Welcome to a new school year!

Hi All,

I hope everyone had a terrific summer and are ready to be back at school. It has been a very exciting week and we are starting to get to know one another (or reacquaint!), form new friendships and start to develop a new learning community.

Next Thursday evening, on September 13th from 6:15-7:15, Port Guichon will hold our open house. This year's format will be quite informal - it is a time for you to come in and take a look around and meet me. I will have handouts regarding our classroom routines, expectations along with some information about the programs I will be using in our core subjects. This is also the time for you to bring along any questions that you may have regarding programming! We will hold off on talking about individual students at that time, but if you have any questions/concerns, please let me know and we can set up an alternative time to sit down and talk.

Speaking with the children, there have been a number of questions arising regarding being in the 3/4 split and in particular, tables! I will begin with tables: many of the students were disappointed to not have their own desks. I have explained to them that we spend a great deal of time working with concrete materials (manipulatives) and we often work together in partners and groupings. Tables offer a lot more space for them to spread out their tools and also provide greater opportunities to communicate and work in teams. Each student is keeping most of their own personal supplies in a pencil case which is stored in their group's tray. However, certain materials will be shared to simplify matters. The students agreed that this was a good compromise.

Regarding the 3/4 split: Both grades will receive instruction that directly address their grade level expectations. (I was happy to hear that the grade 4's were relieved that they would be getting harder work!). Science and Socials for both grades will be covered.

Part of my teaching philosophy is to provide instruction and practice based on individual students' abilities. Although students may see it as if they are learning/doing the same thing as everyone else in the class, slight modifications in my lessons or assignments actually can either accommodate or challenge students. For example: in Math, if we were practicing addition, I may give one student 1 dice and ask them to roll single digit numbers while another student may have to roll 2 dice to generate double digit numbers. 

If you have any further questions regarding the split and how I will be running my program, please ask! 

Supplies:
As most of you have noticed, I have asked for additional supplies. I am hoping to go through some of the notebooks next week and will be sending home notes to those that are running low on either inter-lined or wide-ruled books. (Based on my research from last weekend, Staples was still selling them and they were running for $0.69/book). Each child needs at least 4 wide-ruled exercise books (dark blue covers). They may eventually run out at some point in the year, so you may want to send a couple of extra books. Any unused books will be sent home at the end of the school year. 

Each student needs to have: (I told them I encourage them to reuse any gently used items)
pencil case or box
1 blue pen
1 red pen
Yellow, pink, green highlighter
set of playing dice (for home)
playing cards
water colours
1 sharpie black felt pen - medium
1 black felt fineliner
1 box of tissues

I have also purchased composition books for each student. These will become their readers and writer's notebooks (each student has 3 composition books - 2 for writing, 1 for reading). I would greatly appreciate it if you could send $2 to cover the cost of these books. 

It's been a long post, so I'm going to end it here. Have a terrific weekend and see you on Thursday!