May 8

Good afternoon,

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I shared with the students after my two day conference, I flew to Vancouver to surprise my uncle for his 80th birthday. It was a whirlwind weekend, and I am happy to be back with Room 5.

Addition was our focus today. Everyone received five blocks of two colours, and had to show an equation on a grid. We are learning new math terminology every day. An equation is, for example, a math sentence. A math sentence is, for example, 5 + 2 = 7. Ask your son or daughter to show you how they took their blocks, how many squares they coloured, and what their number sentence looked like.

Snowball fight! Yes, it is May and there is no snow thankfully, but that didn't stop us from having a sight word snowball fight. I chose a letter, students wrote down a word that begins with that letter and then on my cue, they crumpled up their paper and threw their "snowball" at another student. The student who caught the snowball tried to read the sight word. Next, I chose a different letter, a word is written down, the "snowball" is formed, and then tossed. It was fun. I feel sorry for Ms. Jen as she had a lot of sight words coming her way!

Gym will continue to be outside, weather permitting. I wore a hat to protect myself, and I noticed others did, too.

We talked about being scientists and how scientists sometimes have to keep trying and trying. Well, apparently Room 5 does not have a green thumb. Ask your son or daughter what a plant needs to grow and ask them to tell you what we (Ms. Cokar) forgot to provide in order to meet the needs of a plant!

I hope everyone saw the Teacher's Pet form for our in-class field trip this Friday. Please sign and return this with the payment, as soon as possible.

The Grade 1s participated in a Spelling Bee last Friday. I was not here, and unfortunately it looks like a few students did not participate. Not to worry, as Ms. Hayes and Mr. Hebert said we can join them this Friday! If your son or daughter requested the form from me because they want to participate, that signed form is their entry into the Spelling Bee.

I hope everyone is taking advantage of Mathletics and RazKids? We are fortunate to have memberships to these programs. I will be checking on who is using the programs and how things are going! 15 minutes of Mathletics and 15 minutes of RazKids is highly recommended, in addition to daily home reading (which has started to become inconsistent!). I will be sending home username and passwords to everyone again, for both online programs. Please take advantage!

A notice will be sent home soon for an upcoming trip to...the Calgary Zoo!!! We will need many volunteers for this full day field trip. If you have your volunteer clearance, please consider joining us on Friday, June 23. If you don't have a clearance, please stop by to see Ms. Cumming in the office as soon as possible.

Notices

* Your son or daughter should have taken home forms for Mathletics and RazKids. If you require this information, including passwords, please email me at nmcokar@cbe.ab.ca
* Teacher's Pet project. This form and payment is to be returned ASAP, at the latest by Wednesday
* May Calendar which has many of the important dates I have listed below

Important Dates:

May 9: Calgary Firefighters presentation (tentative)
May 10: Teacher's Pet forms and payment due
May 11: Parent Council Carnival from 6:00 - 8:00
May 12: Grade 1 Spelling Bee in gym during lunch hour
May 12: Teacher's Pet project (see notice sent home). 3-5 volunteers required!
May 16: Pillars of Care assembly at 1:00
May 19: No school for students
May 21: Victoria Day - No school
May 24: Spring Concert (KG, Gr 4-6) - doors open at 6:00; concert begins at 6:30
May 25: Spring Concert (Gr 1-3) - doors open at 6:00; concert begins at 6:30
May 29: Sports Day

I think that is about it!

Have a good evening.

Ms. Cokar