Good afternoon!

We started off the day today by working on sentence writing.  The children were asked to use their weekly spelling words and turn them into sentences for house points.  They always have a great deal of fun with this activity.   In language today we also worked on prefixes, special sounds, syllables, and cursive.  In our IB unit of inquiry today we began working on our first line of inquiry 'the art forms of local culture, both past and present'.  Today we discussed a brief history of Canada's aboriginal people- who they were, where they lives, and what their lives were like.  We then focused this discussion on the art and culture of Canadian aboriginals.  We read a book that gave examples of aboriginal dances, stories, carvings, painting, and rock scratchings.  The children found this to be very interesting. They then wrote about what they learned in their journals.  Ask your child tonight to share something they learned with you!  We also spent some time in drama practicing our performance for the upcoming drama.  In math today the students worked on measurement and distance (grade one) and identifying the cores of patterns (grade two).  The students also went to french and music classes.

Homework:  Read for 15 minutes and record in the reading chart, practice weekly spelling words, Letters and Sounds page 106 - 107, math page 128 - 129, and cursive page 104 - 105.

Important information:   Please mark Feb. 11th down for the upcoming SJA Gala.  The theme is going to be 'Love Through the Ages'.  This is a fun night for all friends and families to attend!  Ticket information has gone home with each family.  Please make sure to have a look for this valuable information and to send back ticket information and money to Mrs. Brasil as soon as possible.

Please see my posting from last week with information regarding the Khan Academy.  This is a fun online math program that can be used to practice math skills at home.  The children earn points and badges which they seem to really enjoy!  It is also a way to help develop computer skills which is another important skill for the children to be developing at this age.

Best regards,

Mrs. Nelson