Sorry I couldn't expand on this yesterday… I was quickly writing a blog post while I was in my own masters class last night. You may have seen that my conference schedule is a little bit different than usual. That's because I have commitments on Wednesdays and Thursdays that I can't skip that week. If the times posted don't work for you, please let me know and we can sort something out.

In case you didn't know, I coach special Olympics figure skating. Are used to coach mainstream competitive skating, but when I became a teacher I tried to scale back a little bit. Obviously it didn't happen. The athlete I work with is leaving on March 12 to compete at the Special Olympics World Winter Games to represent Canada. That's why I can't skip his training sessions this last week! Thank you so much for your understanding!

I promise the students I would post more information, so here is a link to the team Canada figure skaters that are travelling to Austria. The boy I work with is Alex, but I've worked with all of these athletes at training camps! http://teamcanada.specialolympics.ca/team-canada/figure-skating/

Speaking of special Olympics, tomorrow is the spread the word to end the word campaign. We will be speaking about this in class! 

Just a reminder that registration for conferences starts tonight at 7pm. You should have received an email with information from Mme Nixon 

Last week we had a great walk to the Fraser river. The kids did so well with road safety crossing marine drive, and remembered to be respectful of residents with their noise level. We walked all the way to Kent and Elliot, and of course at our furthest part is when it started hailing. We stopped along the way to talk about different parts of the eco system. The next day, we spoke at length about the Fraser river food web, and will be continuing on Monday. 

 
 
 
 
 

Here is tonight's homework! 

 

Dear div 1 families,

I am hoping you will help me out to test a new app someone recommended to me. It's called remind, and it is basically a way for me to send reminders as text messages without ever sharing phone numbers. I'd love to try it out and get your feedback. You can find the app in the App Store under 'Remind App'.  I would use it to send reminders such as 'don't forget tomorrow is pink shirt day, and that we are walking to the Fraser River tomorrow', or 'remember hot lunch is tomorrow'. 

If you are interested in trying it out, you can sign up by following these instructions: https://www.remind.com/join/jchape

This is by no means necessary, I'm just hoping some of you would be my guinea pigs :) 

Just a quick note that we will be going for a class walk down to the Fraser River on Wednesday. I'll send a notice home tomorrow, but please make sure that students have appropriate clothing for the weather and shoes for walking. 

We had lots of fun with gymnastics this week! 

 
 

Camp Cheakamus

We had such a wonderful day yesterday! I hope everyone had children who slept well! I know I was exhausted after that day. Here are some pictures from our day yesterday

I hope everyone had a wonderful long weekend! Just a reminder that we are meeting bright and early tomorrow morning. See you at 7am in the gym! 

Water Awareness

As a start to our next science unit, we are talking about water! Seems fitting considering today's weather. Yesterday, I sent home a week-long tracking sheet on water consumption. Please work on this with your child. Since most of the amounts listed are for family-wide activities (washing dishes, cooking, showering), try to include water usage for our whole family. If you are a family of four, you can just multiply one person's shower by 4 if you all showered that day. At the end, we will be adding it all up, and dividing by the number of people in the household. Thanks for your help in getting this done!

Also, since we will be away in Squamish for Valentines Day, we will be celebrating on February 15th, when we are back at school. If your children wish to send cards, please make sure there is one for everyone. I will be sending a list of names home today.

Cursive Worksheets

We have been practicing cursive for the month of January. I this this is so important to learn, so that students have different options for writing that they feel best with. Alos, the benefits for fine motor skills are wonderful! If you want to practice at home, the sheets we use can be found here. If you don't have a printer at home to print them out, let me know and I can make copies!

Musqueam Timeline

Here are the events we put in order for the Musqueam timeline. This is to help with conversations at home!

Oh dear! I had this notice copied and ready to go, and forgot to hand it out! 

 

Schedule Change

I just wanted to let you know about a few schedule changes. Half way through the year (can you believe it's half way through already!!!!?!?!?), teachers' prep schedules change. With our new schedule, students have music class first thing on Wednesday mornings. Instead of coming to the portable, students will meet in our usual spot under the undercover area. From there, Mme Christina will pick them up to take them to the gym. If your student is late on Wednesday morning, please take them straight to the gym with their backpacks.

Library book exchange day will continue to be on Thursdays.

A reminder that gym is on Mondays and Fridays, Please make sure that your child dresses appropriately. Sometimes we will go barefoot in gym to help build strong feet muscles. If your child is wearing tights, they can't fully participate in our activities.

We also have our gymnastics unit coming up! It is extremely important that children wear clothes they can easily move around in, and can be barefoot in, so they are able to participate in our activities.

We have 4 gymnastics periods. They will be on Wednesday February 8th, Friday February 10th, Wednesday February 15th, and Friday February 17th.