October 21 - October 25

Student Learning

• These are the sight words we practiced this week: 
• an
• and
• are
• as
• at 
• Look for these words in books you read together this weekend. 
• We sketched, labelled and worked with oil pastels on a pumpkin sketch: 

• In math, we have been working on pairs that make 10: 

• We played a simple math game in class to practice these pairs. Roll a dice and say the number that will make ten. For example, if a two is rolled, say eight! This is something that students can practice at home. 
• Ask your child to repeat the "Five Little Pumpkins" poem. 

Classroom Updates: 

• Thank you so much for all of your pumpkin donations! Ask your child how many we have collected. 

• We will be headed to the pond on Monday, October 28th. It may be chilly so please dress for the weather. 
• We are looking for 4 volunteers to help with cleaning pumpkins and counting seeds. If you are available on Wednesday, October 30th from 8:30 until 10:30 am, please email your child's teacher. 
• We will also be baking pumpkin cookies on Wednesday, October 30th in the afternoon. These are the ingredients: 

• If there are any concerns with your child consuming these things, please email your child's teacher. 
• For Halloween: costumes are welcome in the afternoon. Please keep masks, make-up, weapons and props at home so that they are good to go for trick or treating. Students may change into their costume after lunch. Please do not send Halloween treats on this day. 

October 14 - 18

Learning Updates:

• In math, we have been investigating what pairs make ten, We have found that there are 6 pairs that make ten. Ask your child to share the pairs that they found. For an extra challenge, ask them what the pattern is to find all 6 pairs. 

• In our Visual Journal, we completed our Thanksgiving Turkey. Ask your child to share what they are thankful for. 

• In reading, we have been working on recognizing the following sight words in print: 

• a 
• after 
• about 
• am 
• all 
• Ask your child to find these words in the books you are reading together. 
• In writing, we have been working on using number words to make our sentences more descriptive. 

Classroom Updates: 

• We will be completing a pumpkin exploration over the next two weeks. If you are able, please send in a pumpkin for the class to explore. If pumpkin donations could be brought in by Tuesday, October 23rd, that would be greatly appreciated! 
• A We Scare Hunger Update: Thank you so much for the generous donations! We are almost at our new goal of 200 items of food! Amazing! 

• Home reading went home today! Here is a little more information about sight words: 

As part of the Home Reading program, students need to practice sight words along with the leveled books. The sight word lists can be found on the parent resource section of the blog.

As you practice nightly reading, please choose a few words to focus on each week with your child.  Students can find the words in their books, as they are reading and/or practice spelling them in the air or on the table with imaginary pencils. Also, you can build sight words with playdough, pipe cleaners and small materials like buttons.  Websites like www.starfall.com and www.abcya.com can help too. Frequent exposure to these words will help to increase their reading fluency. 

Please find the sight words here and here.

October 7-11

Learning Updates

-This week we looked at the holiday/celebration of Thanksgiving and discussed what we are thankful for in our lives.  We brainstormed ideas and will be finishing our thankful hand/turkey on Tuesday.

-Also this week we went back to the pond to observe seasonal changes since our last visit. After our visit we journaled an event map of the changes we observed.  We then learned a new art technique of watercolour pencils and were excited to fill in our drawings.

-In math we continued to discuss patterns in our world and will be filming our findings next week to a program called HP Reveal.  We look forward to sharing this with you at conferences. We worked on the game "Splat" using up to 10 blocks. It is a mental math game that requires visualization of what is 'covered'.  Here is the website where you can find Splat slides if you are interested: www.stevewyborney.com. You can use your own objects such as rocks, bingo chips or beads to practice Splat at home.

-This past week we welcomed the CBE superintendent Chris Usih and Area Director Mike Nelson to our school and classroom. They observed our classroom wishes we made after we read the story The Wish Tree  by Kyo Maclear.  They are now hung in our classroom and we will see if they come true!


Upcoming Events

-Thank-you for your donations for We Scare Hunger! We have passed our goal of 100 items! The campaign is still on until Oct 31 and we are still accepting donations to reach our new goal of 200 items.

-We are looking for police cleared volunteers to help with taping our picture collages to our visual journals.  If you are able to volunteer please email us with availability.


Have a wonderful long weekend and we will see everyone on Tuesday, October 15.

September 30 - October 4

Student Learning:

In math, we have explored our classroom and the Learning Commons for patterns. We talked about to record what we found by taking a photo using an iPad. Here are some examples of student work:

Next week, we will work on describing the patterns using mathematical vocabulary such as core and term.

We have also been writing and journalling about seasonal changes in the fall. We also took part in chalk talk to think about the food, holidays, clothing and changes in plants and animals that take place during this time.

Updates:

• We did not get to the pond on Friday, so we will be heading there on Monday, October 7 in the afternoon. 
• Book orders are due on October 10th. 
• We have started the "We Scare Hunger" campaign to collect food donations for the Calgary food bank. Our classroom goal is 100 items of food and we have gotten an excellent start! Thank you for your donations. 

Auburn Bay School is partnering with the Calgary Food Bank once again this October to help fight hunger in our community.

We Scare Hunger is made possible with the support of Help Hunger Disappear®, Campbell Canada’s national hunger awareness and food drive program. Since 2008, Help Hunger Disappear® reminds us that we can all play a part in helping the more than 900,000 Canadians who rely on their local food banks every month.

The Auburn Bay School We Scare Hunger Campaign officially begins Tuesday, October 1st and will end October 31st. We invite you to be a part of the change our students are working hard to create. Students have been asked to bring in food bank items throughout the next month. Last year we brought in 1720 pounds of food. This year, our school goal is to collect 1800 pounds of food!

To give you an idea of how much food that is, the average family of 4 people receive an estimated 125 pounds worth of food, filling approximately 2 grocery carts per family. So, if we divvy up the 1720 pounds worth of food collected last year, this amount supported about 14 families, filling 28 grocery carts with food. (Calgary Food Bank) The Calgary Food Bank Wish List can be found here https://www.calgaryfoodbank.com/wishlist/ Please only send non-perishable donation items.

Together we can make a difference.

Thank You,

Auburn Bay School