Families Helping Families

Hello,

For those of you who are participating, can you please start to bring in your donations this week so that we can see what we have collected and what we need to collect before the deadline of December 9th!
Thanks.

Here is a repost of the message that was posted a few weeks ago.  If you are interested in participating and have not posted what you will be contributing, please do so.

This year we will be supporting a family from High River who has lost everything in the flood this past June.  If you are interested in helping:

Please post on the blog what item you are willing to contribute or donate based off of the needs the family has indicated so that all other families in our class can see what has been contributed and what is still in need.  Please remember that our families would love to not have to worry about the purchase of food items and more than one gift card to their chosen grocery story would be welcomed.  

***We welcome donations of gently used items for our families as well.***

ALL GIFTS NEED TO BE WRAPPED AND LABELED TO WHO THEY ARE INTENDED FOR. WRAPPED CONTRIBUTIONS WILL BE DUE BY: MONDAY, DECEMBER 9TH, 2013.

You should have received a sheet with the information about the family a few weeks ago.  Please let me know on the blog if you need me to send home another sheet with your child!

Also, we are trying to collect dried and canned food for the Mayor's Food Bank.  If you are willing and able to, please send in donations with your child throughout the week, or bring them with you to parent teacher interviews.

Thanks for your support!!

Ms. Handelsman

Important dates:

Tuesday December 3 and Wednesday December 4th, I will be at a workshop- Mrs. Hofer and Ms. Litman will be teaching.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday is our Scholastic Book Fair!

Parent teacher interviews- This Thursday evening and Friday morning

Friday, December 5th- NO SCHOOL

Thursday, December 12th- Cranston's Winter Wonderland- 6-8pm. We will be singing two songs with our buddy class, and will be doing so at 630/700 and 730 in the evening.

Friday, December 13th- FIELD TRIP to RT Alderman! We have been invited to participate in a fundraising event that has been created by their grade 5 and 9 students.  It is a paper arcade!  We will be leaving Cranston at 900am and leaving RT Alderman at 1130.  If you would like to volunteer on this field trip, please email me at achandelsman@cbe.ab.ca  Students from RT Alderman are asking for donations to the Mustard Seed as the entry fee to their arcade...

Homework:

Work on your Origins interview project.

Read 15-30 minutes

Mathletics 15-30 minutes

Question for the blog:

What are you doing, have done, or will be doing this weekend that you would like to share with the class?

See you on Monday,

Ms. Handelsman

Digital Citizenship

Hello room 75.
I sent home an email to the families of students about digital citizenship.  If you did not get the email please let me know and I will send it directly to you.
Please talk to your child about the importance of being a safe and caring digital citizen.

Important reminders. If you have not done so, please book your interview time to meet with me next week, either Thursday night or Friday morning.

Homework:

• If possible, please have your Origins interview questions done so we can share them tomorrow. I know that some families will be doing their interviews over the weekend or have scheduled a time for next week, and that is OK.  We will be sharing some of the questions and answers with the kids in class tomorrow, as many are excited to share their stories.
• Read 15-30 minutes
• Mathletics 15-30 minutes
• In your homework journal, please write to me letting me know that you have talked to your parents about internet safety and being a digital citizen.

Question for the blog:

What will you be doing this weekend that you would like to share with the class?

See you tomorrow,

Ally Handelsman

What did you do in school today?

Hello room 75!
I hope that you had a good day with Ms. Hofer.
Just a quick reminder that tomorrow is our Fun Lunch!

Homework:
read 15-30 minutes
Mathletics 15-30 minutes
In your homework journal write me a Dear Ms. Handelsman on the topic of your choice!  I look forward to reading what you will write!

Question for the blog:
What is something you did with Mrs. Hofer and Mrs. Litman today that you would like to share with me? Try to make your post different than what your friends' may have written!

See you tomorrow,
Ms. Handelsman

Re-Post of Families Helping Families

Hello,
Just a quick update.
Tomorrow, Mrs. Hofer will be as I will be at appointments all day.
Ask your child to share with you about their poetry anthology they are working on, and about the questions they have chosen to research into further about their country while they are at school.

Cranston Families Helping Families This is the link to the former post about Families Helping Families.  If you are wanting to participate but have not written on the blog, please re-read and add your comments.

Important dates:
Friday, November 29th- If possible, have completed the interview with your child at home.  If you plan on working on this on the weekend that is alright, please email me or let me know if you have not done so already.
Thursday, December 5th- (evening) and Friday, December 6th(day, NO SCHOOL for students)- Parent Teacher Interviews

Homework:
read 15-30 minutes
mathletics 15-30 minutes
in your homework journal write a letter to Mrs. Horner about something you are involved in outside of school.

Question for the blog:
What did you do today after school that you would like to share with the class?

Have a great Wednesday.
Ms. Handelsman

The interviews begin!

Hello room 75.
A quick post today.
Please make sure your child has highlighted and chosen their questions for their interview.  This week they should be working on actually interviewing their family member and recording their answers.

Here are two messages from teachers so that I don't have to write too much tonight.

1.

Hello Everyone

Cranston is in the process of planning our Winter Wonderland (more about this to follow later in the month). If you have an old artificial tree (any size, any colour) you were thinking of getting rid of, we will take it!

We are also looking for lights, (especially the white ones) outdoor-lighted animals (deer, moose etc., as well as sleighs), and artificial cedar garlands or wreathes for our displays. We are also looking for a disco ball!

So far we have had 5 trees donated, and we are really hoping  for many more this week.  We would like to have most items in the school by the end of the week so that we can start planning our Winter Wonderland.

If you have anything to donate (or loan – if you would like it back!) please email Mrs. Wood at clwood@cbe.ab.ca.  or just bring it into the front office.  Thanks so much!

and

2.

Good Afternoon Parents,

The students of Learning Studio 74 are raising money to help the people of typhoon ravaged Philippines.  We will be selling art cards at lunch for $2.00/piece or 5 for $10.00.  If you would like to help us out with this heartfelt endeavour you may send the money with you child tomorrow, Tuesday November 26^th.  We will have a booth set up at the front of the school by the office.  All the money raised with go to the Red Cross Philippine Effort.

Thank you for your support

Members of Learning Studio 74 (gr. ¾)

Important information:

See yesterday's blog for important dates

homework:

read 15-30 minutes

mathletics 15-30 minutes

Chose your questions that you will be asking and practice asking the questions.  Think about how you are going to record your answers.

Question for the blog:

How are you going to be recording your questions and answers for your interview?

see you tomorrow

It is finally warming up!

Hello room 75!
I hope that you are all enjoying the long weekend, especially now that the weather has warmed up!
This will be a very short post as while I was playing goalie in soccer on Thursday night, I made a save that unfortunately caused me to break a finger. I am feeling alright but it is a bit uncomfortable to type!
Important information.
Interview questions due on Monday.
Online booking for parent teacher interviews is open.  Log in through the school website.
Thursday, December 5th (evening) and Friday December 6th- Parent-Teacher Interview.
Friday, December 6th- No school PTI

Homework
decide and highlight or underline with your family what questions you would like to ask in your interview and bring the sheet to school on Monday, or email them to me.
read 15-30 minutes each day
Mathletics 15-30 minutes each day.

question for the blog:
What did you do on the weekend that you would like to share with the class?

See you on Monday,
Ms. Handelsman

We are researchers!!

Hello room 75!
What an exciting afternoon!  The students were all eager and interested in researching and learning about their country of origin!  As one student made an interesting discovery, that student then shared with someone else and so on!  Ask you child to show you what they discovered about their country. Hint: Most students discovered how to find and listen to their country's anthem and take a screen shot of their country's flag!!  One student was surprised to learn that there is a volcano in the Philippines.  She took a screen shot of the volcano and saved it into our community folder so that she can access it later as needed.  learnalberta.ca is the link.  the username is LA06 and the password is 4105.

Students worked hard this morning on their poetry writing.  Today they wrote a poem about themselves  and an animal in the style of a diamante poem.

We will continue to write a few more poems before we start to put them together to create our anthology!

After gym the students had their snacks with their buddies while their buddies were finishing up their word family work.  Then we practiced singing out two songs that we will be performing for our winter celebration!!  The students sounded wonderful!  Then they each got to read with a buddy or two!  Ask your child to tell you about who their buddy is, and if they read to their buddy or their buddy read to them.

After lunch we shared a few of the poems our friends have written and they are coming along great!!

In math we are continuing to work on adding large numbers using mental mental math, such as rounding. 

In social studies the students came up with a LARGE list of questions that they are interested in learning the answers to by interviewing a family member.  I will be emailing the list as well as posting here on the blog for your information.  For Monday, the students should decide which 10 (at least) questions they would like to ask a family member.  They are to discuss the question list with you, and who they will be interviewing for this project, and then can either highlight on paper and bring into school for Monday, or highlight it on the computer and email it back to me.  At school we will practice asking interview questions and discuss the different ways we can record the information.

Important information

Friday, November 22 PD day NO SCHOOL

Thursday, November 28 FUN LUNCH

As today was another indoor recess day, please make sure that your child is dressed appropriately for the weather, even that walk from the car across the compound into the school can be a crisp one, especially with the wind chill factor!!

Homework:

In your homework journal: 

Estimate at least one of the following problems.

Cohen has 27 video games and Ria has 49, about how many do they have all together?

If Bailey had her way, she would have 432 pets at home.  Lauren would like to have 695 pets.  About how many pets would they have all together? 

Using mental math, solve at least one of the following problems.

158+213=

18+13=

788+422=

 Make sure to write out the date; problem you have chosen; your work and your solution!

Reading 15-30 minutes

Mathletics 15-30 minutes

Question for the blog:

We will read yesterday's one on Thursday as well.

Who do you think you will be interviewing for your Origins project?

Have a great night, 

stay warm,

see you tomorrow,

Ms. Handelsman

Website for Country of Origin

Hello room 75!
Today was another busy day!
We had our second indoor recess of the year! This time because it was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO COLD outside!  Please please please help ensure that your child is coming to school dressed WARMLY!!  It was incredibly cold at dismissal even just standing in the hallway to say goodbye to the kids!

Students continued to work on writing their cinquain poems before they headed off to music and then gym where they got into groups of four and played four on four in basketball!
For their story today, Mrs. Litman had students read with her to share their story.  Brooke and Jullianne read their parts with her first before Mrs. Litman asked what the author's message was.  Many students offered their ideas, and one response was "don't underestimate someone because they are really small." Ben and Wilson worked read to the class with Mrs. Litman after!  Ask your child what their favorite part of the stories were!

We are continuing to work on making our writing more interesting to the reader, and students worked hard to turn a snoozerama sentence into one with strong verbs and adjectives!

Today in word work, students worked on cutting out their words that they took home yesterday and then worked either independently or with a partner on looking for ways to sort them.  They will work on this again tomorrow, and will bring home a copy of the words again tomorrow so that they can practice at home as well.  By sorting the words, students look for familiar patterns and rules to help them spell new and unfamiliar words.

In math we worked on using estimation as a strategy to help find the sum of two large numbers.  We are also working on making sure to read what the instructions asks us to do, whether it is asking us to ESTIMATE (about how many), or to find the exact solution.  Looking at the numbers and then making an estimate is a good strategy to become comfortable with to help with using mental math to solve problems.  Here is an example of what the students did today in math. (unless they were in discovery centers, and Kareem and Jullianne were working on different problems with Mrs. Litman).
"The toy shop sold 117 wind up cars and 289 battery operated cars in one week.  About how many cars did it sell?"
Ask your child to share with you how they estimate to find out about how many.
Clue: we talked about estimating to the closest 100 or using front end estimation.

We ended the day by working a bit on our Origins project.  I shared with the class one of the website links that is a great resource for the students to research about their country.  In regards to their country, tomorrow we will be working in class to come up with specific questions the students want to ask of you or a family member in regards to their country of origin.  They will have to pick a family member to interview.  They will also be expected to research at home about the different celebrations/customs/traditions/stories/emblems.  I will include more specific information and expectations in an email tomorrow after school, after the kids have had a chance to generate their interview questions.  The at home portion of the project will be due  the week of December 9th:) For tonight, they are just to explore the website link we discovered at school.  Here is how you get to the website: you will need to enter the username and password

username:LA06

password:4105

learnalberta.ca

click on ENGLISH
click on ONLINE REFERENCE CENTRE
scroll down and click on BRITTANICA SCHOOL
then select ELEMENTARY- the kids can imput their country of origin and a great deal of information pops up.  It also allows you to select the level of reading.  I showed the kids how using a mac they can have the computer read the text to them.  IN this program there is a button to press to have the computer read to them, this was not working at school, and may work at home I am not sure.

The ONLINE REFERENCE CENTRE is a great resource for many other websites as well, including bookflix.  Some of these websites require passwords, but if you access it through the learnalberta website you won't need the password, once you imputed the learn alberta one.

Important information:
Families Helping Families (read the specific blog for specific information) thanks to the families who have been posting their information.
Friday, November 22- PD no SCHOOL
Thursday, November 28th- Fun LUNCH
PS I did keep the homework journals at school (the ones that were handed in) as I wanted to spend some time reading through their work! The journals will come home again tomorrow.

Homework:
read 15-30 minutes
Mathletics 15-30 minutes
go to learnalberta.ca and check out your country of origin.

Question for the blog:
What strong verb could you use instead of "eat/bite" or "move slowly"?

See you tomorrow,
Ms. Handelsman

CRANSTON FAMILIES HELPING FAMILIES!

Hello room 75.

This year we will be supporting a family from High River who has lost everything in the flood this past June.  If you are interested in helping:

Please post on the blog what item you are willing to contribute or donate based off of the needs the family has indicated so that all other families in our class can see what has been contributed and what is still in need.  Please remember that our families would love to not have to worry about the purchase of food items and more than one gift card to their chosen grocery story would be welcomed.  

***We welcome donations of gently used items for our families as well.***

ALL GIFTS NEED TO BE WRAPPED AND LABELED TO WHO THEY ARE INTENDED FOR. WRAPPED CONTRIBUTIONS WILL BE DUE BY: MONDAY, DECEMBER 9TH, 2013.

You should have received a sheet with the information about the family a few weeks ago.  Please let me know on the blog if you need me to send home another sheet with your child!

Thanks for your support!!

Ms. Handelsman

What a Monday!! (THIS IS MONDAY, NOV. 18TH POST!)

Hello room 75.

Without going into too much detail, we did have quite an interesting start to the day which led to two of our classmates being heroes to their grade 1/2 buddies.  Lauren and Bailey who go each morning to help out a student in Mrs. Sloane's class, were in the hallway when one of their grade 1/2 buddies had a medical emergency.  Mrs. Sloane was able to work with the student and her student teacher and other teachers were also able to help out with making phone calls and calling 911.  But it was Lauren and Bailey who took charge and got their buddies settled into their morning routines!  By remaining calm and in control of their emotions, they were able to make quick decisions, and realize that the rest of the kids needed to be doing something.  Together they got Mrs. Sloane's students in a circle and talking about what they did on their weekend that was fun and that they wanted to share with their class.  By staying calm, Bailey and Lauren were able to help their grade 1/2 buddies also stay calm.  The student who had the medical emergency is fine, her parents came to the school and took her home to rest.  I mention this story in the blog for two reasons.  One: to share with you a story of how two of our friends are true heroes and excellent role models of being a Peace Ambassador and two: in case your child came home talking about their experience from this morning.  I am very proud of how Bailey and Lauren supported their buddies this morning.  I am also very proud of all the students in room 75 who were supportive towards their friends as they needed some additional time and support to work through their experiences from the morning.  If you or your child have any questions or would like to contact me directly please feel free to email me at achandelsman@cbe.ab.ca

In writing, we are continuing to work on our poetry anthology.  Today we wrote chinquain poems (poems that are five lines).  They have been working on to come up with stronger verbs when writing, so for today they got to write an entire poem that demonstrates the many different ways of saying something.  All students wrote a poem about the word "said", then they got to choose what verb they wanted to write about for the other poems.  Here are a few examples:

Walk

Ran, raced

running, racing, zooming

Bruce zoomed across the road.

slithered

Said

talk say

answering, crying, asking

I answered my teacher's question.

whisper

SAW.

Spied. Perceive.

Looking. Noticing. Peering.

I was peering into my parents bedroom.

Observe.

We will continue to work on our anthology tomorrow, where we will be learning about "DIAMANTE" style poetry writing...stay tuned (or ask your child to share with you what they wrote about today!)

We went to the library today to do our book exchange and then for math we went onto Mathletics (yeah, the computers were working!)  After Mathletics, students share what the concepts were that they were working on.  Some of the concepts they mentioned, were "place value", "estimating", "rounding", "odd and even numbers".  Ask them to share what their task was and what they learned from working on Mathletics and what strategies they used to help them solve their problems.

We ended our day with French!! Ask your child what group they were in and what they worked on.

Before leaving, I handed them their word list for the next few weeks.  For tonight, the students are to just read the words and then decide which ones they would like to use when writing at least three sentences.  In class, we will be working with these words and sorting them based on their word family or rule.  Some of the lists include the word "oddball" that is for the category for those words that have a certain spelling sound, but don't follow a specific spelling rule.  Tomorrow I will send them home with an envelope that we will glue into their homework book, so when they begin their sorts at home they have a place to store their words.  So you do not need to glue the words into their journals, but if you do, that is ok:)

Important information:

Friday, November 22- PD no school

Thursday, November 28th- FUN LUNCH!! (We have one volunteer, we are still looking for one more volunteer!
FAMILIES HELPING FAMILIES: PLEASE SEE THE SEPARATE BLOG, AND IF YOU ARE INTERESTING IN HELPING, PLEASE POST ON THAT BLOG. IT WILL BE UP AND CAN BE CLICKED ON EASILY FROM THE SIDE OF THE SCREEN. DONATIONS DUE BY MONDAY DECEMBER 9TH...

Homework:

read 15-30 minutes

mathletics 15-30 minutes (please post if you need new assignments!!)

Write at least three sentences using some of the words on your list. Underline the word that you used from your list. We will share some of the sentences tomorrow.

Question for the blog:

Who was your French teacher? What did you learn in French today?

A bientôt!

Madame Handelsman!

Be safe on this mini-blizzard Saturday!

Hello room 75!
Today is Saturday and I am currently sitting in my second day of First Aid Training at the school.  After my course yesterday I went into the classroom and some evidence of all your hard work! You did a wonderful job on your goal writing and artwork!  Way to go room 75!

As I watch the snow

Next week will be a short and busy week! We will be working hard on our Origins project, so if you have not posted which country you are researching you need to do so today!  Remember you cannot be researching about Canada. You will be researching about the country your family was from BEFORE they came to Canada or North America.

Here is a quick message from Ms. Wood:

Hello Everyone

Cranston is in the process of planning our Winter Wonderland (more about this to follow later in the month). If you have an old artificial tree (any size, any colour) you were thinking of getting rid of, we will take it! We are also looking for lights, (especially the white ones) outdoor-lighted animals (deer, moose etc., as well as sleighs), and artificial cedar garlands or wreathes for our displays. We are also looking for a disco ball! If you have anything to donate (or loan – if you would like it back!) please email Mrs. Wood at clwood@cbe.ab.ca. Thanks so much!

For our Winter Wonderland, the Hope Wing will be turning our hallway into Jan Brett's Winter Wonderland.  Room 75 will be working with the picture books by Jan Brett: 

Important information:

Friday, November 22- PD NO SCHOOL
Thursday, November 28th- Fun Lunch- WE NEED TWO VOLUNTEERS TO HELP WITH THE FUN LUNCH...

Homework:

Read 15-30 minutes

Mathletics 15-30 minutes

In your writing journal, change the sentence "On Saturday it snowed and I played outside", (snoozerama), into one that includes more descriptive action verbs and adjectives. 

EG- Early Saturday morning, I gazed out my window and noticed blistering snow zigzagging in the wind.

Question for the blog:

What did you do on Saturday while I was in my First Aid training course?

Have a great and SAFE weekend in the snow!

See you on Monday!

Ms. Handelsman