This week, our focus words for Shared Reading were: our, new, blue, two.

The students completed two writing activities this week where they were asked to write multiple sentences. We have been practicing how to develop interesting sentences that use some descriptive words, such as colour and size. The students are getting very good at identifying the short vowel sounds and are beginning to incorporate the digraphs ch, sh, th, and ck into their spelling.

In Math, we focused on Making Ten - learning about the different combinations of numbers that add up to this sum. This skill comes in handy when solving more difficult addition equations.

We have also been doing a lot of Shared Reading together of decodeable texts. Your child should have brought home a sheet with a passage about Ed the Dog this week, as well as a Roll and Write game that they can practice reading to you.

In Science, the students enjoyed drawing the toy they'd brought from home and writing two sentences to describe it. We used the following poster as a reference for our descriptive words. 

We worked on our Art Card this week. They look great! This is a fundraiser organized by our school's Parent Council. These cards will be available for purchase in a few weeks. I will keep you posted. Here's a sneak peek at the idea we used for the cards.

Yesterday, we met with our Grade 4 Buddies. Mrs. Miller taught the students how to work with modelling clay to make a penguin. We are waiting for these to dry, then we will paint/colour them.

A friendly reminder that there is NO SCHOOL next Friday. It is a Professionsl Development Day for teachers.

I hope you all enjoy a snowy weekend!

We continued to practice identifying the digraphs ch, sh, th, wh, and ck and reading and spelling words that contained these blends. Your child should have brought home a decodable passage that we worked on in class that they can practice reading with you.

We have also been working a lot with word families. We are learning that if you know how to spell a word like cat, you can easily spell many other words that rhyme - sat, hat, mat, chat...

In Math, we continued to practice our doubles facts on a daily basis and played two games to reinforce this skill. We are also beginning our unit on Shapes. At this point, it is mainly a review of 2D shapes but we will be venturing into 3D shapes shortly. On Friday, we did an art activity with shapes with our Grade 4 Buddies.

In Social Studies, we talked about Constructed Landmarks/Features and discussed what makes them different from Natural Landmarks/Features which we learned about last week. Next week, I may take the students on a community walk (weather dependent) to find natural and constructed features in our community.

In Science, we have started to learn about the Properties of Matter. We are learning vocabulary to describe objects, such as colour words, size words, texture words, and weight words. Your child should have brought home a pink note explaining a learning task we will do next Monday (January 19) to further practice using this vocabulary. If the note did not make it home, your child needs to bring in a toy no larger than the size of an adult hand that they will have to draw and describe in their journal. I would suggest putting the toy in a bag and labelling it with your child's name. Then toy will be sent home at the end of the day.

A friendly reminder to please send library books back by Tuesday morning each week as we have our book exchange that day.

 Happy New Year Everyone!  I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful holiday. :)

This week our four focus words were: saw, too, said, one.

We worked a lot with the digraphs "ch", "sh", and "th" this week. The students completed an activity where they had to sort words based on these letter blends. We also did an activity where the students had to find 20 pictures that were put up around the room of things that contained these digraphs.  On their recording sheet, they had to sound out and spell the word, listening for the correct digraph.

We have also been doing some more work with sentence writing. The students are beginning to include some of the high-frequency words we've been learning into their writing and are becoming more adept at identifying the letter sounds they need to spell some words.

In Social Studies, we started to learn about Natural Features. These are things such as mountains, lakes, and rivers. We began to learn about areas in Alberta where these features can be found and why people enjoy spending time in these places. Next week, we will continue this focus and will also learn about man-made features. 

In Math, we are practicing our Doubles Facts to 20 (2+2=4, 5+5=10, etc.). We practice these every day when we are lining up or have a few minutes before lunch/snack/dismissal, etc. The students played a Doubles Bingo game with a partner this week to practice these facts. Any chance you have to practice these facts with your child at home, in the car, in a grocery store line-up, etc. will benefit them by improving their ability to solve other equations.

Today, our Grade 4 buddies came to our classroom and the students made Q-tip snowflakes. First, we learned about a man named Willie Bentley. He photographed magnified snowflakes to share their beauty and uniqueness with others. We talked a bit about how snowflakes are formed and that there are no two snowflakes that are alike. Here are some of Willie Bentley's photographs:

Fun Lunch

The next Fun Lunch will be held on Wednesday, January 28.

Fun Lunch is only for grades 1-4 and our EES students. 

• Go to healthyhunger.ca
• Log into you existing account or create a new one.
• Add your child’s information in the “add child” box – name, province, city, school, grade and class.
• All Fun Lunches will then populate – select the order now button!

Please make sure to send a morning snack with your child on Fun Lunch Days. Orders must be placed by the Friday before the day.

Food Support

Did you know that the Breakfast Club of Canada has shared research demonstrating that 40% of Alberta’s children experience food insecurity?  This means that 4 out of 10 children do not have access to food when they are hungry. 

If your family is experiencing challenges with providing food for your children you can find help at Brown Bagging Calgary. 

Complete this form for support and they can deliver lunches to McKenzie Towne School for your children. https://go.bb4ck.org/l/858913/2024-01-15/38fdbw You can also find out more information on their website https://bb4ck.org/

Brown Bagging for Calgary's Kids

Upcoming Dates

January 12                               Kindergarten Registration for 2026-27 Starts Today!!!

January 28                               Fun Lunch - Subway

January 28                               Heritage Park Field Trip- Kruger/Siarkiewicz

January 29                               NO SCHOOL for Kindergarten - Kindergarten Assessments

January 30                               Non-Instructional Day - NO SCHOOL