Report Cards and Student-led Conferences

It's that time again! Report cards go home on Monday and Student-led Conferences are on Wednesday. Here is a copy of the letter I sent home on Thursday, just in case it didn't make it to you.

Parents/Guardians,

This is just a reminder that Student-led Conferences are coming up on Wednesday, March 19 from 3:30-5:30.  Student-led Conferences are an opportunity for your child to showcase their best work from the last term to you. They have been working very hard on putting together their portfolios and practicing for when you come! I have set up an open schedule, so you can drop by anytime during 3:30 and 5:30.

Because Student-led Conferences are a celebration of your child’s work, it is imperative that siblings do not attend.  This is one night where for about 20 minutes they are the star of the show and the focus needs to be on them. Thank you for your understanding.

If you cannot make it to Student-led Conferences, please let me know and I can send home your child’s portfolio with them and you can go over it at home together. If you would like to meet privately to discuss your child’s progress, please write a note in your child’s agenda, send me an email (carly.sefcik@westwind.ab.ca), or talk to me during Student-led Conferences.

I am excited to see all of you!

Mrs. Carly Sefcik

This last week, every family in the school received the book "The Lemonade War" by Jacqueline Davies. Please make sure you are following the reading schedule at home because we will be doing activities at school that go along with the book and your child needs to be familiar with the material. So far, you need to have read Chapter 1 and 2. 

Thank you for your patience with the Home Reading books from the last 2 weeks. I have been busy assessing your lovely children instead of doing my Guided Reading groups where we read together and switch our books out. Testing is all done now (yaay!) and our schedule will return to normal this week with new books going home on a regular basis.

Monday is St. Patrick's Day so make sure your kiddies wear green to school! 

Wednesday is Pizza Day.

This past week we donated food (thank you!) for the food bank and then had "Drop Everything and Read" on Wednesday morning. We were so happy to have some parents come in and read with us! I love pictures of students reading. They look so peaceful!

Since we have been learning about pirates, we had a very special presentation from our "Pirate Expert". He was very knowledgable and put so much work into his presentation. Good job!

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Sefcik

1 School 1 Book Update!

We had our big unveiling of our 1School1Book today! We will be reading "The Lemonade War" by Jacqueline Davies. It is supposed to be a really great book to read as a family that appeals to kids of many ages! I just got my book today with the kids so I am excited to get started! Please make sure to read the parent letter that got sent home with the book and take a really good look at the calendar at the back of the packet. The grade one stuff all happens this week!

Tuesday-All Grade 1 classes bring a non-perishable food item to help others in a "squeeze"
Wednesday-Wear yellow and "The Reading Squeeze" where students read from 8:30-9:00 am. Parents are encouraged to come and read with your child!
Thursday-Grade 1 Classes can purchase lemon cupcakes for 50 cents at lunch time.
Friday-PD Day NO SCHOOL

Last week we introduced the Pirates who will help us read r-controlled vowels (er,ir,ur,ar). Students had to find the missing words from the treasure map to find the treasure. The treasure was Captain M-ARRR-ty's favorite treat, mARRRRRs bARRRRs!! They of course had a hoot and looked so cute in their pirate hats.

We celebrated "Wacky Wednesday" by Dr. Seuss by doing the obvious: dressing up Wacky on Wednesday! The day was filled with silliness like drawing wacky pictures and giving clues about what was wacky and writing our names backwards.

We finished off our Dr. Seuss unit with a classic: Green Eggs and Ham. After reading the book, students had to pay close attention as we made our very own green eggs and ham in our "kitchen" (the back counter). They were quite skeptical about eating green eggs, but most of them loved them. We then wrote up step-by-step directions on how to make green eggs and ham so you can make them at home!

Today, we enjoyed a lemonade "toast" to our 1Book1School project that kicked off today!

Happy Reading!

Carly

Dr. Seuss Wrap-up and 1School1Book

We wrapped up our Dr. Seuss theme this week with a bang by making "Green Eggs and Ham" on Friday and writing about How to Make Green Eggs and Ham. I had so much fun with this theme as I saw how excited the kids were about reading and writing about Dr. Seuss!

I'm sure you have heard about the One School, One Book Challenge that we will be starting on Monday. If not, you can find more information on the school newsletter or www.raymondelementary.ca. I am excited to start this project with the school and we will be having an assembly on Monday at 1:30 to unveil the title of the book we will be reading and introduce the project. Parents are welcome to come, so please do!!

Report Cards will be going home Monday, March 17 and Student-led Conferences will be Wednesday, March 19. I do an open schedule for Student-led Conferences so you can come anytime, and I will post more info about that as we get closer to the date!

Pizza Orders are due this Thursday.

Pictures of our Pirate Adventures and Dr. Seuss coming as soon as my internet starts acting rational again!

Have a fantastic weekend!

Carly

Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss is in full swing! This might be one of my favorite themes in the year because it is so nostalgic for me. We have been busy writing responses to different Dr. Seuss books (this week we focused on "Yertle the Turtle","Horton Hatches the Egg", and "If I Ran the Zoo"). We have been talking about character traits in stories (eg. What is Horton like?) and finding evidence to support our ideas (eg. Horton is kind because he sat on the egg). These are great reading strategies to practice at home when you are reading with your child to increase comprehension.

Upcoming this week we will be focusing on Addition and Subtraction strategies to help with our mental math. It starts off fairly easy, but it is important that students have a solid foundation before we move on. Each strategy has a song that goes with it and I will be sending home parent letters once we get on to some harder strategies with the songs attached so you can practice them at home.

Today, I introduced the "R Pirates". There is Captain Marty, Pirate Burt, Pirate Merl, and Pirate Dirk. They help the students learn about r-controlled vowels (the r changes the sound of the vowel- "ar" "ir" "er" and "ur"). We will be looking for pirate words in the books we read and doing lots of fun pirate activities this week (with fun pictures to come!).

Going along with our Dr. Seuss theme, we will be having "Wacky Wednesday" this Wednesday (March 5). Students can dress up anything wacky like wearing their clothes backwards, backwards hats, mismatched socks, crazy hair, etc. Feel free to go as wacky or non-wacky as you would like!

Book Orders are due on Wednesday, March 5.

There is NO SCHOOL on Friday, March 14 for a P.D. Day.

Report cards go home on Monday, March 17.

Student-led conferences are on Wednesday, March 19.