Just a few things today.

• Happy birthday Aidan!
• Alysa lost BOTH front teeth over the long weekend.
• Jude shared a toy flute and Nessaya showed us a stuffie she got from the aquarium.
• We will be looking at a garbage truck and discussing how garbage is sorted on Tuesday Nov. 19.
• A few of the Blazers will be visiting the school Wednesday Nov. 20.
• There has been a case of strep throat in our class so please keep an eye out for the symptoms in your child as it is contagious.
• We learned a variation of Dodgeball in the gym yesterday. There is nothing funnier than a tiny little 5 year old girl standing in the middle of the gym, with multicoloured balls whizzing past her head, screaming, "Fire in the hole!!" and letting fly.
• Cookie dough orders are due Monday Nov. 18 at the office.             Go forth and Be Awesome!
  

We loved 'David Goes To School' in September so in October we read 'No David' and wrote our own class book based on 'No David'. Each of the children wrote "No (insert name)!" and drew a picture of themselves doing something they would get in trouble for. Team Awesome was very inventive and came up with some great ideas (of things they would never do in real life, of course). This book is popular during quiet reading time and the children love to read the text in a firm voice with lots of expression and discuss the pictures. Since then we have been learning to make connections while we are reading. We are learning about text to self connections and text to text connections and facilitating that with 'David Gets in Trouble' seemed like a natural fit. The children made a great connection between this book and one we read and discussed earlier in the month called 'Penny and Her Marble' by Kevin Henkes. And of course, they made plenty of text to self connections. Team Awesome was sad to learn that we have read all of the 'David' books but happy to hear that David Shannon has written others like 'Duck on a Bike'. We will be looking for them in the library!

It's that time of year again! Canada Post would like to send your child a letter from Santa but they have to write to him first. According to Santa’s CPE (Chief Postal Elf), Holly T. Elf, there are three golden rules in sending a letter to Santa:

1. Make sure you include your return address! While Santa knows where you live, his postal elves need your address to deliver Santa’s letter to your home. After all, not everyone has access to Rudolph!
2. Send your letter soon! Already letters are arriving from across the world and Santa is busy reading them every night with Mrs. Claus. He encourages you to send your letter soon to ensure he’ll have enough time to answer each and every one of them. Letters must be mailed by December 12 to allow enough time for travel to the North Pole and back!
3. Remember Santa’s address: When your letter is ready, drop it in a mailbox anywhere in Canada and the postal elves will make sure it gets to the big man quickly. Santa has a special arrangement with the post office and a stamp is not required. But please remember any other letter or card being sent to Grandma or anyone else needs a stamp. Santa’s address is:

SANTA CLAUS
NORTH POLE H0H 0H0
CANADA.

What an awesome opportunity to write for real life, which enables the children to launch out and explore new opportunities for their emerging writing skills. So break out the special paper, the pens, pencils and markers and encourage your child to practice their literacy skills and write a letter to Santa soon! And how exciting to get a personalized letter back!

The Remembrance Day assembly today went well- replete with a play by the gr. 6s and Mr. Hembling on the trumpet. I am never too sure how much the children take away from Remembrance Day discussions as the concepts are so far removed from their experiences (thankfully).

• No school in observance of Remembrance Day Monday.
• Ally shared a heart necklace, Alysa shared a doll named Flower, Tarynne shared a Spiro costume and Kaden shared a toy truck (Ford F150).
• Family Projects are due around Wednesday Nov.13.
• Cookie dough orders are due Nov. 18.

• Magazine subscriptions are due Nov. 30. Please be advised that BEST never advocates selling door to door.

• A new big blocks centre has proven very popular with both boys and girls.
• The song "Do You Know How Pumpkins Grow" is a favourite with the children.      
  

Go forth and Be Awesome!

Not only were we subjected to the yummy smell of popcorn all yesterday morning but the intermediate students had their popcorn today and the delicious smell wafted down to our room this morning as well. It was enough to drive us mad! The children received their popcorn for recess snack yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it. They were very careful to sweep up all the little bits that inevitably fell on the floor and took any leftovers home to enjoy after school. The Popcorn Day sales are a popular fund raiser for the school and there will be more throughout the year.

We were thrilled that Mr. Don Bowser, our First Nations Education Worker, was able to book a session with Darryl Laboucan. Mr. Laboucan brought drums and drum sticks and we all got to use them while we sang a number of First Nations songs. We had heard the Welcome Song at the opening to our River's Day but the others were new to us. The children had awesome listening ears and resisted the urge to beat the drum when they were not supposed to. They were also very good at sharing the drums with each other. We are looking forward to other cultural presentations this year. Thank you Mr. Bowser and Mr. Laboucan!