Wishing you the Happiest of Holidays!

We would like to thank you all for your cooperation over the last week.  It has been a busy week with Spirit Days, Christmas Concert and Christmas dinner.  We appreciate your participation, attendance and continuing support, especially during these busy times.

Thank you for the generous gifts that were received over the past few days as well.  Your kindness and thoughtfulness is very much appreciated.

From everyone in our classroom, we wish you the happiest of holidays and hope that the next few weeks are filled with family and friends!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Mack

Mrs. Dyck

Mrs. Langford

Mrs. Elder 

Christmas Concert

Our annual Christmas concert is Wednesday evening at 7:00pm.  Students are asked to be in our classroom by no later than 6:30pm.  There is no costume required for our performance although we are asking students to dress up in appropriate clothing (no ripped jeans, no sweat pants, etc).

When the K-4 students are done their portion of the performance, the students will go sit with their family for the rest of the evening.

Stay healthy and see you on Wednesday!

Toronto Dominion Free Book!

Today your child is bringing home a FREE book called "Mr. Zinger's Hat" by Cary Fagan.  We have read and discussed this book at school but please read the story again with your child.  It is a wonderful story of friendship and imagination.  This is your child's book to keep, read, and enjoy! Thanks TD! 

Our Christmas Lists

We have been working on making lists in class and we blogged our personal Christmas lists yesterday.  Please have a look here: https://kidblog.org/class/MrsElder/posts and feel free to comment.

Thanks so much!

SRC Events for December

The SRC has had a busy noon hour planning fun activities for the month of December!


Door Decorating Contest

1. All decorations have to be brought from home
2. Christmas appropriate
3. Decorating will only be done during lunch Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Dec 14-16
4. Judging will be done Wednesday after school
5. Winners will be announced Thursday during morning announcements
6. Decorations must be taken down, by the students, Thursday during lunch
7. The winning classroom will be awarded a pizza party/breakfast in the New Year


Spirit Week/Dress Up Days
Monday, Dec 14—Pajama Day
Tuesday, Dec 15—Red and Green Day
Wednesday, Dec 16—Winter Hat Day
Thursday, Dec 17—Christmas Sweater Day
Friday, Dec 18—Formal Day

Friday, December 18th

Friday, December 18th is our Annual Christmas Dinner.  For our afternoon activity we are watching a Christmas Movie—Kindergarten to Grade 12.  The SRC is going to provide popcorn and juice during the movie.   These treats will be provided to the students, but we are asking students to bring a monetary donation that will be sent to the Salvation Army to help families, through the Christmas season,  who are less fortunate than we are.

Important Days in December

Week of December 14th - 18th
Show and Tell
Spirit Week

Monday, December 14th
LIT Early Dismissal at 2:20
Pajama Day

Tuesday, December 15th
Red and Green Day

Wednesday, December 16th
Winter Hat Day
Christmas Concert at 7pm

Thursday, December 17th
Christmas Sweater Day

Friday, December 18th
Formal Day
Christmas Dinner and Movie
Last Day of Classes

Monday, January 4th
Classes Resume

Changing Up Our Writing

For the past few weeks we have worked on starting our writing in a way that gets our audience excited and interested.  We can do this by starting our writing with a question OR by using dialogue.  We are working really hard at this and making great progress ~ here are a few examples from our "What A Weekend" writing.

"Have you ever stayed up REALLY late after work?"
"Have you ever put a Christmas tree ALL DAY?"
"Guess What?"
"Have you ever just about scored a hockey goal?"
"WAKE UP!" screamed Mom, "We have a hockey game to go to!".

Dieleman Fundraising Orders Are In

Good Morning, 

The Dieleman order is in. The SCC sorted it last night and orders will go home with students today after school. Many orders are quite large and kids may need help to bring it home. Also, some items are back ordered, but should be in within the week. 

Any questions can be directed to Amanda Gent.

Grade One Math

We have been working on representing numbers in different ways and have moved on to tally marks.  We used pretzels because who doesn't want to snack while working on Math?

We encourage you to use tally marks with your kids at home to count things and see what they can show you.  Thanks!

December Scholastic Orders

Yesterday your child brought home the December Scholastic Catlalogs.  If you wish to order anything this month, please return the order form and cheque to the school by Wednesday, December 2nd.  Online payment options are also available if you are interested, and the information is in the catalogs.

If you would like to have an order kept secret and used as a gift, please let us know by attaching a note to the order and we will let you know once it arrives.

Thank you in advance for your order!

Mrs. Mack

Yesterday was Mrs. Mack's last day of full time teaching. She will be gradually releasing classes back to me over the next few weeks AND will be doing some teaching in other areas of the school.

She has brought so many wonderful things into our classroom this Fall and we are sad that her time with us is almost done.

Today the students blogged about their favourite teacher, Mrs. Mack. Please have a look at what they wrote and feel free to comment.

https://kidblog.org/class/MrsElder/posts

Gr.1 and 2 Peace Book

We have decided to create a video of our students reading The Peace Book by Todd Parr. This book spreads a beautiful and profound message of peace! The kids did a great job!
 The video can be found: The Peace Book
Thanks so much,
Larissa(Intern) and Christa

Reading Goals

We are working on a few reading goals in our classroom over the next few weeks.

One, we will be working on characters within text.  Being able to determine the main and secondary characters AND also describe them.  The descriptions of each character should be physical characteristics (what they look like) and internal characteristics (based on how they act).

Second, we are working on overall reading comprehension. For the next few weeks we will be asking students to tell us character details (physical AND internal), setting details (where and when) and also a short summary of what they just read.

Any extra support that can be done at home during reading is greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much!

Student Led Conferences

Student Led Conferences will be held Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon/evening.  This is an opportunity for your child to show you all that he/she has learned in the first term of school.  You should have received an email with your conference time and teacher.  If you have not yet received this, please contact the school.

A few things to keep in mind when we have Student Led Conferences:

1)  They are in fact student led.  Ideally, the student will discuss what they have learned and what they plan to work on during this time.  That being said, the Grade One students are unfamiliar with this process and will need some prompting during their conference.  Grade Two students may also need a bit of prompting but should be able to complete the conference confidently.  This is a chance for your child to share, and brag, about all of the things they are learning.  If you have questions for your child during the conference, please ask.

2)  If you have concerns regarding your child, please let me know and we will schedule another time to discuss it.  We want the conference time to be about your child's learning, and future goals, but we will absolutely schedule another time where we can discuss any concerns that you may have.

3) Each conference is scheduled to last 15 minutes. Please do your very best to stick to this time, as the entire school is coordinated, and if I run late it will cause others to run late as well.  I will remind your child during the conference that we just have a few minutes left and we will wrap things up.   If you would like more time to discuss anything in regards to your child, we can schedule that for another time.

Thank you for your support and we will see you at conferences!

Home Reading this week

Due to no school on Wednesday, November 11th, we ask that Home Reading be returned on Thursday this week.

Thank you for understanding!

Remembrance Day Service

Tomorrow is the community Remembrance Day service at the school.  It will start at 1:30pm and will last until approximately 3:00pm,

The Grade One and Two class will be presenting a book on Peace during the ceremony.  We ask that your child dresses appropriately for the day, and if you could send a poppy that would be greatly appreciated.  It can be put in a lunch kit, or back pack and we will attach them right before we go to the ceremony.

It is a community ceremony and everyone is welcome so we hope to see you there!

Penguin Life Cycle

We have been studying animals and their life cycle in Science this term.
Please have a look at our blog posts about penguins and feel free to leave a comment and share the link.

Blog posts can be seen here:

https://kidblog.org/class/MrsElder/posts

Important Days in November

Tuesday, November 10th
Community Remembrance Day Service
1:30pm
Everyone Welcome

Wednesday, November 11th
No School

Friday, November 13th
SRC Bake Sale
All items are $1

Tuesday, November 17th
Report Cards Sent Home K-12
Student Led Conferences
(afternoon/evening)










Wednesday, November 18th
Student Led Conferences
(afternoon/evening)

Friday, November 20th
No School

Monday, November 23rd
Early Dismissal at 2:20

Week of November 23rd - 27th
Show and Tell

SRC Bake Sale

Good Afternoon,

Our students have put forth a proposal of new speakers in the gymnasium.  The SRC has planned a Bake Sale to help fund this!  There will be a Bake Sale next Friday, November 13 at morning recess and over lunch.  All items will be $1.  Please enjoy a yummy treat that day!

Thanks,

Coronach School SRC

Our Classroom Costumes

8th Annual Pumpkin Carving Day

Today we had our 8th annual pumpkin carving day with our high school buddies.  This year we were lucky to have the help of Mrs. Gagne's Grade 9 and 10 class to help us carve.  They were so kind and helpful when we carved AND they even played with us on the playground! Thank you for such a wonderful day! 

As we learn to write...

We have been working very hard on our writing in the first 2 months of school! We are SO proud of the progress that all of our students are making!

I just want to send this as a reminder about what beginning writers often create.  It tends to follow the basic rules of sound and is considered phonetic. This type of writing is what we are looking for as they become writers. As we work on our writing this winter, you will see a progression from the phonetic to the proper spelling of words.

The following letter is a perfect example of what we read every day at school and it is one of my favorite types of writing to read!  Don't be alarmed if your child is writing in a similar way.

Thank you again for the continued support at home!

Happy Writing!

Pumpkin Investigations

Yesterday we investigated our classroom pumpkins!  We categorized our pumpkins in groups of small, medium and large and measured their height with Linking Cubes!

We also predicted if our pumpkin would sink or float and then tested our predictions!

A very special thank you to Jackie MacLean and Shirley MacLean for donating their extra pumpkins for us to use!

You can read about our pumpkin investigations here, on the student blogs:

https://kidblog.org/class/MrsElder/posts

Scholastic Orders

This afternoon your child brought home the November Scholastic book order catalogs.  If you are interested in ordering, please return the order form AND a cheque (I am not able to accept cash) by Tuesday, November 3rd.

I have also opened the Pay Online option for our classroom, which allows you to pay for the order online.  There are instructions in the catalogs, and online but please feel free to let me know if it is not working or if you have any questions.

Thank you and happy reading!

Halloween Celebrations on Friday

We will be celebrating Halloween on Friday afternoon in our classroom.  Students can change into their costume at dinner time and wear costumes for the afternoon only, as we will be pumpkin carving in the morning.  We have a few fun activities planned for the students to help us celebrate!

Thank you for your support, and if you have any questions or concerns please let me know.

Pumpkin Carving

We will be pumpkin carving with Mrs. Gagne's class this Friday morning ~ Yay!

A few things to note:

1) Pumpkins can be brought to school as soon as possible.  Please write your child's name on the bottom of the pumpkin.
2) Pumpkin carving tools can also be brought to school.  These tools should be in a container or bag and will be returned to you on Friday after school.  We have discussed with the students some of the necessary things they may need, such as something to scoop with and a sharp knife to carve.
3) Grade One and Two students will not be using the sharp carving tools.  Their buddy from the high school will be handling any sharp knives and tools.
4) Pumpkins will be brought home Friday afternoon

Thank you and Happy Halloween!

5K Challenge

The annual 5K Challenge will happen Friday afternoon at 1:30, weather permitting.

We will head out down the paved road towards "The Bridge" and there will be water stations along the way.  We will have a few adults to walk with our class but if you would like to help us out by being in charge of a few students, please let us know.  We do not have to walk the entire 5K, and you and your group can decide the best distance for you.

Our class is being asked to dress up as a team so we have decided to be the Blue Jays.  If you have any Blue Jay jerseys or shirts please have your child wear them on Friday.  If not, please wear clothing items that are blue.

There will be activities (at the school) for the kids after the challenge is done.
If you are able to help us out by taking/walking with a few kids, please email:

elder.christa@prairiesouth.ca

Thank you!

Pumpkin Carving

We will once again be carving pumpkins with Mrs. Gagne's (formerly Miss Rachul) class this year. Our plan is to carve pumpkins the morning of Friday, October 30th.

More information will be given shortly, but I want to give everyone an opportunity to find a pumpkin.

Drive Away Hunger

All food donations for the Drive Away Hunger campaign must be brought to school tomorrow.

Thank you in advance for your support, and donations, for this project!

Fundraising with DFS (Dieleman)

On Friday your child brought home catalogs for school fundraising from DFS,  There is an information sheet included in the package that outlines ordering procedures, payment options, online sales, etc.

All orders are due back at the school on Friday, October 30th.  Thank you in advance for participating in this fundraising effort.

Life Cycles of a Frog and a Butterfly

In Science we have been learning about the life cycle of a frog and a butterfly.  Today we did a blog post about what we know.

Please have a look at our posts, leave a comment and pass along the following link to family and friends around the world! Thanks so much!

https://kidblog.org/class/MrsElder/posts

Book Orders

Today your child is bringing home the October Scholastic catalogs.

If you are interested in ordering any items, please return the form(s) and a cheque ( I am not allowed to accept cash) by Friday, October 9th.

Thank you in advance for your orders!

Email Addresses

We are trying to update our list of parent/family email addresses.
Please send an email to the following address, using your most active email address.

elder.christa@prairiesouth.ca

Thank you in advance

A Few Reminders

Many students have the Daily 5 goal of working on sight words.  Please continue to do daily word ring practice as those are the most common words found when reading.

Drive Away Hunger donations will be accepted at the school. Any non-perishable items can be brought to the school and we thank you in advance for your donations.

Each child in the classroom has a Daily 5 goal that they are working on.  Part of the process is being able to declare and describe their goal and we are working on this.  Please ask your child what their reading goal is (or where their owl is placed on the CAFE menu) and allow them to describe it to you.  These goals may change from week to week, so check in with your child to see what they are currently working on.

Picture Day

Tomorrow is picture retake day.  If your child is having retakes done they will start at 9:00am.  Please let us know (via note or email) that your child will be going for retakes.

We will also have our class picture done tomorrow as well.

Photo of the day by Josie

Today Aaliyah brought her cute little bunny for Show and Tell! We loved meeting her!

Reading Strategies and Daily 5 ~ Looking at the Pictures

Looking at the Pictures

It is so exciting to watch your children learn to read! Here in school we are teaching children all kinds of reading strategies to use when looking through books. One of the favorites of beginning readers is to "Use the pictures to help me figure out the words." This truly is one of the best ways for beginning readers to learn to read.

We teach children that even grownups use pictures sometimes when they read. When you're fixing the vacuum you look at the diagram. Even cookbooks and car repair books have pictures that match the words. Doctors even use pictures when they read! Nonfiction books may have words that are too difficult, but your child can learn a lot by reading the pictures. It is a great first step toward research and report writing.

If you feel concern that your child is relying on pictures too much, or you are tempted to cover up the pictures so they only look at the words, rest assured that reliance on pictures at this stage is not only completely appropriate, but encouraged.

So read a book, or newspaper, or magazine, or recipe together tonight!

Happy Reading!

First Nations Retelling ~ The Woman Who Married A Frog

Photo of the day by Anthony

"I really like this picture because you can see Mrs.Elder's really nice smile." - Anthony

We also learned about gross germs!

Terry Fox Walk on Wednesday

On September 30th Coronach School will host our school/community Terry Fox Walk and it begins at 2:15pm. Everyone is welcome to attend! 

Remember to bring some money for donations and the auction, as well as a LOONIE for a guessing contest for the 35th Anniversary of the Terry Fox Walk! There will be three prizes for the winners of the guessing contest: elementary, high school and adult! Prizes will be Terry Fox shirts and Hats! All proceeds will go directly to the Terry Fox Foundation! 

There will also be T-shirts for sale and the cost is $15/shirt!

Donations will also be accepted at the school on that day!

We hope to see everyone there and thank you for your support!

Important Days in October

Week of October 5th - 9th
SRC Spirit Week

Monday, October 5th
Pajama Day

Tuesday, October 6th
Fall Color Day

Wednesday, October 7th
Hat Day
**Picture Retake Day**

Thursday, October 8th
Farm Day

Friday, October 9th
Sports Day

Monday, October 12th
Thanksgiving
No School

Monday, October 19th
LIT/Professional Learning Day
No School for Students

Week of October 26th - 30th
Show and Tell

School Pictures

Last week your child should have brought home their school pictures.  If you are interested in ordering, please fill out the necessary portions of the picture envelope and payment options.

Even if you are NOT ordering school pictures, ALL envelopes must be returned to school by Thursday, October 1st.  

Thanks!

Photo of the day by Mackenzie

Working hard during a daily 5 round!

Photo of the day by Carson

Today we worked on writer's workshop and described this beautiful fall scene!

Drive Away Hunger

In honor of World Food Day on Friday, October 16th we are once again participating in the Drive Away Hunger campaign.  Your child brought home a paper grocery bag yesterday with all of the necessary details for suggested foods.

Thank you again for your participation!

Pic of the day by Aaliyah

We are working on our STAR OF THE WEEK!!! This week it's all about William!

Pic of the day by Madex

Today we welcomed fall by painting leaves!

Scholastic Book Orders

Today your child is bringing home Scholastic Catalogs for September.

If you are interested in ordering, please send the order form(s) and a CHEQUE (I am not allowed to accept cash) back to school by Tuesday, September 22nd.

Thank you!

Pic of the day by Tyson!

Today we started learning all about different reading strategies that we can use!

Blog Posts about Fall

Today was our second time that students posted on their own blogs.  We posted about the season of Fall and you can have a look here : https://kidblog.org/class/MrsElder/posts

Thanks so much!

Remember to pass this link along to anyone else who may be interested in reading about our classroom.  Our goal this year is to have "location dots" from all over the world from people who have looked at our blog!  

Photo of the day by Callie

Today we established a list of rules for when we are working hard on our writing!

Home Reading

Tomorrow your child will bring home a bag of library books AND a homework sheet.  The homework sheet involves drawing the main character in one of the books they bring home.

This will be the classroom routine for the remainder of the year ~ library visit, new books and homework sheet home each Wednesday.  Please keep the books for ONE week, and return the books and homework sheet the following Wednesday.  We encourage you to read the books more than once, allowing for your child to read some, or all, of the book.  If your child is a beginning reader, please ask them to read the pictures to you, as we have been working on that in class.  The homework sheets will focus on skills that we are working on within the classroom and within our LIT groups (early dismissal days).

Thank you for your help and for reading with your child.

Photo of the day by Danesha

Working on our patterns

Photo of the day by Brayden

Working hard on our writer's workshop!