New Face!

Wow! I am really behind the eight ball this month! We are so blessed to have a new student teacher with us! His name is Mr. Girard and he is a faculty of education student from the University of Windsor! He will be with us for 4 weeks! The class is very excited to have him with us and we know he will do amazing things with our students! Welcome to St. Joseph's Mr. Girard!

WOW!!

Wow its been a while since I have posted. Life has just been so crazy these past few weeks. I have lots to share! But it will come in stages! I am actually going to work backwards and start by showing off the most recent exciting events that have taken place in our classroom!

ROCKIN PARTNERS! The students have always had quiet/independent reading time but yesterday they learned about something new! They learned about ROCKIN PARTNERS! This was an exciting time for them to work read together with a partner! What a great time was had! The pictures tell all!

Baby Ayla's 2nd Visit

Our second visit with baby Ayla was amzazing. Our students abosuletly love her! It is amazing how much she has changed from our very first visit! If you have any questions about the Roots of Empathy Program please click on the top of this post and it will bring you to our Roots of Empathy Page!

Using the "Paint" program to create shape designs

During the month of January and February we are learning all about 2D shapes and 3D shapes. The students have recently been introduced to the "Paint" program, which they love. The students are beginnign to create their very own shape designs using the paint program. Look how amazing the students are! We will continue to add each week as students complete their work!

Christmas Fun!

Christmas Fun! on PhotoPeach

Santa's Visit!

Wow! It has been such a busy Holiday season! Sorry it took me so long to post all the wonderful and amazing things our class was able to do over the holidays!

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Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a WONDERFUL and MERRY CHRISTMAS! I know I did! Quality family time is so nice! I'm thankful God sent his son into the world as an infant who later died to save me from my sins! How awesome to know one day I will see him face to face!
What a week! It is our first week back from Christmas Holidays, and it has been super busy trying to get the kiddos back into our routine and get them prepared for winter. Yikes! I do love this time of year though when the "Christmas Magic" happens and the students are so ready to learn. This is the best teaching time for me!

Gingerbread Madness!

We are doing all things gingerbread this week and the kids are having a blast! They are all loving the retelling activities. Ms. Fantuz, our wonderful volunteer decided it would be a great treat and learning experience for the class to make gingerbread cookies. The students had a wonderful time learning about all the ingredients needed to make the cookies, as well as discovering how to read a recipe. I can honeslty say their favourite part was decorating and eating their gingerbead men! Thank you Ms. Fantuz for your generosity and giving of your time to our class!

Dad's Garage!

Dad's Garage! on PhotoPeach

Scientists!

The students have been learning about changes in seasons! So as "Scientist" we went outside to make some observations in our science journals! We also brought bags to colelct artifacts that may help us to understand the change in season. The students really took on the role of the scientist and could be found collecting fallen leaves, pinecones etc. Also many were making sketchs and labelling in their science journals. We returned to the classroom to discuss their findings. We will continue to explore cylces for the next month.

Phonological Awareness-Rhyme Recognition

This is the time of year that I look ahead at the phonological awareness skills sequence to carefully plan my instruction. When I look at what I assess in my first quarter, I am looking to see which of my students can recognize rhyme. We will then move on to completing rhymes, then producing rhymes.


Why is phonological awareness important?


Research states there is a high correlation between phonological awareness and later success in reading and spelling. Students must be able to hear and manipulate sounds before they can relate them to print... so I gotta make sure my kiddos can develop this important skill.

Mrs. Lucier always comes up with fun ways to teach new skills. Below you will find pictures of students practicing their rhyming skills!

Glenhilda Arrives!

Glenhilda arrived on Halloween! on PhotoPeach

Road Trip!

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On Thursday Oct 27 our class travelled to Auto Motion for a ROAD TRIP! It was awesome! The students were able to sit in a smart car, look under the hood of a car, and watch them detail a car in the garage! Thanks again to Gil at auto motion for taking them time to show our students around!

our new dramatic centre

This is how it all began. The children (as you can see in earlier pictures) seem to take an interest during play; making planes with lego, playing with cars on the blocks (ramp), etc. So Mrs. Bos and I decided that this would be a great time to take out the "garage " prop box. 


Eric found a magnetic "watch" and wondered what it was for. I think he found out in our sensory filled with nuts and bolts.


Nayelle found the clipboard and became the accountant in the dramatic centre.



Cameron found the car keys and tried finding the right slot to put them in.


Keenyn found the paint sprayer and attached them together.





Hailey found the windshield wiper and used it back and forth, back and forth as she was sitting in a car.

A New Face!

Mrs. Lucier and I would like to welcome Mrs. Baggio to our classroom. She is a teaching student from the University of Windsor. She will be with us for the next four weeks. Mrs. Baggio will be teaching 25 percent of our day! We will work together to plan the program based on the Ontario Curriculum. Mrs. Baggio will be teaching the shared reading and writing portion of our day for the next 4 weeks! The students are very excited to help Mrs. Baggio learn all about the Early Learning Kindergarten Program. Mrs. Baggio can not wait to start teaching all of your wonderful children. Please make her feel welcome during her stay. We know she will do a FABULOUS job in our class!

My Sister is coming..

If you have heard about my famous sister.. Glenhilda then you are probably wondering what she is all about!! Well she will be arriving on Halloween to come and make her brew with our class. Unfortunately I will be away that morning (wink wink). The kids are nervous and excited to meet her.. its all in good fun. Her visit elicits so many areas of learning. Including, procedural writing when we rewrite her brew, letter writing as they have been writing letters to her as well as reciveing letters from her also they have been trying to persuade her to stay way ( persuasive writing). All of these tasks are rich, real life tasks. They are not writing a letter because they have to, they are writing it because they want to. Children learn so much more when the tasks are real! To them these tasks are very real! I am excited to see how Monday goes!

Number Hunt

The ELK students are so lucky! For the next few weeks we will be using a set of 5 digital cameras that have been loaned to us from the board IT department. After a lesson on how to use the cameras properly and keep them safe we headed out on a number adventure. Since completing our patterning unit in math we have moved on to our unit on Number Sense. The students need to realize that numbers are all around us. We need and use numbers everyday! So we went on a number hunt, to try to capture numbers with our digital cameras.

Bus Safety!

Bus Safety on PhotoPeach

Library Visit

Today we took our second trip to the public library and your child was able to learn how we check out books. Our school library day wil be Mondays. In my class each day a child brings back a library book they are able to check out a new book. Last year I had several students who checked out a new book each day! Occasionally the library is closed for special events- if this happens I will post it on the blog and your child will check out a book the next day. Your child will be responsible for taking the library book out of their backpacks each day. Occasionally we might have a mix up where your child's book is returned, but they didn't bring a new one home (keeping track of 26 students who may or may not bring back library books can get a little confusing). If this happens simply put a note in your child's folder or email me and we will fix the situation immediately. Thanks!

Wednesday is Picture Day!