Welcome back!  I hope that you all had a wonderful spring break and were able to enjoy some quality family time!  We have had a great first week back and have jumped right in to a whole bunch of new and exciting units.  This may be a long blog post as there is a lot of information to share with you!

Devotions:  This term each child will have a day that they will lead classroom devotions.  We have spread it throughout the term and they will take place on Monday, Thursday and Fridays.  Students will receive their devotional the week before they are to present, which gives them ample time to practice and prepare.  Students will also receive a reflection sheet which must be handed in on the morning that they lead devotions.  This sheet has the students fill in a brief summary (4 sentence minimum) of their devotional as well as a place for them to apply what the devotional is about to the class (2 sentence minimum).  This week the students looked at a summary and application example that I did for one of our devotions and did a ‘practice run’ themselves…so they should be well prepared!  Our first three students will lead devotions next week and there is a schedule up in the classroom.

Poetry:  We have officially begun our poetry unit…this probably my favourite writing unit of the year!  The students have each chosen a poem that they will read aloud to the class as part of our ‘poetry slam’…a good old fashioned poetry reading contest!  We will also be writing several poems a week during the month of April and then students will choose their favourite four poems, which will be compiled into a book and sent to a publishing house.  Each child will receive their own copy of our class poetry book and parents will have an opportunity to purchase extra books if they’d like.

Rube Goldberg Machine:  To finish off our simple machines unit, students have been paired up and started creating a Rube Goldberg Machine.  This is a machine that has at least seven steps, three simple machines, and can perform a very simple function…to pop a balloon!  This project is always a hit and the students learn a lot about making plans, readjusting things when they don’t work, teamwork, perseverance and many other important life lessons!  And it is Science, which is so fun!  I have lot of material at school but some students will need to collect some things from home.  We made our initial blueprints on Thursday and will start creating on Monday.  Please have students bring their supplies on Monday.  I will let you know when we are going to present our projects, as you are welcome to come in and see the students creations!

Novel Study:  This term we are exploring the novel, Holes, by Louis Sachar in Book Club groups. We have  bookmarks to help us keep track of our weekly reading and comprehension homework and on Thursday/Friday we will meet together in our book club groups to talk about the novel and the things that stood out to us from the weekly reading. There are four different roles in book club and we will get to try each role twice. We are looking forward to it!

Bannock Lunch:  On Tuesday, April 10th, the Primary department is having a First Nations day.  There will be a food truck at school that will sell First Nation themed food and other fast food.  Students will be able to purchase food at lunch time for $4.

Spelling Words:  doubt, motion, snooze, crawl, wound, design, tie, mention, assist, nickel

Upcoming Dates:

April 16-20: Scholastic Bookfair

April 17: Pyjama Dressup

April 24: Service Day (more information to come)

April 25th:  Knight’s Day

April 30th:  Class Pictures

May 3rd:  Track Meet, Bear Creek Park in Surrey (information coming home today)

I think that is it!  Have a fantastic weekend!