Swimming!

Swimming starts on Tuesday morning!

We will swim every Tuesday and Thursday morning for 3 weeks.  Please send your child with his or her bathingsuit and towel in a plastic bag on those mornings.

If you have a current police record check ON FILE with our school and want to help us keep calm in the changerooms, please contact me.

Have a great weekend!

ps - look for more updates on the website in the next few days.

Do any of you SEW?

I'm working on a project for the students that will involve some simple sewing...please send me an email if you sew and would be willing to help out.  It won't be ready next week, but I need to start planning.

Thanks!
andra.donbrook@rbe.sk.ca

Low's Reading Challenge

Low, our pet Owlet, gave our class a reading challenge for the year.  He challenged us to read 3000 books!  We have accepted the challenge.

Your child will be receiving a reading log this week to start keeping track the books he or she reads.

Here are some details:

- Your child is completely in charge of the reading log.  He or she will fill out all the information for each book.  You do not need to do anything with the log, except, perhaps, you could encourage your child to keep it somewhere safe so it does not get lost over the course of the year.  I find that a sock drawer is a good place to keep something!  :)

- 3000 books sounds high, but since we have 27 students in the class, it works out to about 111 books for each child during the year.  If you divide that by 10 months, it's only between 11 and 12 books a month.  That is very possible.

- Once your child has read 25 books (which may take 1-3 months), he or she will bring the log back to school to show me.  Once I verify that they have hit the 25 book level, they will receive an "owl" with their name on it.  We will have a special place for our owls and will keep track of our progress by counting our "owls".

- The books that qualify for this challenge are picture books OR chapter books.  Your child should be reading books at their approximate reading level.  That means if they are reading chapter books with ease, reading a baby board book (only a few words per page) to a little cousin at a family brunch wouldn't really count as reading a book for this challenge.  Conversely, if your child is having difficulty reading, please make sure that your child has appropriate books to read at home so they can feel success.  Struggling through a chapter book for a month is not a positive experience.  If your child needs to have "shared" reading (child reads a page and then adult reads a page, etc), that is ok, but I would like the child to do as much of the reading as possible with each book.

- All you get to do is support your child and enjoy listening to them read books!  You may wish to take your child to a Public Library so they can get an armload (or basketful!) of books to read and enjoy at home.


The best way for a child to become a proficient reader is to READ!  Low has set a "lofty" challenge for us, but I know that by reaching this goal the benefits for each child in the class will be enormous!


Please watch for the Reading Log to come home this week.


On another note, please go to the HOMEWORK section to read about our Spelling program.  I had a few questions at Open House tonight, so I hope this makes it clear.

HOOT!

Well, it's been just over a week of school and the students (and teachers) in our school are settling in nicely!  The weather has been so nice, which makes playing outside delightful!

As a quick piece of information for you, our class is in "Learning Community 2 or LC2".  We get to play on the new play structure on Day 2 and Day 5.  The playground supervisors decided to divide the days among the Learning Communities so that the play structure wouldn't be too busy.

The schedule is as follows:
LC1 - Day 1
LC2 - Day 2
LC3 - Day 3
LC1 - Day 4
LC2 - Day 5

While I think of it, I will make a section called "information" on this site.  In that section, I will post timetables, calendars, etc.  I will post this playground schedule info there too.  I hope it will be helpful for you!

On another note, we read Hoot, from the Timbuctoo series this week.  The students loved it!  We paid close attention to the style of writing and illustrating in the book.  They can't wait to hear the next book (which will be next week)!  There are 25 books in the series and I plan to read one a week.

Did you know that we have a "pet" owl in our classroom?  He is a baby owl named Low.  Ask your child about him!  They really love him.

Enjoy your evening!

The Best Year Ever

This is going to be a great year.  A fabulous year.  The best year ever!  I am excited to be teaching this wonderful group of children.  We will work together to cultivate a classroom environment that is warm, friendly and supportive to everyone.  We will all strive to learn more, be kinder, work smarter and try harder than we have before.  It will be a group effort and I’m really looking forward to seeing how things progress.

When I decided to make this class website, I really wanted it to be a resource for me, my students and the parents to use regularly.  I wanted it to be more than a list of homework (although that will be helpful!).  I wanted it to be an extension of our regular classroom.

The blog name and address are inspired by one of my favourite children’s book series.  The “Timbuctoo” series was written by Roger Hargreaves, who is also the author of the Mr. Men and Little Miss series.  The Timbuctoo books hold such dear memories in my heart because my dad always read them in such a wonderful way to my brothers and I.  I now read them to my boys and I can’t help but use the same inflections that he used when reading them.  One night this summer as I was reading one of the books to Brody and Rylan (my sons), they joined in with me and read it “the same” as I did and as my dad did.  That was the moment that I really felt the power of these books.  That was the moment that inspired the website name and address. 

The books are fun, simply and follow a very similar text format.  The illustrations are clean, colourful and inviting.  Every book begins like this:
“Hoot was a sort of owl.  A Timbuctoo owl.” and “Puff was a sort of panda.  A Timbuctoo panda.” 

This is why the blog name is called “a sort of classroom” and the address is “a timbuctoo class”.  I was just playing with format of the books. 

I will be using the Timbuctoo books in our class this year.  We’ll use them to learn creative writing techniques, writing formats and for visual art activities.  More importantly, I will to use them to help instill an absolute love of the power of oral reading, storytelling and love of books with the kids.  I know they’ll learn to love this series as much as I do!

I believe that all families have a book, or series of books that mean a lot to them.  Think about what you and your family loves to read together.  Is it poetry?  Robert Munsch books?  Mercer Mayer books?  What were your favourite childhood books?  Frog and Toad?  Berenstain Bears?  Feel free to leave a comment below this post so we can all enjoy the memories and share good books with each other!