom when it got a bit messy during our rainbow art!

Shaniya - for helping us hand out our Wow Word review pages

Have a great day!

-Ms. Byrne

March 18

 Hello everyone!

Happy Friday and happy Spring Break! We are excited to relax during our well-earned week off. 

We started our morning today with a Pillars of Care assembly. The school decided to have our assembly early this month, since we will be on Spring Break until almost the end of the month. Our Pillar of the Month this month is Truth, so that was the theme of our assembly as well. We got to hear all about how the other classes had learned about truth. We have talked about how telling the truth when we make a mistake is the bravest thing to do. Even if it is something that might get us into trouble, adults and our friends will always appreciate knowing that we are honest and it will be better for us in the long run!

After our assembly we had snack and then filled in our calendar. We took a video of us doing a "choral reading." That means, we read altogether as a class. We read a poem called "Colours All Around" to practice reading colour words. Mr. Shackleton is going to put together a movie with all the classes doing a choral reading and you will be able to view our class once the video has been posted on our school website. We'll let you know when it is up!

We had gym with Mrs. Sterne today, and then we came back to do a round of literacy centres. 

Next, we did some rainbow art to go with our science unit on colour! We drew a rainbow shape using white crayon on a black piece of paper. We used paper in all the colours of the rainbow and ripped them into small pieces to glue them into the rainbow shape. We think our pictures look like real rainbows because a real rainbow is not solid! It's made up of light reflections from droplets of water in the air. 

Before we knew it, it was time to head home! We hope that everyone has a relaxing Spring Break and gets to spend lots of time with family, friends, and playing outside in the beautiful Spring weather!

Reminders:

- School resumes on March 28th

- A letter was sent home today with a list of vowel pairs. Some of us discussed these as a next step, or a thing to practice in your child's reading. Don't feel like you have to teach the pairs to your child - I just wanted you to have the resource to support you while you and your child are reading together. The letter and the list explains the memory tricks or "stories" that we use to help us remember the vowel pairs - that way, we can have common language at home and at school!

Have a great weekend, and a relaxing Spring Break!

-Ms. Byrne

March 16

 Hello everyone,

Yesterday, we had a talk about the email that Mr. Hebert sent you about the passing of Mrs. Paolini. Many of us didn't know her well because she had been away this year, but it is always sad to hear that someone who is a part of your community has passed. We talked about how Mrs. Paolini was very special to many kids in our school, as well as everyone who works at our school. We talked about how people in our school might be feeling this week, and to be extra kind and understanding to help people. Mrs. Paolini loved our school and everyone in it so much, and we will be doing something special to remember her when we return to school in April. 

We are working on our second walking story. We got to choose if we wanted to follow Ms. Byrne's example and write about our family, or if we wanted to try to write one all on our own using a topic of our choice! Some of us chose to write about our pets, our favourite movies, or our friends. Hopefully our stories will be finished before the break so that we can take them home. 

We filled in our calendar and talked about 3D shapes! When we return from the break, we will be studying and building a variety of 3D shapes, so we started introducing their names and shapes using a song. 

After snack and recess we had literacy centres. 

During math this week we have been learning some games that help us practice our mental math skills! We took some time to practice a making 10 game that we can play with a partner, or on our own. It's simple to play, and great practice for our mental math skills. If you have a deck of cards at home, ask us to teach you the game! 

In science, we painted our very own colour wheel! We each got the 3 primary colours in our paint palettes and we had to mix the other colours needed to complete the wheel. All this practice mixing colours is getting us ready to paint our colourful picture as our final project. Today, we talked about rainbows and how they are formed. We talked about splitting white light into its colours and looked at some prism examples. We watched a video from the Magic School Bus to see them play a game where they had to split white light into its colours, then reflect the coloured light to create a rainbow! We had some questions to think about while we watched and we were detectives searching for the answers to our questions during the video. 

Reminders:

- Spring Break - March 18th is the last day of classes before Spring Break. Classes will resume on March 28th

- This week we are participating in Jump Rope for Heart! I letter was sent home earlier in the week to explain how you can fundraiser for the Heart and Stroke Foundation to win prizes!

Student Shoutouts:

Yvie & Rachel - for offering to help Mrs. Ruiz 

Have a great evening!

-Ms. Byrne

March 14

 Hello everyone,

We started our day with our Wow Word review. The word "said" gave us some trouble, but we got it in the end! We got our new words for this week. They are:

1. I'm

2. did

3. all

4. back

5. of* 

Of is our red word, or heart word, for this week. We talked about how both letters in "of" are not making their usual sounds, so we have to learn the whole word "by heart." We also took some time to talk about the word "I'm." We talked about the apostrophe and what its job is. We thought about other words that use apostrophes like "I'd" and "I'll." We practiced how to make an apostrophe.

For our bonus words this week, we focused on the "all" family. Our bonus words are:

1. ball

2. tall

3. hall

4. wall

5. small

We filled in our calendar and practiced naming some 3D shapes with a song. 

After snack and recess we had literacy centres. This week, most of our reading groups are focusing on blends (st, bl, pl) and/or vowel pairs (ai, oa, oi). Notice if any blends or vowel pairs appear in our home reading books this week so we can talk about them!

After lunch, we played the making words game. The mystery word today was "hallway." We found 9 words hiding in hallway altogether!

During science we are learning about how we see colours, what makes colours look different to our eyes, and how rainbows are formed. Today, we watched a video showing how you can make a rainbow at home using a glass of water. Some of us had already seen this rainbow appear in our houses! We looked at pictures of prisms to see how they can bend white light to split it into all its other colours. 

We had iPads booked for Mathletics today, to make up for our time last week, when we had booked the iPads, but they didn't work. Luckily, today they were working great! We had our most successful Mathletics day ever! SEVEN people earned a Mathletics certificate today. We have several other people who are very close to earning one. We'll see if they can earn those last few points throughout the week.

In gym today we started Jump Rope for Heart. We're excited about the idea of winning prizes, so please see the note sent home regarding how to raise money for Heart and Stroke. 

Reminders:

- An important email from Mr. Hebert will be sent out later today. Please read it and discuss with your children as you deem appropriate. 

- Spring Break - March 18th is the last day of classes before Spring Break. Classes will resume on March 28th

Student Shoutouts:

Kye - saw another students' paper fall on the floor and went to pick it up right away

Nathan, Mila & Serena - for earning our very first Silver certificates in Mathletics!

Have a great evening!

-Ms. Byrne

March 9

Hello everyone,

We spent lots of time working on our walking stories today. Some of us needed extra writing time in the morning. Then, we talked about "editing." We did some practice editing on sentences that Ms. Byrne wrote to look for capital letters in the wrong place, and to make sure a sentence makes sense. Then, we got together with a partner. We read over our walking story with our partner so that they could help us find any mistakes. Then, we edited those mistake to make our stories even better! Next week, we will be working on one more walking story. We can write the story about our family if we want to follow Ms. Byrne's example, or we can choose another topic that we know lots about. 

We filled in our calendar and then had snack and recess. We had literacy centres before lunch. 

After lunch we practiced some helpful 2-letter sounds like /aw/, /ee/, and /ew/. Now that we are sounding out words on our own, it is important to know those tricky letter combinations to help us read bigger words! 

In math, we have been using blocks to solve subtraction problems. Today, we tried that strategy out on our own to solve subtraction up to 20. We did a great job using the strategy and were able to solve most of the questions on our own. Sometimes, Ms. Byrne will ask us to double check on of our answers to see if we can find the mistake, but we've all been able to do that successfully! We just need a little more practice counting our blocks carefully to avoid counting mistakes. 

Yesterday during science we used primary colours to mix all the secondary colours. We painted circles to show which 2 primary colours need to be added together to make a secondary colour. Today, we did an experiment using the colour black. We each coloured a black dot onto a coffee filter. Then, we sprayed water at the dot. When the marker ink started to run, we could see many other colours! Most of us saw blue and pink, some purple, and even some green, orange, and yellow. We learned that this is because black ink is made by mixing other colours together. We are waiting for our experiments to dry so that we can get a good look at all the colours we discovered!

Reminders:

- March 10 and 11 - Parent/Teacher Conversations - appointments can now be booked through your MyCBE account. If you have any issues booking an appointment you can email me and I will book an appointment on my end. 

- No School - Friday, March 11 - due to Parent/Teacher Conversations

- Spring Break - March 18th is the last day of classes before Spring Break. Classes will resume on March 28th

Student Shoutouts:

Kayla - helped Nola write her walking story today

Rachel - for helping Ramsh with his walking story

Have a great evening!

-Ms. Byrne

March 7

 Hello everyone!

We started our day with our Wow Word Review. Some of us found the word "little" challenging. We talked about the "le" ending throughout last week, but it is a tricky thing to remember! We may need to practice it some more. 

We got our new Wow Words:

1. cat

2. fun

3. got

4. ask

5. said

We decided to focus on the "ot" family for our bonus words:

1. hot

2. pot

3. dot

4. shot

5. robot

Mr. Wiens came to teach us music and then we added our new words to our word rings. We filled in our calendar before snack and recess. 

After snack, we had literacy centres. Ms. Byrne has been reading with each of us one-on-one during literacy centres to make lots of notes about our reading and decide what our next steps are. We can't believe how much our reading has grown! Many of us are working on using all the sounds and language rules we've learned to help us sound out words that we don't recognize right away. Some of us are also working on re-reading sentences to help make sure we understand what is happening in the story, and that the words we've said make sense in that sentence. 

After lunch we had mindfulness time and practiced our new Wow Words in our dice game. We also watched a quick video that helped us practice the word "said." We have been learning to draw hearts around the part of our red words that doesn't follow the rules. This lets us know that we need to learn that part of the word "by heart." In said, the /s/ and /d/ are making their usual sounds, it's just the /ai/ that is breaking rules. 

Next, we moved on to math where we reviewed our subtraction with pictures strategy. We talked about how pictures can be a good strategy when you're just learning about subtraction and what it means. It is a good strategy to use when you have low numbers, but the higher your numbers, the more difficult that strategy can be. It takes too long to draw lots of pictures, and it's easy to make a mistake! So, we moved on to subtraction using blocks. We practiced with a couple of equations today to think about what it means to subtract or take away. 

After our second recess, we read "Mouse Paint" to help us talk about all the primary colour combinations. We looked at a picture of the colour wheel and talked about what we noticed. We noticed that it has all the colours of the rainbow! It also follows an AB pattern rule: primary colour, secondary colour. And, each secondary colour is sandwiched between the 2 primary colours you mix to make it! 

We took some time at the end of the day to clean out our desks and make sure we all have the supplies we need in the right places. Then, we headed to the gym to do some basketball passes with partners. We played a game of keep away to end our gym time. 

Student Shoutouts:

Ava - for helping Finn when he got hurt

Ramsh - for working super hard during his reading time with Ms. Byrne today!

Reminders:

- March 10 and 11 - Parent/Teacher Conversations - appointments can now be booked through your MyCBE account. If you have any issues booking an appointment you can email me and I will book an appointment on my end. 

- No School - Friday, March 11 - due to Parent/Teacher Conversations

- Spring Break - March 18th is the last day of classes before Spring Break. Classes will resume on March 28th

Jump Rope For Heart

More info on Jump Rope for Heart prizes and fundraising will be sent home tomorrow!

Have a great evening,

-Ms. Byrne

March 4

 Hello everyone!

We have been working on our walking stories for the last few day. Some of us have completed all 4 sections and are ready for some editing and last details, others still need some more time to work on it next week. Here are some examples of our stories so far:

Written all by ourselves! Pretty amazing right?! We have been practicing with the G.U.M. It strategy. G.U.M it stands for, give it a try, underline it, and move on. This helps us to practice sounding words out by ourselves, trying our best to use all the sounds and rules we have learned so far. While we are writing, Ms. Byrne walks around, looks at the underlined words on our page, and tries to help us fill in any missing sounds that will make it easier to read our stories. We're so excited to share these stories with you at home!

We worked on some word problems today in math. We used highlighters to highlight the numbers and important words in the problem, then we wrote the equation to match the problem and found the answer. For a bonus point, we used the question to help us write a sentence to go with our answer. We glued the problems into our math books. 

We filled in our calendar and then had snack.

We got to choose literacy centres today and lots of us wanted to work at the story writing centre! 

We read a book called "The Girl With Big Big Questions." We used this story to practice making predictions. We paused the story at the top of the "climb" and then made some predictions about how we thought the story would end. It turned out, our predictions were right! 

Reminders:

- March 10 and 11 - Parent/Teacher Conversations - appointments can now be booked through your MyCBE account. If you have any issues booking an appointment you can email me and I will book an appointment on my end. 

- No School - Friday, March 11 - due to Parent/Teacher Conversations

- Spring Break - March 18th is the last day of classes before Spring Break. Classes will resume on March 28th

Student Shoutouts:

Finn - for offering to play with someone who felt left out during gym.

Ajay - for helping some friends with spelling during our walking story writing

Have a great weekend!

-Ms. Byrne

March 2

 Hello everyone,

Today, we started our day with a new poem called "Colours All Around." We are going to be practicing this poem using choral reading - that means reading it all together. We talked about how reading a poem in choral reading is kind of like singing a song together - we don't just all read the words whenever we want, they follow a rhythm! We practiced following that rhythm together. 

In our morning message it said that we are going to be learning all about story writing! We are very excited to become story authors. We started today by learning about "walking stories" and "climbing stories." Walking stories describe one thing with lots of details. Climbing stories start with describing, then something happens (like a problem) to make the story climb. When the problem gets solved, the story climbs back down. We decided to write our first walking story all about us! We are each writing a 4 panel walking story using different sentence types. We wrote sentences for our first panel today using "I am." When we finish our walking stories we will share some of them with you here!

We filled in our calendar and had snack and recess. Then, we had literacy centres. 

After lunch we had mindfulness time and then we played a new gumball game! This one has sounds with 2-letters like /ew/ and /oo/. We learned all the new sounds today and will be practicing them throughout the next couple of weeks. 

In math, we have been subtracting using pictures. We all felt confident with this strategy, so we completed a page for our math notebooks to show that we are ready to move on to the next one!

After our second recess, we worked on completing the last of our 100th Day of School Activities. If we finished all of our jobs we got to bring all of our 100th day work home with us, so look for that in our backpacks!

In gym we are learning basketball skills. Today we got to practice bouncing a ball to a partner, and then played a dribbling keep away game that was lots of fun!

Reminders:

- March 10 and 11 - Parent/Teacher Conversations - appointments can now be booked through your MyCBE account. If you have any issues booking an appointment you can email me and I will book an appointment on my end. 

- No School - Friday, March 11 - due to Parent/Teacher Conversations

- Spring Break - March 18th is the last day of classes before Spring Break. Classes will resume on March 28th

Student Shoutouts:

Jayla - for working super hard today!

Jakob - for being a helpful and kind!

Have a great evening!

-Ms. Byrne