Happy New Year!

We all found the first Monday back quite challenging to last the whole day! We are looking at New Year's Resolutions and getting enough sleep by re-establishing an early bed time was on some of our lists!

The New Year is a perfect time to look at our challenges in class (and we ALL have them). The students are very self aware and were able to express several challenges and give a few strategies for each challenge. Students picked a challenge as their goal to work on in the upcoming weeks. They also decided which strategies would work for each goal. Ask your child what their goals for reading and work habits are and the strategies they plan to use. We will continue on and look at math and writing - and maybe a goal for home too! Now is the time to sow seeds of ideas:)

 We spent some time in the afternoon creatively showing how we use the C.U.B.E.S. strategy to problem solve in math.

C - circle the numbers
U - underline the question
B - box the key/math/action words
E - eliminate extra information and evaluate the question (think, what is the story)
S - solve the problem and check the answer

As we made our own net of the cube, we revised math shape vocabulary, such as edges, faces and vertices. You could think of a 3D shape at home and make your own net. You could also find some 3D shapes (I got lots of great ones at Christmas, such as a Quality Street box and a Toblerone box). Ask your child to point to a face, edge or vertex. Ask how many of each there are. Name the shape, eg. octagonal based prism. Be creative with your questions.

Look out for the letter your child brought home about the book truck. This is a great opportunity for your child to experience a mini public library that comes right to the school. All you need is a Public Library card, which is free!

Look out also for the letter about volunteering at Open Minds. Please consider volunteering but I need to remind you that I can only take people with current police clearance. I need the forms back by Friday so I can make up the groups and parent journals over the weekend. Yes, parents and teachers journal along side the students. Don't worry, we will show you what to do!

It's a bust time as next week we also have our in class field trip where we will be working remotely with scientists in Drumheller!