Happy Tuesday everyone!
Looks like this rain is going to take away all of our beautiful snow away. Life in Ottawa!!

Today, the bus and van transportation was cancelled because of unsafe driving conditions.  This is a good time to remind everyone that on these days your children are more than welcome to attend a full day at their homeschool.  The schools are prepared for days like this!

As we speak of transportation, please remember to call STS and report if your child will be absent for the day.  It is important for the drivers to be aware if they are not going to pick up a student. I know that some of you have have already been in contact with the drivers to let them know personally, so thank you! If you do not have the phone number of the person who drives your child, please call STS at 6132-723-9677 and they will let the driver know. Thank you for your cooperation with this manner.

On Sunday, we entered into the season of Advent. We have now begun to prepare our hearts for the coming of our Lord at Christmas!
In our class, we will be looking at gifts we can give Jesus for each week during Advent. These gifts, will not be the kind we can purchase at Tory R' Us! I will be encouraging the students to think about how we can help each other, be kind and love our neighbour in an effort to give back during this season. We have spoken about how one kindness, one simple act or word can make a BIG difference. This is the spirit of Christmas!

There are many charitable efforts happening here at SJA, including an Advent sock tree and a Hat drive.  If you would like to donate any new socks, hats, mittens or scarves, they will be used to help keep little ones throughout the city stay warm during this winter season!

Here are our word wall words for this week:

you, my
make, run, up
what, very, will, was, but
sentence, mother, brother, again, found

Please remember that I send the words home each week and you can practice as much or as little as you can. I want the homework to fit into your schedule, so as long as the books are returned by Friday, I will continue to put the words into the book for each week. Thank you for your help with this!

As I have previously mentioned, we have been studying the book, Harry the Dirty Dog this month. Ask your child about our vocabulary words.  We have created definitions for some of the words to help us better understand their meanings.  We are now practicing using these words in full sentences. As an extension of this learning, we are trying to use the words within new contexts!

Throughout the year, we have been very focused on becoming better readers! Each student is at a different place in his/her reading journey and we are celebrating each step, both big and small on this journey! The students are using many different reading strategies to decode when they come to a word that they do not know.

Here are the strategies that we have been learning about.  As I just mentioned, as students progress in their reading, they will be working on different strategies to help them out! Ask them which strategy they are using now. Maybe they can show you how they use it while reading their Snuggle Book. 😊

I know I say this often, but I am so proud of each and every one of my students. It can be very overwhelming going to two different schools, having multiple teachers and leaving friends from one school or another.  These kids are strong and resilient! I am thankful to be able to spend my days learning with them! 

As we move through December I know it will be very busy. Please do not hesitate to give me a call or write a note in the communication book if you have ANY questions or concerns. 

Happy "Snow" Day!!! 

Mrs. Faloon 

Can you believe all of this snow?!?!  Winter is here.....but will it stay? 😃

As the cold and wet weather arrives, please remember that the students need warm clothes for recess time. The students came in today with rosy cheeks and wet mittens. They were so excited about the snow! An extra pair of mittens and socks in their bag may be a good idea!

This week we are honouring Anti-Bullying Week.  At St. John the Apostle, we are focusing on the role of the bystander.  We have started talking about what bullying is, what it looks like and what it feels like. We have begun to identify the differences between real bullying and other behaviours. We also began discussing how important it is to say something if you witness bullying. We watched a video about being an UPSTANDER instead of being a BYSTANDER.  We are encouraging the students who witness bullying to do something about it. There are 4 main ways to be an UPSTANDER:

1. Be a Buddy

2. Interrupt 

3. Speak Out

4. Tell Someone

We are going to decorate our door to show the school how we feel about bullying. Stay tuned for pictures!

Here are some of the amazing things we will be doing this week!

Our word wall words are:

at, to

big, have, do

ride, here, them, eight, over

every, once, sister, happy, often

We played the game Roll, Read, Write! Ask your child how to play!

This week, we have continued our focus on the _et word family. We made a fun little book last week and this week, we are still learning about which words belong to this family. The patterns and rhyming are helping us on our reading journey!

We continue our study of the book, Harry the Dirty Dog. As we read the story, the students and I wrote down all of the words we did not know and now we are going in depth to learn more about them.  We are taking those words, creating our own definitions and learning about them in other contexts.  The goal is to integrate as many of these words as possible into each child's vocabulary. Vocabulary is such an important part of language so we will continue with these words all month. Next month, we will begin a new book and more words! It is going to be a good one!!

As we get more and more into the school year, the students are all taking steps to meet their individual goals! They have been doing more writing in their journals and I am so proud of them! Each time we write in our journals, I have a chosen topic for them.  We discuss possible sentences for them to write, brainstorm ideas and then they are off! With the many different learning levels in the class, their journal entries all look very different. Some students are working towards telling me a sentence orally that I scribe for them, while others are working towards 3 or 4 sentences independently. The students take this task very seriously and they are doing really well. It is so amazing to see the progress of each child!

Next week, we enter into the season of Advent where we are getting ready for the birth of Jesus. It is such an amazing a blessed time of year and there will be many exciting activities ahead. Please continue to visit the blog and our twitter account for updates and reminders. 

A reminder that we go to the Library every Wednesday. Please try and help your child remember to return their book each week so all of the students can enjoy the lovely books from the library. 

Hello!

What a beautiful Monday morning it is today! 

I hope that everyone had a nice and relaxing weekend! I found last week so busy! I think the fact that it started with Halloween made it all the more exciting as well!

Before delving into what we have been working, here are just a few reminders! 

 Indoor Shoes- There are some students who do not have indoor shoes at St. John the Apostle Catholic School. All students must change from outdoor shoes or boots into indoor shoes upon entering the Primary Language classroom. Please be sure that your child can put on his/her shoes independently (i.e. shoes with Velcro; shoes with laces only if your child can tie laces on his/her own, etc.).

Labeling Clothing: Please label your child`s outdoor clothing.  This will help alleviate some of the confusion when the students are getting ready for outdoors.  Thank you for your help in this area. 

Reading at Home: One of the best ways to foster a love of books is to read with your child. Take the time to question your child as the story progresses. Your child will model your reading patterns and fluency. Focus on the main idea, the sequence of events (what happened first, then, next), making connections, and predicting.  Using the snuggle books are a great tool, and the students library books are a great resource as well! 

Interviews: Interviews will be held here at St. John the Apostle the evening of Thursday November 17th. If you have not already scheduled an interview and would like to, please call the school or write a note in the communication book and we can find a time!  If you cannot make the 17th and would like another date, please let me know and I will do what I can to find another date to meet with you! 

Please remember that there is a P.D. Day on Friday, November 18^th.  

OK! Here is what we have been working on and where we are going in our learning! 

As usual, we have been working hard here in the Primary Language Class. We wrapped up our activities surrounding the story, There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat. The students did a really good job with their centers. They were able to follow directions and cooperate with their peers to complete all of the activities. Check their mail bags this week for some of those activities! 

This month, we have started the book, Harry the Dirty Dog. This will be our focus to practice many different skills. On our first reading of the book, the students and I came up with a list of words that they did not know. We will use this list to learn new vocabulary words and we will focus on these words for the month. This is different than the Word Wall Words as we are focusing on the meaning and usage of these words rather than the recognition and writing.  

With this book, we will also talk about the story elements of characters and setting, who is in the story and where does it take place.  

Here are our word wall words for this week! 

in, is

an, you, my

after, his, her, him, who

clock, friend, those, writing, gym 

Thank you to everyone who has been practicing these words,  It is really making a difference in how the students can recognize and use these words! 

We have really been working hard on learning our letter sounds. We have been following the Jolly Phonics Program. Each letter sound has a song and an action to help the students remember. I really find that having an action associated with a sound gives the students a more tactile and concrete way of remembering.  We are going to continue with this practice throughout the year.  Here is a YouTube link to a song that has all of the sounds! Feel free to listen and share with your child at home! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCjJYB07aSU

We will be looking at a poem to reflect Remembrance Day. The students will be doing a little group work to try and solve a poem puzzle! This gives the students an opportunity to work on group work and collaboration! 

That sums up our week! 

Please remember to check our our Twitter account @MrsFaloonPLC to see more of our exciting learning! 

Have a great week!