It was great to have everyone back in the classroom this week! :)

We jumped right back into our daily routines. We worked on our printing, number representation, CVC words, learning more sight words, and doing a few Halloween themed learning activities. 

This week, I introduced the Indigenous Grandfather Teaching of Courage. We learned that the bear represents courage. We read a couple of books about acts of bravery and shared times when we have been brave. The students also started on a mixed media art piece of a bear. They will finish it on Monday.

We've been enjoying watching grizzly bears in Alaska on a live webcam. They are preparing for hibernation by fishing on salmon in Brook Falls. It's incredible to see how many bears gather here and a lot of fun to watch their fishing techniques! Here's the link, if you'd like to take a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73-EekdVVU8

Next Tuesday will be Picture Day. Individual student pictures will be taken. Our class picture gets taken later in the year. 

On Thursday, November 6, MTS will be holding a short student assembly to honour Remembrance Day. Poppy stickers will be given to each child to wear.

A friendly reminder that our library day is Tuesday. Please have your child return their book by Monday each week.

Fall Break will go as planned. There will not be school for students November 10 - 12. We will return on Thursday, November 13th.

Some students returned to school this week without their indoor shoes. Please ensure your child brings their indoor shoes to school on Monday.

Can I please ask that Halloween candy be limited to one or two pieces in lunches and snacks? Sometimes, children bring quite a few pieces of candy to school with them after the holiday and the sugar can really affect behaviour. Thank you very much for your help with this. :)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! I hope everyone enjoys a fun and safe evening. :)

 Hello Everyone,

I'd like to apologize for this late blog post as well as for not having posted a blog last week. I have been away from school for quite a few days over the past two weeks and my blog posts got forgotten. I will do my best now to catch you up on what the students have been doing in the classroom.

This week, the children were in the very good hands of a guest/substitute teacher, Ms. Wutherick.

The students continue to work with the alphabet, learning and practicing letter recognition, formation, and sounds. I have also started to introduce many small high-frequency words into our daily Shared Reading. The letters covered this week were F, I, N and the high-frequency words were, "is, can, I, see, it, and, the."

Every day during our morning carpet and calendar time, we read 4 simple sentences as a class. Afterwards, I have the students look for and circle select words or letters in the sentences. I may say things such as: "Can you find the 4-letter word that has two vowels in it?" or "Circle two words that begin with the sound 'kuh'." We spend time talking about the sounds in certain words and where else in the room we may see these words. This may be something you will wish to do with your child during our time away from school. It can be done anywhere - in the line-up at a grocery store, looking at letters on packages, magazines, signs, etc. - while driving in the car, while reading a book with your child, etc.

In Math, our focus has been on correct number identification, formation, and subitizing. Subitizing means to quickly identify a small group of items without counting. We have also been working to identify and represent numbers through tally marks, ten frames, simple pictures, and dice. Here is an example of this work and an activity we have done in class:

With the uncertainty of the strike and how long we may be away from school, here are my suggestions for activities you may wish to do with your child, if you have time:

- Read, read, read with your child. Many children are not yet ready to read. Listening to stories and sharing a book with an older sibling or parent is a great step in developing a love of books. It can also motivate children to learn to read as they want to understand more about the books they see.

- Play simple board games and card games to practice number identification, the concepts of bigger than/ smaller than, and to develop subitizing skills.

 - Have your child practice printing daily - both uppercase and lowercase letters as well as numbers. You can make this fun by having your child use a whiteboard, playdough to form letters and numbers, markers, crayons...

I hope these suggestions help. More importantly, I hope we will all be back in the classroom and school soon.

Thank you for your continued support.

Take care,

Jennifer

We have had a very busy week with the start of our Three Left Feet dance residency. Alara, our dance instructor, has led us in three sessions. We have now learned the entire choreography for our show next week. We hope that many of you will be able to come to the performance next Thursday, September 25th from 10 - 10:45am.

In Literacy, we have now learned all of the vowels and the two sounds each vowel makes. Each day, we print a letter in our printing notebooks and list many words beginning with this letter/sound. Letter and word games are played during the week to practice and reinforce our learning.

In Math, we are also focusing on practicing the proper formation of the numbers and have worked with numbers 0 - 5 so far. We are also reviewing /learning how to represent numbers using tally marks, ten frames, dice, and numerals.

The students really enjoyed being able to share the special items in their All About Me Bags with their classmates. Thank you for helping your child select items for this activity. We practiced asking the presenters questions about their objects as well as sharing comments.

We have had Gym classes outside this week. Mr van Sluys taught the children some games that can be played on the compound surrounding the playground. They learned hopscotch and some ball games. We will be outside again next week.

Please remember to have your child return their library book on Monday each week as we exchange our books on Tuesday. Mrs. McLean, our librarian, appreciates having time to check the books into the library's system prior to our exchange.

Thank you to everyone who was able to drop-in for our Open House yesterday. I enjoyed speaking with many of you.

This week we started to work in our printing notebooks with the letters A and E. I will introduce the vowels first and then we will work through the rest of the aplphabet. Our focus is on proper letter formation, size, and spacing. We spend time learning the sounds each letter makes and identify words that begin with the letter.

We are doing similar work with the numbers 0 -9. Any extra practice you can provide your child at home for both letter and number formation serves as great review and skill-building opportunities. Children often love fingerpainting, forming the letters/numbers out of playdough, writing them in chalk on the sidewalk, writing with markers, etc.

This week in Gym was spent "conditioning" for today's Terry Fox run. The students set a goal for how many laps they hoped to run and many of them either attained or exceeded their goal. Thank you very much for your generous donations in support of the Canadian Cancer Foundation.

Every day, we have "Calendar Time" in the morning where we practice counting, identifying odd and even numbers, practicing the days of the week and months of the year, and recording how many days we've been at school using numerals, tally marks, ten frames, and place value blocks. Next week, we will be focusing on representing numbers using tally marks and ten frames during our Math lessons.

I sent home a small "homework" task with he students today. Your child has brought home an "All About Me" bag to fill over the weekend with four small objects and/or photos to share with their classmates next week. Please have them choose only 4 objects and make sure they can allfor inside the bag. Please also label their bag with their name. We will share a few bags each day. I'd like to have all the bags back to school by Wednesday.

** We have a dance residency beginning next week with a local dance company called Three Left Feet. Please make sure your child is dressed in clothes that are appropriate for dancing. This residency will be going on for the next two weeks culminating with a sharing assembly in the Gym on Friday, September 25 from 10:45 - 11:30. Parents and family members are welcome to attend! :)

A friendly reminder that our library day is Tuesday. Please have your child return their book by Monday each week to give our librarian time to check the books back into the system. Thank you for your help with this.

I've enjoyed getting to know all the students over the past four days. We have been doing some letter and number review, learning new Grade 1 classroom routines, and have gone to both Gym and Music classes.

Please remember to send your child with a pair of indoor shoes that can be left at school. These shoes should be sneakers that are non-marking and suitable for running in Gym classes.

Please label your child's clothing and belongings. Many items stray from their owners during the day. Having a label makes it easy to get pieces back where they belong.

We ask that toys, stuffed animals, playing cards, etc. be left at home. Children do not have opportunities to play with these during the day and they can often be a distraction when the children know they have them in their backpack. All school supplies are given to the children by the school so it is not necessary to send pencils, crayons, or notebooks to school. Thank you for your support. :)

Our Library day will be Tuesday beginning on September 16th. Your child will be able to take out one book each week and will need to return it by Monday the following week.

A message from Mr. van Sluys (our Gym teacher)

The school Terry Fox Run will take place on Friday, September 12th at 9:00 am. Students are encouraged to bring in Toonies for Terry to support cancer research. If we reach our fundraising goal of $1150, we’ll celebrate the following week with a special “Wear Your Favourite Sports Swag” day!

I am looking forward to meeting you all next Thursday, September 11th at our Open House from 4:30 - 6:30pm.

Please do not hesitate to contact me at jllarmer@cbe.ab.ca with any questions or concerns throughout the year.

I hope you all enjoy a relaxing weekend!

It was a pleasure teaching your child this year. We enjoyed a great last week of Grade 1 together and shed a few tears as we circled up today and shared some of our favourite memories!

I hope you all enjoy a fun and relaxing summer. I look forward to seeing everyone back at MTS in September.

Please see the Curriculum Letter for this term below.

Thank you for all your support this year!

Take good care,

Jennifer Larmer :)

The final countdown is officially upon us!

Some of our classmates have already left for their holidays. We have said goodbye to two of them so far. One of them has traveled to London, England and India and has sent us photos from both locations. It was very exciting to see her posing near the London Eye, Big Ben, and by a mango tree in India!

The students had two blocks of time on the iPads this week to research their animal. They will be working on their shoebox dioramas (animal's habitat) as well as building their animal out of plasticine.

I sent home a note with your child on Thursday re: the diorama and materials they may want to bring from home to create the habitat.

Your child will be bringing home their notebooks, art work, pencil box, and indoor shoes beginning Wednesday. Please send your child with a bag that they can use to transport these items. If your child's last day will be before Thursday, please let me know so that I can make sure they bring everything home in time.

This week will be jam-packed with fun activities!  Please see Upcoming Dates below.

Upcoming Dates

TOMORROW                     Grade 4 Pizza Lunch - Provided by Parent Council

TOMORROW                     Ride Your Bike to School Day

FRIDAY                              Grade 4 Celebration - 11:00am

June 24                               Sports Day

June 25                               Fun Lunch - Little Caesars

June 25                              Report Cards available through your CBE Account

June 26                               Ride Your Bike to School Day

June 26                               ALL Kindergarten classes attend from 8:00am-10:30pm

June 26                               Kindergarten Graduation (ALL Students) - 9:30am

June 26                              LAST DAY of SCHOOL - Dismiss at 12:00pm

For more information visit our website and Teacher Blogs

MTS Traditional Calendar 2024-25.pdf 

Lost & Found

Please make sure to ask your student to take a look at our Lost & Found table. There are a lot of sweatshirts, caps, etc. waiting to be retrieved.

*All unclaimed items will be bagged up on Thursday, June 26 and donated.

Library Books

If your child still has a library book at home, please make sure they return it to the school as soon as possible.