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Mlle Rohan’s May Newsletter 2008
It
looks like spring is finally upon us! As the weather gets warmer, I would
like to remind parents to make sure your children are wearing safe shoes to
school. For safety reasons, we ask that flip flops stay at home. Make sure
that if your child is wearing sandals that they have straps. While children
run and play on the playground, and for Physical education and daily
physical activity, these shoes are dangerous to wear and can cause slips and
falls. Please feel free to keep a pair of your child’s indoor shoes at the
school for the remainder of the year. Thank you for helping to keep our
children safe.
On Thursday May 1st our school will be hosting its annual open house. Come in and see all of the great projects that our students have been working hard on. This year Mlle Macoretta and I will be working together to present the students’ work. We will be having an environmental expo showing off our plants, science experiments and season projects. So come out and support our school and learn something new while you’re there!
Important dates:
- Open house: May 1st
- Fun Fair: May 8th
- Gregg Lerock concert: May 8th
- Yearbook orders due: May 9th
- Jump rope for heart: May 16th
- Pizza Day: May 16th
- Victoria Day (no school): May 19th
As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at the school or via email: .
Merci,
Mlle Rohan
Curriculum:
Francais:
During the month of May, many teachers at Dufferin are completing Alpha Jeunes reading assessment which will be kept on file. This information is used to monitor reading comprehension and progress, as well as to provide the next year’s teacher with a starting point for targeted reading instruction. I will be conferencing with one student each day to perform the assessment during our literacy block in the morning.
Math:
We have spent a lot of time on addition, subtraction and money. Many of you know that we have been running a store in our class for the past few months where students earn money and can purchase small prizes. We will continue to do this until the end of the school year to enforce handling money, counting out change and trading in money for larger coin sums. You too can enforce this at home by looking at price tags at the store and having your children help you count out your change. This month we will keep adding and subtracting and with it move into equalizing equations. We will be looking at terminology such as equal, less, and more than.
Social Studies / Science
In the month of May we are preparing ourselves for the BIG and always FUN timeline project! The students are asked to organize pictures of important moments in their lives according to sequence of events. They will be writing captions for the photos that will also be included in the display. In the end, each student will have a beautiful visual history of themselves to take home and share with you. Attached you will find a much more detailed description of the project.
Visual Art:
As we waited for trees to grow their leaves, we did not yet go on our horizon line project walk. Thus we will be doing so during the month of May. This month we will also be concentrating on some top secret projects that moms and dads will find out about soon enough!
Mlle Rohan’s April Newsletter 2008
Spring
is here and it’s really hard to believe that April is already here! With
only 12 days of school during the month of March, the month flew by, and we
are getting started on term three. Report cards went home on March 20th.
As in term one, we spent some time discussing goals for the upcoming new
term. Please review, sign, and fill out page three of the report card and
send it back to school with your child along with the envelope. Although
there is no formal meeting for term two report cards, you may wish to
schedule a meeting. To do so, please check the box at the bottom of page
three and I will contact you to set up a meeting date and time.
Important dates:
April 2: Skating at the Civic Centre
April 25: Pizza day
If you have any questions, once again, please feel free to call me at the school or email me.
Sincerely,
Mlle Rohan
Curriculum:
French:
We have just started to discuss our ‘Bonhomme’ project. Here are a few examples of what students have done in the past (surfer, basketball player, hockey player, figure skater)…The bonhomme can represent anyone. Keep a close out for a rubric that will be sent home in your child’s Friday file with more information to follow.
Math:
We have begun looking at money and started money centers. We have discussed various coins including dimes, nickels, quarters, loonies and toonies. We will be continuing with our unit on money, and visit number families as we finish addition and subtraction.
Social Studies/Science:
In April we will focus on Energy. Where does it come from? And how can we conserve it. Towards mid to end April we will once again shift our focus to Social Studies and look at buildings. We will study specific buildings in Brantford as well as similarities in buildings throughout communities.
Art:
Most of our artistic experiences will revolve around the coming of spring. Let’s hope that the weather cooperates so that we can go outside to sketch the beautiful changes that are occurring as well as study the horizon line.
Health:
We will begin health by focusing on healthy eating. We will study the food groups and look at what makes up healthy meals and healthy food choices.
Mlle Rohan’s March Newsletter 2008
Bonjour, and
welcome to the month of March! This month is going to fly by quickly as we
will have March break and the long Easter weekend this month. It will also
be the beginning of spring. We have lots of fun activities to look forward
to this month, and hopefully spring will be in full swing within a couple of
weeks.
Here are some important dates that you may want to mark in your calendar:
Important Dates to Note
| Note–no pizza days in March | |
| March 7 | Board Holiday–no classes |
| March 10-14 | March Break |
| March 20 | Grade 1-8 report cards go home |
| March 20 | Skating–1R, 1M, 4/5W and 3T |
| March 21 | Good Friday–no classes |
| March 24 | Easter Monday–no classes |
Thank you to the parents that came along on the field trip to the library. It was nice to see the library after its renovations. Please remember that if you would like to become a volunteer and/or join us on field trips, you must get your police record check. It’s quick and it’s easy, and the school will even provide you with an information package. We would love to see you join us!
Français
We will continue our oral show and tell presentations. The presentations have been really well done, and I’m very impressed with the students’ preparedness. We will be stressing speaking French in the classroom and on the yard, which the students are willingly doing on their own, with great success. The students will have the opportunity this month to create a person out of paper and present it to the class. This project will have the students creating an individual (cartoon character, friend, famous person, hockey player, surfer, family member...), decorating them, and presenting them to the class. There will be four components to this project; written, oral, creative, and having fun!
Math
We have finished graphing and telling time. Now it is time for another array of math activities to keep us busy through the month of March. We have started looking at money and will continue to do so. The children will receive paper money coins that they can collect to ‘purchase’ rewards. This is to help them understand how money works in our society. As we are working on money, we are reviewing counting by 5, 10 and 25. We are also stressing the importance of addition and subtraction when working with money. Towards the end of the month we will begin problem solving with money.
Science / Social Studies
We are currently finishing up our topic on the seasons and the 5 senses. As we finish these units, towards the end of the month we will be moving into energy in our lives as well as starting our unit on health and healthy eating.
Homework
Please remember to keep checking your child’s grey homework book. It is sent home in the Friday File each week. If it has been returned to school, a new assignment has been placed in the book for completion.
Mlle Rohan February ‘08 newsletter
The virtue that we will be practicing in February is Loyalty. There are many ways in which to show loyalty. Stand up for what you believe in, and stay committed to your friends and to your word.
Please note that there is a new holiday in the month of February that is not marked on your school board calendars. In addition to the PA day on February 1st, there will also be no school on February 18th.
CurriculumFrançais
This month we will be starting formal Show and Tell to work on our speaking and questioning skills. Please see the attached letter for an explanation of how the children will be evaluated and to note your dates for Show and Tell.
We have been working very hard on prepositions and the verb ‘to be’. We will continue using these words to build vocabulary and practice speaking and writing in complete sentences. We will continue to review punctuation.
Math
We are working on Data Management to start the month of February. We will be sorting objects and representing the results on a graph. Then to the end of February we will begin learning to tell time to the hour and half hour. The students need to be able to read the analogue clock (round with hands) as well as a digital clock. We will create a book by putting the events of our school day in order.
Sciences:
We are starting a unit on Earth and Space Systems: Daily and Seasonal Cycles. In this unit we will explore seasons and weather. Later in the month we will shift gears to explore Matter and Materials focussing on the Five Senses. It combines expectations from the Matter and Materials and Life Systems strands.
There are experiences and some experiments to get to know each of the five senses. The children will be learning to express their observations using the senses and also exploring what life would be like if they didn’t have the use of one of their senses.
Art: Our art activities this month will focus on the Valentine’s Day theme using a variety of materials. We will explore textures in our environment by creating rubbings and sketches of various textures.
If you ever have any questions, please call me at the school 519-752-8232.
You can also check the school website for information, classroom newsletters and news from our Parent Council:
http://schools.gedsb.net/duf/index.htm
Mlle Rohan’s January
Newsletter 2008
Happy New Year and welcome back to Dufferin! I hope that you all had a relaxing and fun filled holiday. I am thrilled to be back in the classroom with the students as this year brings many more new and exciting learning experiences.
I would like to extend a big thank you to all of the parents that helped support our holiday activities in December 2007. Our gingerbread men were a big hit and the students enjoyed all of the holiday crafts and learning activities. Your donations were much appreciated, merci!
We have enjoyed our visits with Mme Diamond and Kelso. There will be two more classes in January. The children know many of the choices off by heart. The next step is to be using them in our day to day interactions with others. One skill I’m trying hard to reinforce in the classroom is determining when it’s a small problem or a big problem. You can support this too by asking your child when they come to report on their siblings, then help them to decide on an appropriate Kelso’s choice to use to solve it themselves.
The Virtue our school has chosen to model and practice for the month of January is Justice.
To all the families at Dufferin, I would like to wish you all lots of health and happiness in 2008.
Mlle Rohan
Curriculum
Please continue to review the work sent home in the Friday Files each week. Worksheets sent home in the file are yours to keep!
Français
We will continue with dictees and focus on site words based on our units. A big focus for the month of January is to make sure we all know the blended sounds from Jolly Phonics. I will be testing the children on all of the sounds with two letters (ou, en, ch, oi, etc.).
Math
We started the month with a bit of review and looking at symmetry. We will touch on addition to review this concept. Next we will start a unit of 3D geometry, learning the names and properties of the three dimensional shapes. There will be centres in which we explore the properties such as rolling and sliding shapes and we will also build castles with the solids. Towards the end of the month we will begin learning to tell time to the hour and half hour. The students need to be able to read the analogue clock (round with hands) as well as a digital clock. We will create a book by putting the events of our school day in order.
Social Studies:
In January we will continue our unit on community helpers, learning the names of the occupations of people who help us and who help their community. We will be learning the various tools, vehicles and clothing that are used in these occupations.
Science:
After our study of important people in the community we will be switching gears and becoming scientists again! We will be studying the five senses. There are classroom experiments to discover each of the senses and then we will focus on how each of our senses helps us in our daily lives.
Music:
This term the children will be having Music with Mme Gorecki on Day 1 at 2:30. They will be receiving a mark for Music on the Term 2 report card.
If you ever have any questions, please call me at the school 519-752-8232.
You can also check the school website for information, classroom newsletters and news from our Parent Council:
http://schools.gedsb.net/duf/index.htm
Enjoy the month of January!
Mlle Rohan
Mlle Rohan’s
December newsletter
The holiday season is already upon us and we have lots to do before leaving for the holidays! The end of November also means that term one is now done too. This means report cards will be coming to you soon. On December 3rd look for report cards in your child’s backpack. We have been discussing what report cards are and what they mean. The students have been asked to not open the report cards until they get home to you. Please review your child’s report with them. On page three of the report card you will find a page that we ask you to fill out with your child. This page asks that your child sets goals for term two. Please return this page to school ASAP and it will be attached to his/her copy of the report card in the OSR (Ontario Student Report). Please keep the first two pages for your records.
This month we will have a holiday celebration on the last day of class. We invite you to send treats (please make sure they are peanut/nut free) for your child to share with the class. We will be making lots of festive and winter decorations for our classroom. We are asking parents to donate any holiday ‘extras’ that you may have to help us decorate (i.e. extra wrapping paper, holiday cards, ribbon, markers, garland). All of our decorations will be up for display throughout the month of December for your viewing. Come join us for the upcoming open house to see our winter wonderland (for date and time of the school open house, please refer to the Dufferin December newsletter).
Curriculum
Francais:
In November we completed our written work on animals and the ‘Bulubulu’ project (where the students created their own creature). In December we will be discussing letter writing as we will be writing letters to Santa.
Math:
We have been working hard on patterning. We have patterned everything from mittens to letters, shapes and numbers. We will continue and finish this unit by using our hundred chart to pattern numbers and count by 2, 5, and 10. As we conclude this unit, we will move on to symmetry and begin problem solving. This month we will also be focusing on counting to 100. It would highly benefit your child to count to you in French every day up to 100.
Social Studies:
We will move back into Social Studies as we have finished our unit on animals and living things in Science. The class will be looking at various important people within our community. We will start by investigating all the people that fill our school, including the care takers, the principal and the secretary.
Art:
In art we will be focusing on the holidays to create a warm and festive environment. We will create three dimensional works of art and review vocabulary ( i.e. fold, cut, colour, glue) as well as the concept of mixing primary colours to form secondary colours. We will incorporate winter weather and seasonal vocabulary into our creations as we reflect the holidays in our creations.
I wish you all a happy and safe holiday season!
Sincerely,
Mlle H. Rohan
Mlle Rohan’s
November newsletter 
The past two months of schools seem to have flown by! The students have done very well in settling into grade one. They have been working very hard and it is paying off generously in their favour. Way to go première année!
Merci to all of the parents that helped out with our Halloween party! Whether you sent snacks, donated decorations or came in to see all of the spooky costumes, thank you!
As we get into the month of November, we have lots of new experiences for the grade ones. This month, the grade ones will begin working on their first major project of the year. As we have been learning body parts, descriptive words and animals, the students will invent their own animal, and build an example. They will write a description of the animal, name it and present their work to the class. More information will be sent home later this month. For this project, we are asking parents to donate any craft materials (feathers, pipe cleaners…) to our classes to help the students. Merci!
F.Y.I.
- Look for a note coming home this month regarding parent teacher interviews. Interviews are set on a first come first served basis. If desired, please fill out a time that is convenient for you and send it back to school as soon as possible.
- The virtue for the month of November is tolerance. We will be making connections to this virtue by linking it to peacefulness and Remembrance Day. This will be another ‘first’ for the grade ones, as we will be attending the Remembrance Day assembly on November 9th. This has been put together by some of the teachers at our school and it will be presented in an age appropriate manner. We will be discussing Remembrance Day and its significance in our society. The students will also build a wreath of poppies and present it at the assembly.
- Also, this is a link that may be useful to some of you http://www.theweathernetwork.com/schools/CAONPOI2154449/caon0081. It shows particular forecasts for our school. It may be helpful to your child as we discuss the weather at school every day. Perhaps have your child tell you the predicted forecast in French while polishing his/her computer skills at the same time!
Curriculum:
Français
As we conclude our review of Jolly Phonics, we will continue to discuss punctuation and sentence formation. The students will continue to practice creative writing in their journals, and will have lots of opportunities to carry out their oral and written French abilities with the animal project on its way.
Math
We have just begun our unit in Geometry. We discussed various 2D shapes and identified the various characteristics that allow us to categorize them. We will continue down this path and begin to classify and sort 2D shapes according to their attributes.
Science
This month we will examine the various characteristics of animals and their habitats. We will be studying animal body parts and their needs to survive while comparing it to those of humans, and plants. We will apply this knowledge to create our creatures.
Visual Arts
As our creature project gets under way, we will observe the various textures of animals which will apply directly to the production of our creatures. We will look at vocabulary to describe animals as well as other elements in our surroundings. Furthermore, as Remembrance Day approaches, we will discuss (and experiment) how colours and shades can reflect one’s emotions.
Mlle Rohan’s October Newsletter
What
a great first month of school! Although we kept very busy in class, we all
enjoyed working together and getting to know one another. The students are
very eager to learn and their transition into grade one is going very well.
It is a wonderful experience getting to know new faces, and working with the
students that I already know. With that, I would like to thank the parents
that came by for ‘meet the teacher night’. It is always a great
opportunity to get to speak to all of you and to have you visit our
classroom.
October is just around the corner, and we are all looking forward to Hallowe’en. Although there will be many activities to look forward to, we are still planning and we will keep you informed throughout the month. Look for more information to come.
Volunteers
We will soon begin class trips and as you may want to volunteer on a class trip or directly in the classroom, I kindly remind you that you need to get a police record check before helping us out at the school. You will also need to fill out a form. If you are interested in volunteering at any point in the year, now is the time to get the ‘paper work’ out of the way. Please notify me if you intend to participate in any school based activities, and I will assist you with the procedures. If you need any other questions answered, please feel free to email me at : hrohan@fc.gedsb.net.
Notes:
-Please remember to hand in your scholastic order forms by October 15th to get your books in time for Hallowe’en.
-Sometimes our class goes on walks around/near the school for educational purposes or for DPA (daily physical activity). This may mean crossing the street or going off school property. For this reason, we ask that you fill out the bottom portion of this sheet and send it back to school signed, allowing your child to leave school property with the teacher and rest of the class.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I, _ give permission to my son/daughter __________________ to leave school property with the class and with a teacher for educational purposes.
Signed:__________________________ date:______________________________
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Expectations
Francais
This month we will begin dictees (spelling tests). Every week we will have a list of 5-10 words that the students will be expected to write correctly. The word lists will be located in their agendas in the area entitled ‘words of the week’ (across from their daily messages of the week). Their test will take place every Friday with the new word list ready to go home for practice for the weekend. In other words, the students already have the word list for their test that will be held Friday October 5th.
This month, the grade one teachers will begin reading ‘one on one’ with the students to determine each child’s reading level. I will be seeing approximately one to two children per day. You can help your child achieve a higher reading level by reading with them every night.
In writing, I will be stressing the importance of upper/lower case letters, as well as spaces between words, and a period in every sentence. You may wish to point these out to your child as you read with him/her.
Finally, we will continue to discuss the addition of ‘s’ to form the plural form, and the addition of ‘e’ to form the feminine of certain words.
Math
We will continue to work on number recognition. This month we will focus on numbers one to fifty. Please have your child practice counting in French at home.
We are introducing measurement, and will be working with standard and non standard forms of measurement in class. It would be very beneficial to your child if you could practice using a ruler at home (to measure and to draw straight lines that connect).
Finally, late in the month, we will begin studying shapes. This year we will begin with 2D shapes and discuss their various attributes.
Social Studies
We will complete our unit on relationships, rules and responsibilities. The children have completed a booklet as well as an identification sheet of the person that they admire. We discussed rules in the classroom versus rules at home. Once this unit is complete, we will start our special science project.
Science
In science this month, we will look into the characteristics of living things. In this unit we will investigate the needs of all living things, and examine major parts of the body. As we do this, we will observe and discuss changes in our bodies, as well as in plants and other animals. The final summative task for this unit will allow the students to create a creature with specific needs based on their body structure.
September Newsletter
Bonjour and
welcome back to school! Bienvenue à la première année. I hope that you
all had a wonderful summer. I am very excited to get this year started as we
have lots of new memories to make, experiences to share, and learning to do.
Mlle Macoretta, Mme Gorecki and myself will be teaching grade one this year.
We will be working very closely to plan and coordinate a fun and successful
year for the grade one program at Dufferin. If you have any questions at any
point throughout the year, please do not hesitate to contact me by phone at
the school or via email, hrohan@fc.gedsb.net.
Academics
Français
We begin the year with a review of the Jolly
Phonique program. We review the letter sounds and names at the rate of one
new sound a day. Our focus in class will be on sound / symbol recognition
and on printing skills. We will be working on a poem about September which
will serve as a focus point for reviewing concepts of print.
Math
We begin the year with a study of numbers. Through
the month of September we will be focussing on numbers 1-25. Each day we
will ask for volunteers to count as high as they can to gauge a beginning
point. You can help support your child at home by having them count for you
in French. We will supplement our work on counting by focussing on one to
one correspondence while counting, as well as introduce the concept of
estimation. Throughout the month we will also be integrating and reinforcing
the use and spelling of the number words un-cinq.
Social
Studies / Science
Throughout the year we will be alternating our units
in Social Studies and Science. We begin the year with a unit of Social
Studies on Relationships, Rules, and Responsibilities. Our focus for
September will be to identify the important people in our lives, their
relationships to us, and the roles they play for us. We will be reviewing
and introducing new vocabulary terms related to family and relationships
which we will revisit frequently during Language Arts.
Visual
Arts
Our creative work will begin with a careful look at
different types of lines in art work and in the environment. We will be
looking at the different ways lines are used in art to create mood. Students
will be asked to select and use a variety of lines in their work. Now for
our first request... We have a back to school craft planned for the end of
the month but we need your help! We would appreciate donations of cardboard
egg cartons.
Daily
Physical Activity (DPA)
Teachers and students are now required to
participate in a minimum of 20 minutes of daily physical activity. These
blocks have been scheduled into our time table. Please note that DPA is not
required on days when the students have scheduled Phys Ed. Please make sure
that your children have proper footwear in order to participate safely in
these new activities.
Teachers’
Requests...
Each year there are a few items that are in high demand throughout the
entire year. These items remain in our class for use by the whole class. We
have started our classes off with a supply of each of these items. If you
are able to donate any of the items on our list, we would greatly appreciate
it. Thank you very much to those parents who have already sent in some of
these items.
-
Kleenex
-
plastic forks/spoons
-
soap
Agendas
Your child received an agenda at school today that
will be used on a daily basis. It will be mainly used as a communication
tool between the teacher and the parent/guardian. If you have any comments,
please feel free to write them into the agenda, as I will be reading them on
a daily basis. Please be sure to check the agendas as well because there may
be important information in there for you as well. The agendas are used
starting in grade one and will be used through to grade eight. It is an
excellent tool to keep lines of communication open between teacher and
parent, and it will help your child keep organized,
****The cost of the agenda for every child is
$8.00. Please send this money
to school with your child as soon as possible.
(Please send any money to school in an envelope
with your child’s name and grade written on it)