Today was our first Fresh Air Friday and your child will come home with stories of all their adventures down by the river. We always begin by marking out our play perimeters and looking for things that might be unsafe. We participate in a lesson and accompanying activity and then the children are off to play and explore.​​ Playing outside gives the children the chance to experience the natural environment and have adventures. They play games, test their physical limits, express themselves and build self-confidence. There is more space and freedom for big movements and they are able to push the play boundaries outside, where there is room to run faster, climb higher and jump further which are good for their health, fitness and physical as well as mental development. It might mean some tears, a scrape or a fall, but ‘risky play’ helps children learn from mistakes and bounce back. We love Fresh Air Friday and love that Team Awesome does too!

• Please return library books by next Tuesday at the latest so your child can choose a new one.
• Please email family photos for our next Sharing session.
• As the weather has turned and become wet, a pair of inside shoes has become necessary. If you have not already sent a pair, please send some soon.
• Scholastic flyers are available online monthly. October's is available here. All Scholastic orders will be done online whenever you like and orders sent directly to your home. Our class code is RC210022.
• PAC Pizza Day order forms are due back by Friday, Oct. 30 with pizza delivered on Friday, Nov. 6.
• November school lunch order forms are to be returned no later than Wednesday, Oct. 28.
• Wednesday, Oct. 21 is an early dismissal day, with the children leaving at 12:30. We will be sending home a student self assessment that week. A notice with more info was posted earlier this week.
• Unfortunately Sunset Farms is closed this year so we will be taking our first fieldtrip (Yay!) to the pumpkin patch in Chase on Thursday, Oct. 22. The permission forms are due back with $10 by Thursday, Oct. 15. More info closer to the date.
• Friday, Oct. 23 is an NI day and Team Awesome will stay home.
• Team Awesome will be participating in Halloween activities on Friday, Oct. 30 and are welcome to wear their costumes. More info closer to the date.
• Sight words we are learning in class: am, for, is, my, to, was. Please feel free to practice reading them together at home.

Go forth and Be Awesome!

Tuesdays will be our library day and the children were very excited for our first visit. They met Ms. Kipp, our librarian, and her assistant Mrs. Bisong, and had a look around the library. Ms Kipp showed us how to use our Spot Cards to mark our place when we remove a book from the shelf, she read us Mr. Wiggle's Book, which reminded us how to take care of books and then we chose a book and signed it out on the computer with Mrs. Bisong. We will be bringing a new book home every week as long as we have returned the book we borrowed the previous week. If the book becomes lost or damaged, it will have to be paid for before another book can be signed out. We put our books in our backpacks to keep them neat and clean for the trip back and forth between school and home. Returned library books can be taken out of their packs and put in the Library bin beside our door. We love going to the library!

Mrs. Philips will be in our learning spaces before lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays to sing, dance, act and do art projects with Team Awesome while we try to get caught up on things (imagine a hamster running on a wheel). Team Awesome is always interested to see what exciting things Mrs. Philips has planned for us and we are going to enjoy all her activities this year!

As you know, we have a 12:30 dismissal on Wednesday, Oct. 18 due to parent/teacher interviews. Because of the current situation these are mostly by online meeting this year on a must-needs basis. We will have been in school for four weeks and we met with you all before school started. We also see many of you once or twice a day. Team Awesome has mainly been working on routines and social responsibility and getting settled in since the beginning of September. The children have been great and at this time we have no serious concerns. If that changes we will certainly contact you and set up a meeting. And of course you can set up a meeting with us any time you have a concern as well. We will, however, be sending home a student self-assessment accompanied by a teacher assessment focusing on social responsibility this week.
If you would still like to set up an online meeting with us next week we would be happy to do that, just email us sometime before next Tuesday as we will have some time available between 1:30 and 3:30 for 15 minute meetings. 

​The school is required to conduct two lock down practices during the year and our first one will be Thursday of this week. During the procedure an announcement will be made over the PA system that just says, "Lock down." Because our classroom doors are locked at all times in case this procedure needs to happen for real, all that needs to be done is closing the doors and keeping the children as quiet as possible (we usually whisper-read a book). We will be explaining to the children that we need to practice in case there is an emergency in the school that requires us to stay inside our classrooms. Because they are four and five year olds who have active imaginations they will inevitably come up with all sorts of situations in which this procedure might happen. Please rest assured that at no time will we be elaborating on reasons for which we might have to activate the lock down procedure. Mostly the children see it as an adventure but sometimes they become anxious or scared, especially when the door is rattled from the outside to see if it is locked. We try to answer any questions and relieve their fears before/during/after the activity but some extra hugs and explanations might be needed at home. If you have any questions please contact Mr. Law at the school.

• Please return library books by next Tuesday at the latest so your child can choose a new one.
• Family photos for our next Sharing session should be emailed to either one of us by Oct. 15 please.
• You may have noticed on the school lunch order form it mentions 'Snack'. Those items come at lunch time with the main lunch item- like add-ons- so a recess snack will be needed on the days you have ordered lunch for your child.
• Scholastic flyers are available online monthly. October's is available here. All Scholastic orders will be done online (there are no more paper flyers) whenever you like and orders sent directly to your home. Our class code is RC210022.
• We have sent home an overview of what we will be learning this year. If you have any questions, please contact us.
• PAC Pizza Day order forms came home this week and are due back by Friday, Oct. 30 with pizza delivered on Friday, Nov. 6.
• November school lunch order forms also came home this week and are to be returned no later than Wednesday, Oct. 28.
• Monday, Oct. 12, is Thanksgiving and therefore a holiday.
• There will be a blog post coming out Tuesday, Oct. 13 regarding the early dismissal day the following week.
• Wednesday, Oct. 14, is our first lock down drill. We will prepare the children the previous day as we find too much advance notice causes them to fret and worry unnecessarily.
• Thursday, Oct. 15, retakes for unsatisfactory individual photos and absent students as well as whole class pictures will happen.
• Friday, Oct. 16 will be our first Fresh Air Friday and we will spend the afternoon outside. Please dress your child warmly/ for the weather as it is often chillier down at the river. Expect us to come back tired and dirty but with big smiles.
• Wednesday, Oct. 21 is an early dismissal day, with the children leaving at 12:30. We will be sending home a student self assessment that week. 
• Unfortunately Sunset Farms is closed this year so we will be taking our first fieldtrip (Yay!) to the pumpkin patch in Chase on Thursday, Oct. 22. The permission forms are due back with $10 by Thursday, Oct. 15. More info closer to the date.
• Friday, Oct. 23 is an NI day and Team Awesome will stay home.
• Sight words we are learning in class: a, I, like, you, no, the. Please feel free to practice reading them together at home.

Go forth and Eat Too Much Pie!​

As you know, BEST participated in Orange Shirt Day last week. Orange Shirt Day was designed to educate people and promote awareness in Canada about the Indian residential school system. Prior to the day, we read and discussed a version of Phyllis Webstad's story called "Phyllis's Orange Shirt" which presents a complicated issue in a simplified way for younger students. We wanted them to understand why we were preparing to wear orange. On the actual day, we read the book "You Hold Me Up" by Monique Gray Smith which was written to prompt a dialogue among young people, their care providers and educators about reconciliation and the importance of the connections children make with their friends, classmates and families. It fit well with our ongoing encouragement to show love and support for each other and to consider each other's well-being in their everyday actions in our learning space. Following the book we shared how others held us up. We wish you could have been there to hear the wonderful things the children had to say about their families and the things that made them feel loved. Simple things like hugs and being silly together and taking walks. It was heart-meltingly sweet and a lovely way to wrap up the lesson.