The Three Pillars of CareEvery week at school is filled with "aha moments" similar to what I spoke about in last week's blog. Sometimes those aha's are positive, and sometimes they are less so. Recently our school has been filled with lots of both. First I would like to acknowledge some of the aha's that haven't been as positive recently and ask for the support of our parents. This week, I ask that you consider the pillars of care a little differently; as Pillars of Respect. Care and Respect for Self Our first obligation is to ensure our own safety and well-being. By that I mean that all of us need to feel safe and cared for. This pillar of our model was never intended to suggest that one should look after oneself at the expense of others, but to make sure that everyone in our building should be able to advocate for themselves, asking questions that help them learn and sharing what they know confidently, certain that others will listen and help them grow and learn. We have the right to expect that others will treat us with respect and our responsibility is that we must act responsibly. Care and Respect for this Place We are fortunate to live in a place where education is respected and we have buildings with playgrounds, equipment to play with and tools to help us learn. We live in a beautiful community with fresh air and fields to play in. We work in a clean building that is filled with opportunities to tinker, explore, experiment, read, and learn. With that comes our responsibility to take care of the building we learn in and the tools we learn with. We have the right to expect that others will treat this place that we love with respect and our responsibility is that we must do the same. Care and Respect for Others Within a caring school environment, we need to care for and about the other people around us, whether students or staff. We must treat each other with kindness and in ways that we would like others to treat us. We should listen when they speak and support them to grow and learn. This pillar recognizes that ALL people in our building are equally important and that we should be treated with respect. Others in our school have the right to expect that others will treat them with respect and our responsibility is that we must do the same. Why are we talking about this now? Recently there has been a growing number of instances when students, staff and parents have told me that they are seeing our students not following the pillars of care and respect. This has been a topic of discussion at every Student Advisory Meeting and these students have asked for the support of their peers to work together to improve. As a staff we are continuing to focus on this throughout the school and are drawing attention to the many, many instances of GREAT student behaviour and actions. We need some help from parents. We have made changes within classes and to our supervision outside and we have decided that we are going to try a change to our lunchroom processes as well. Beginning after the break we will be dividing our lunch break into two sections. Our Division 2 students will go outside and play from 12:00 - 12:26, while our Division 1 students eat their lunch. A bell will ring at 12:26 to signal that it is time for student to get ready to switch. At 12:28 a second bell will let students know that they should now be where they are going. Our Division 1 students will now be outside to play and our Division 2 Students will be inside to eat their lunch. Please talk about this with your child, and come up with some agreements with your child about their behaviour that will help them follow the pillars. Student-Led Conferences and Spring BreakStudent-led conferences are being held on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Please be sure to register online to book your family's times. If you are having trouble booking on the internet, please come in to the office and we will be happy to help you. We appreciate it if you don't come at bell times; we are particularly busy at those times and you may have to wait to be helped. Please be aware that Grade 1 - 6 students will be dismissed at 2:55 pm on Wednesday and there are no classes for EDC and Kindergarten students on Wednesday to accommodate student-led conferences. Spring break for students begins on Friday, March 24. This day is a professional learning day for our staff and our school will not be open. We are excited to be hosting another school's staff to learn with us, so our school will look quite busy, however our school will not be open. Our school will re-open on April 10, 2017. Update from Grade 1/2A favorite part of the day is estimating how much is in the estimation jar. We have been spending 15 minutes of the day making a good guess in our special estimation books then counting how much is inside and writing the actual answer. There is a lot of math involved, on some occasions we needed a more efficient way to add instead of one by one because there was over 1,000 Cheerios! Sometimes it looks like there are only 20 of something but it turns out to be 100. We have noticed that smaller items take up less room, so there are usually more than we think! We have become stronger at estimating. Math is also incorporated in our day wit h our daily Number Talks. We have learned new common language such as, “I would like to revise my answer” or “I don’t understand, can you speak a little more about that.” Another very exciting time in Grade 1/2 is building our insulation devices. We decided we wanted to build a device that would keep hot chocolate hot for a prolonged period of time. One group’s device kept the hot chocolate at 54 degrees Celsius after being outside for 15 minutes on a very cold day! We spent a lot of time working harmoniously with our team members. Each group created and followed their Design Plan. In the end we got to enjoy a hot cup of hot chocolate! Math Challenge - Which One Doesn't Belong?This week with two weeks off, students may be looking for something to do and this is something that we do at school regularly that can easily be created at your home! Click on the image below to see this in action. We invite students to defend or disagree but they must justify what they say. This is an important skill throughout their learning; not just in math. Since we are about to go into a break, we encourage you to explore this website to create these opportunities at home - http://wodb.ca/index.html. Weekly Math Challenge - from Mrs. EmilssonDo You Want to Build a Snowman? How many semi-circles would you need to build a snowman that has three balls? What about 5 balls? What about 7 balls? What other shapes would you need to add eyes? A carrot nose? A coal mouth? Name all the shapes. How many shapes in total? Modifications/Extensions Name the shapes Count the shapes Consider fractions- how many ¼’s? What is the fraction of each shape? What ratios can you show in your snowman? Accommodations: Use number line Use manipulatives Draw it out Weekly UpdatesPE FOCUS – Dance Playground schedule - Division 2 on playground before school and at recess and Division 1 on the playground at lunch time for this week.
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Remember to check out our school website - http://schools.cbe.ab.ca/b347
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