Celebrating Character in Our Learning Community

Learning Goal for Character Education

Celebrating our peers character achievements!

Dear Families,
First off, I would like to say thank you to those students and their parents for taking the time to visit our Classroom Blog each week!  It is an opportunity to listen, learn, see, and celebrate what's happening in our Learning Community!  I'm encouraging you to continue to do so as your child is working extremely hard to improvement their achievement academically, socially and behaviourally to REACH FOR THE TOP!

Character Education:
Last week, we developed a Learning Goal to help us all continue to demonstrate Character in our thoughts, words and actions "even when no one is watching!"  When our behaviour is caring, cooperative, empathetic, honest, inclusive, optimistic, respectful, and responsible (Character Traits), then we can do our best thinking and learning to achieve our personal best.  As a teacher, I am passionate about helping your child develop and consistently demonstrate character in and out of the classroom to help them be their best self.  I am truly surrounded with the most thoughtful, kind and loving children!  We are off to an amazing start to our year together.
Character Education Assembly:
Our next assembly is on Nov. 4th at 9:15am to celebrate Cooperation.  Our class is responsible for presenting this character trait.  This week, your child will be bringing home the lyrics to our song (pink sheet) that we will be performing.  Please take a moment to practice the lyrics at home too; your support is greatly appreciated :)  On the day of the assembly, I am requesting each child to wear a white shirt and black (or dark) pants.  I will be providing coloured bandanas to complete our 'Community Look!'

Language:
Last week, I introduced "Literacy Workstations" to help your child build upon their growing reading and writing skills.  I have divided my students into small groups; we have 5 workstations - "Guided Reading, Word Work, D.I.R.T., Crazy Shorts, and Reading/Responding Workshop."  Please ask your child about each workstation and what their responsibility/task is at each one.  I am pleased with their enthusiasm for this initiative and their progress thus far, each student has enjoyed "working together to get the job done!"  (Note: I had a picture to share here, but unfortunately, it's having difficulty downloading.  So please stay tuned for the pictures of our "Literacy Workstations" so you can see your child in action).

Math:
In math, students are working in small groups to develop a Survey Question, collect data for their survey, and then develop a graph to display their information.  Once they have completed their graph, they are expected to read, interpret and draw conclusions from their data. 
Here are some pictures of the students working cooperatively as they begin this task: 

Eryn, Daniel, Jax: "What is your favourite TV show?"

Abigail, Paige, Izzy, Anjoli: "What is your favourite animal?"

Alexander, Grace, and Jakeb: "What is your favourite house pet?"

Xavier, Ryan, William: "What is your favourite pet?"

Mikaila, Josie, Carrie-ann: "What is your favourite kind of animal?"

Bradley, Steven, Alex: "What is your favourite sport?"

As you can see, we have many animal enthusiasts in our class and they are curious about which ones are their peers' favourite!  But we do have a sports question - yay!

Science:
We had an exciting end to our day on Friday!  Here's why ... check it out!!!  Below is a set of pictures of the winners of our Earth, Moon and Mars Plane Competition!  The students had a blast participating in this hands-on experiment!  We had a friendly competition to see whose plane would fly the furthest.  The students in this class displayed excellent sportsmanship as we all had a smile on our face because in the end, we're all winners :-)  I am so proud of their efforts in this experimental science lesson!

Congratulations to our Earth Plane winners: Ryan, Josie, Eryn!

Congratulations to our Moon Plane winners: Xavier, Trista, Paige!

Congratulations to our Mars Plane winners: Wyatt, Eryn, Sammi, Josie

Websites to visit:
www.spellingcity.com I showed the students this site on Friday.  It is a program that will assist in our Word Study Program, it's both interactive and FUN!  Please give it a try with this week's words :)
www.math4.nelson.com This math website offers games, questions to help build upon math skills that we're currently working on and it follows the math resource I'm using in class.
Thank you to Makayla Peca (Izzy's sister) for introducing me to these two websites.  I can now share them with my new students and their families to further support their language and math skills! 
Makayla - you're sooo thoughtful, kind and amazing!!!  I adored being your Grade 6 teacher!

Quote:
"Be kind.  Help others.  Be truthful.  Be responsible.  Be a good friend.  Work together.  Play fair.  Share.  Have respect.  BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!"  
Thank you Julia for giving me this gift to share!  I have it posted in our Classroom Community as a reminder for us all.  I will cherish this always!!!       

Namaste,
Miss Gill