Mrs. Coutts' Grade One/Two Class

Please take some time to pack up your used CD’s, DVD’s, books, and magazines to donate to our Annual Book Fair.  Please send them to school between 9:00-3:00 each day.  Thank you.

On May 31 and June 26 A.L.C. will be offering an afternoon snack of Kernels popcorn and Booster Juice smoothies.  These treats are net free.  Please fill our your order from and return it by Monday May 14.  Thank you very much to the parent volunteers.

Jan Andrews will be visiting A. Lorne Cassidy on May 22.  She will be sharing three of her stories with us.  Our students will be introduced to Quebec’s traditional folktale hero, Ti-Jean.  Ms. Andrew’s book called When Apples Grew Noses and White Horses Flew can be ordered .  It costs $17.75.  All proceeds go to support the literacy program sponsored by the Writer’s Festival.  Please cheques payable to David Dollin.

The focus of instruction in literacy is Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and Expanding Vocabulary.  Our students are learning strategies to check for understanding.  Guided reading instruction models how to retell the story, use prior knowledge to connect with the text, and predict what will happen.  The text features (titles, headings, captions, and graphic features) are used and a summarization of the text includes a sequence of the main events.

For reading accuracy and fluency, our students are learning to cross check then problem solving unfamiliar words.  They monitor if the pictures and/or words look right, sound right, and make sense.  They use the pictures.  They use the beginning and ending sounds of words.  They are also learning to skip the word and then come back to it.  Our students read appropriate-level texts that are a good fit.  They practise common sight words and high-frequency words.

Thank you very much for helping your child practise reading with fluency.  These are the books that he/she are reading in school each week.  They are at your child’s current instructional level and will be needed at school every day.  Please help your child establish the routine of returning the book bag to his back pack after they have been read.  Please contact me at donna.coutts@ocdsb.ca if you have any questions.

In writing, our students are able to generate, gather, and organize their ideas and information to write for an intended purpose and audience.  They are learning to write short texts using several simple forms. The children in grade one are create detailed illustrations to communicate a message.  A few simple sentences are added for clarity.   Our grade two students establish a personal voice in their writing and use familiar words and phrases to communicate relevant details.  They spell many high-frequency words correctly.  They make simple revisions to improve the content, clarity, and interest of their written work.

Students in grade 1-4 are welcome to participate in the Literacy Club.  This takes place in the library on Monday and Thursday mornings from 8:20-9:15.  Students may be dropped off at the library between 8:20 and 8:50.  They are welcome to stay in the library until 9:15.  Students who participate may come at their own leisure and are not committed to participate every Monday and Thursday.

At the Literacy Club students will read independently, with a buddy, or a small group.  Thank you very much to Ms. Gallant for organizing and running the Literacy Club.  She can be reached at michelle.gallant@ocdsb.ca

A. Lorne Cassidy will be collecting  milk bags.  These milk bags will be donated to local volunteers to be woven into sleeping mats and sent to earthquake victims in Haiti.  Milk bags can be sent to school with your child.  Thank you to Mrs. Anderson and Mme Thomas for undertaking this important project.

Our students enjoy using the website ca.ixl.com to practise their math skills.  Storylineonline by the Screen Actors’ Guild provides a great opportunity for our students to listen to stories being read by famour actors.  Tumblebooks is another site that is enjoyed by everyone.

There are four categories of knowledge and skills within each subject area that will be used to evaluate your child’s achievement level for theOntario report card. They are:

 Knowledge and Understanding

-          knowledge  and understanding of content presented

 Thinking

-          use of planning skills (e.g., generation ideas,  organizing information)

-          ability to make inferences, interpret information and form conclusions

Communication

-          expression and organization of ideas and information

-          communication for different audiences and purposes

Application

-          application  and transfer of knowledge and skills

-          making connections within and between various contexts

 A broad range of strategies will be used to assess these knowledge and skills.  Some will require the students to perform or demonstrate their skills and some will require them to speak and present.   Others will require students to draw and write about what they know and understand.

Our students will have many opportunities to participate in shared, guided, and independent learning activities in reading, writing, and mathematics.  These activities will enable our students to build on their prior learning in order to acquire new skills.  For reading, decoding and comprehension strategies will be modeled for our students.  They will be coached and guided in their application of these strategies.  Opportunities to practice these strategies by reading independently will be provided.

 Shared, guided, and interactive writing activities enable our students to have the steps that proficient writers take demonstrated for them.  The traits of good writing, such as topic selection, organization, and word choice, will be explored.  Independent writing gives students opportunities to do their own writing using both self-selected and assigned topics.  As they write independently, our students take risks, develop fluency, think creatively and critically, and express their personal ideas.

 Our mathematics program will consist of a balance of guided, shared, and independent activities.  Guided mathematics activities will enable our students to observe an approach to solving a problem.  Appropriate mathematical language and the steps to effective problem solving will be modeled.  Shared mathematics will provide our students with the chance to acquire and use content knowledge and skill through problem solving, investigation, reasoning and proof, communication, connection, and reflection.  Independent mathematics helps students to consolidate and focus on their own understanding and think of ways to explain this understanding.

Each Wednesday our students will visit the library to sign out a book for the week.  This library book will be due the following Wednesday.  Thank you very much to Mrs. Perrault for her hard work at maintaining our library and for running the Scholastic Book Fair.