Afternoon Tea- Moving Beyond Sounding Out: Ways To Support Beginning Readers
BEST's Literacy Resource teacher Deanna Steptoe is offering parents an opportunity to get together over tea and cookies and discuss ways to help beginning readers (that's us!) at home. Join her Wednesday, Jan. 22 at 2:00pm in the library.

A blue notice went home today regarding the school's book swap on Friday. Children that bring a book from home this week will be able to exchange it for a token then choose a 'new-to-them' one on Friday.

A pink permission slip for our trip to the Big Little Science Centre went home today as well. There is NO cost and they must be returned, signed, by this Friday. Don't forget to fill in your child's name on the bottom half.

As we are studying the letter B this week, we will have Bear Day on Friday. Your child is welcome to have their favourite bear stuffie accompany them to class for the day.

What a day! The start of January has proven to be busy for Team Awesome but we are half way through the month with a few things to look forward to.

• Aidan shared his Angry Birds hat, Trey showed us his Pokemon cards, Carson was absent and Myles forgot.
• Lunch forms for February went home today and are due Jan. 27. FYI, the school district has changed caterers and the lunches look much tastier.
• An Unplug and Play notice for Family Literacy Week with a list of mostly free activities for families went home yesterday. There will be some great activities available for the kids and their families around Kamloops from January 20-27.
• A notice for a school-wide book swap will come home next Monday.
• We will be attending the Big Little Science Centre the morning of Monday January 27. Permission slips will come home early next week.
• New speakers were installed throughout the school this week. Yay!
• Ms. Manson loaned us her super cool 'Feelie Bucket' for a few days.
• There have been 2 books in our Home Box since before Christmas. Please claim them if they belong to your child.
  Go forth and Be Awesome!

 From the time you drop them off in the classroom in the morning until you pick them up at the end of the day, the children are expected to be independent, responsible and motivated individuals. They put on their own shoes, tidy up after themselves, push in their chairs, put on their outside things, make decisions about what to eat for snack and where its best to sit during carpet time. Their work is their own and they are accountable for doing their best at all times. I don't do for the children what they can do for themselves. They are also responsible for making sure their choices do not adversely affect someone else in our classroom. The children know they can make wise decisions for themselves and feel competent, especially when their accomplishments are reinforced, encouraged and appreciated. Most of the time the children manage this all wonderfully on their own but there are situations during the day that require adult help or reminders and that is to be expected as responsibility is not something acquired automatically at a certain age. It is attained slowly over many years. And, for the most part, they are thrilled to be given responsibility. We have a list of rotating jobs on the wall and I have yet to hear one child complain that it is their turn to do something. Rather, they check the list and hop up and down when they see their name on it. If a student is absent there are many volunteers to take charge of the job. And there is never any shortage of happy helpers if someone else needs a hand with something. Happy helpers means everyone is happy!

I had promised the children last week that when we had the proper type of snow we would go outside and make snowmen. After the big melt today I am so thankful we spent a large chunk of Friday afternoon on the field rolling snow and making a large snowman!

• This week Beth shared some cool magnets, Tayja had a blue flower necklace, Beni showed us his hockey helmet and stick and Logan brought an oil/water toy that we shook.
• We have started to share our January Family Projects (family trees) and they are welcome any time.
• The speakers in our classroom and throughout the school are being replaced and should be finished by the end of next week.
• I am looking into booking our class into a learning lab at the Big Little Science Centre at the end of January.

Go forth and Be Awesome!

What a great, busy day we had today! This morning we used paper plates and a flashlight to learn how the earth turns on its axis and then revolves around the sun to make day and night as well as a year and at the end of the day watched a few clips about what this looks like from space. This is a complicated abstract idea but with the hands-on demonstration, in addition to the short videos, most of the children understood the basic concept even if we can't remember how many days are in a year. The plates and flashlight were left on the science table for the kids to use this afternoon and a few of them reenacted what they had learned this morning.
To compliment the idea of a new year we read 'Squirrel's New Year's Resolution'  by Pat Miller and shared our intentions for 2014. The responses ranged from being nicer to their siblings to cleaning their room but my favourite was the resolution to pick flowers for mom every day. Keep an eye on your flower beds this spring.
Before lunch we took a walk outside to look for signs of winter. We used all our senses to see, hear, smell, taste (we made sure the snow was clean!) and feel signs of winter and then compared them to the signs of fall we had seen. Because many signs of winter are unable to be glued to paper, we took pictures of them and will complete our poster next week. I consider myself lucky to be reminded by the children on a daily basis how much joy there is in little things. They were all so thrilled to eat snow and describe how it tasted, to run in the snow and think about whether it was easy or hard, to look for prints in the snow that might belong to a dinosaur and to stand still for a minute to listen to what winter sounds like. They were enthusiastic to be outside and breathing the cold air into their lungs and looking to see if it made clouds as we breathed it out. And spotting a large flock of tiny birds flying overhead just as we were deciding whether all birds hibernated, flew south or did something else through the winter months caused the children to shout and jump and run after them in excitement and changed our minds about all birds heading for warmer climes at the first hint of snow. The next time you're outside, just for a second, appreciate some signs of winter and capture a bit of the pleasure we felt just being outdoors today.

Welcome to the New Year! As children so often miss out on the big New Year's eve celebrations due to the late hour they happen, we had a wee New Year's party in our classroom today. We decorated party hats and made noise makers and then participated in the New Year's eve countdown in London via Youtube. We held hands in a circle and listened to Auld Lang Syne then watched some of the record breaking fireworks in Dubai. There were many "Ohhhhs!" and "Aaahhhhs!" And as a party isn't a party unless there are snacks, we munched on some leftover gingerbread men. Later this week we will talk about resolutions and think about what sorts of intentions we could set for 2014. We will also discuss how a year is determined (the time taken for the earth to revolve once around the sun).
Team Awesome wishes you all a New Year filled with peace, prosperity and happiness.

I know I know- I've posted a ton of videos of the children recently but we covered sooooo much in December and although I took a ton of photos I didn't get to making them into videos and posting them for you before the holidays. So here is the last one for 2013. I promise. But keep checking back for new ones in 2014. Enjoy!