Terry Fox Run

On Wednesday, September 30th, we will be having our annual Terry Fox run at school. If you would like to send a Toonie with your child that would be great!  All proceeds go to cancer research!

HRA K-6 Running Club

Mrs. Folkerts and I are very excited to announce that we are ready to begin recess running club.  This is open to all students from K – 6 and will take place during Wednesday and Friday morning recess.  The first portion of running club will begin on Wednesday,  September 30^th  and continue until the end of November.

All students in kindergarten to grade six are invited to join, regardless of fitness level or experience with running. Walking breaks will be encouraged when necessary and students will gradually build their stamina with each run they do.

Students will run around a portion of our field and laps will be recorded.  At the end of the club we will give out awards based on the average laps completed and a special treat will be given to the boy and girl in each class with the highest number of laps.

Students who are interested in joining the running club will sign up with their classroom teacher.  There is no cost to this club but we do ask that students who sign up stay committed and attend each session.  All students will need is their water bottle, running shoes and a great attitude!

We look forward to encouraging your child in their journey towards health and physical fitness!  Please email Mrs. Goosen at pgoosen@highroadacademy.com with any questions or concerns you may have.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Goosen & Mrs. Folkerts

Just a few pieces of information for you:

Our first Knight’s Day is on Wednesday, September 30th.  Students can wear any Highroad Knight’s gear and casual pants.  If they do not wear any Knight’s gear on Wednesday then they can wear their school uniform.

Here are the spelling words for next week:

List One:  narrow, extra, great, middle, past, wire, team, those, few, living, finger, chance, heart, phrase, case, chick, event, collar, railroad, member.

List Two: ledge, toss, tender, running, allow, crowd, firm, dew, written, pride, sometimes, whom, statement, exercise, breath, grammar, ankle, confidence, glorify, weapon

The new Bible Memory Verse is in the Bible Memory section of the blog.  Students can recite their memory verses as soon as they know them.

Have a great weekend!

Just a few things to update you about…

Lindeman Lake Field Trip

Our class is heading to Lindeman Lake on Friday, October 2nd.  Permission slips will go home today and parents are welcome to attend.  Please make sure that you have an up-to-date criminal check completed.  We will be leaving the school at 10:30 so you can feel free to meet us at the trailhead parking lot at about 11:15.  If you are interested in joining us on the bus, please contact us to ensure that there is room.  We are travelling with Miss Warden’s class and space may be a little tight.  Everyone should bring a bag lunch along to eat at the lake.  We will return to school by 3pm.  

Reading Recommendations:  There are many times in the year that we are asked about good books for the students to read.  Here is a short list of some recommended books, authors, and series.  Please note that we have not read all of the books on this list so your discretion is advised.

Some of our favorite authors include:  Gordon Korman (realistic fiction, mysteries), Andrew Clements (realistic fiction, humor), Jerry Spinelli (realistic fiction, suspense), Katherine Patterson (fiction with girls as main characters), Gary Paulsen (realistic fiction, wilderness themes), Rick Riordan (fantasy), Kenneth Opel (animal fiction – for stronger readers).  The list could go on and on 🙂

Favorite Series:  I Survived (fictional stories based on real historical events), Island (kids shipwrecked), Artemis Fowl (fantasy), and Little House on the Prairie.

Here are a few individual titles that might appeal to your child.

The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes (realistic, funny, boy, school, family, friends)

Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner (boy tries to win dogsled race to save family farm)

The Chocolate Touch by Patrick Skeen Calling (everything a boy touches turns to chocolate)

The Year of the Dog by Grace Lin (family, school, immigration)

The World According to Humphrey by Betty G Birney (class pet guinea pig tells the story)

Waiting for the Magic by Patricia McLachlan (family struggling with loss adopts 4 dogs and cats from a shelter. Brother and sister discover that they can hear the animals communicating.)

The Dragon’s Egg by Alison Baird (girl has pet dragon, bullying)

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein (night at museum, Chocolate Factory)

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry (Nazi Germany)

Happy Reading!!

Headphones Needed:  We have started to use the chromebooks more frequently which means we need the students to each have their own set of headphones or the noise level in the classroom gets a little out of control. 🙂

The last two weeks we have spent a lot of time talking about having a growth mindset.  This is the mindset that we can ALL grow and learn new things…our abilities are far beyond what we think they are.  We have learned that our brain is a muscle that can grow…that when we make mistakes the synapses in our brain are firing and working…our brain is growing and getting stronger.  We have also talked a lot about turning our negative thoughts (fixed mindset) into positive ones.  If we learn to work through failures and challenges, believing that we CAN do things and understand things, that is when true growth and learning will happen!

We have also worked on setting goals for this year – one long term and one short term goal.  The students wrote their goals on hand templates, decorated them and then cut them out.  Below I have a picture of the bulletin board we made with our goals…it is true, together we are a masterpiece!

Enjoy your weekend!

We are now finishing up our first full week!  Things are well underway in the grade five classroom!  It has been fun to get to know the students and work with them these last two weeks!  I can tell already that we are going to have a great year!

Here are a few items for you to be aware of:

• Just a reminder that next Monday we have our Parent Welcome Night.  This event starts at 7pm…we look forward to seeing you there!
• Next Thursday we will have our first Bible Memory Verse quiz.  Under the Bible Memory Tab you will find the two verses that students will learn for next THURSDAY.
• On Wednesday, September 30th we will have our first Knight’s Day.  Students are able to wear their Knight’s shirt & casual pants.  More information to follow on purchasing Knight’s shirts…
• Spelling words can also be found on spelling city.  There is a link to this on the right side of the blog, under the tab Websites to Check Out.  If your child completes the test on spelling city and gets 20/20, please write a little note in their planner and they will get a bonus mark on their Friday quiz.

Here are our next spelling lists:

List 1 Words:

almost, again, also, daily, rarely, month, sound, true, truthful, solid, born, enter, died, regret, collect, sow, does, says, driven

List 2 Words:

whose, quick, entire, terrible, prompt, wonderful, select, calm, smooth, private, branch, primary, factory, murder, gentleman, self, calf, command, beggar, property

And I think that is it!  Enjoy the weekend!

Individual School Photos will take place this Wednesday, Sept. 16th.  All students should wear FULL DRESS UNIFORM.

Girls:  black shoes, socks/tights, skirt, button up blouse, cardigan

Boys:  black shoes, socks, pants, dress shirt, cardigan

This week will start some of our regular routines.  Today we introduced our first spelling words to the students.  Mondays will be the day new words are introduced and Fridays will be the day that they are tested.  We generally do not have spelling on short weeks.

This year we have a very large range of spelling abilities.  As one of our classroom goals is to provide opportunities for success for every child, we have decided to have two different spelling lists.  We do not feel like it is fair to either the struggling spellers or the proficient spellers to have them complete the same list.  One group will not be challenged and the other group will have little chance for success.  We want to help develop strong spellers and to do so, we need to start at where the kids are, not necessarily at where they should be.  Once a term we will complete diagnostic tests to ensure that the students are progressing and make adjustments to the lists as necessary.  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to talk to either one of us.

List 1 words:

army, both, breakfast, climb, happen, children, grass, broad, noise, ready, brought, below, while, mountains, monkey, pull, beside, eagle, thunder, picture

List 2 words:

claim, measure, represent, position, suppose, arrange, similar, continue, appoint, touch, action, importance, justice, section, connect, connection, field, direction, term, veil

IMPORTANT NIGHT COMING UP:

Enjoy these these pictures from our first week!

We survived the first week back at school!  It was hard being inside this week with the gorgeous weather beckoning us outside!  We had a great few days together and it was fun seeing the classroom dynamics and begin getting to know the students.

Here are some things we did this week…

• We did a fun team building activity where the students had limited supplies to try and build the tallest tower
• we joined Mr. Hancock’s class for some exploratory Math lessons
• we started to learn about our brain and how it is like a muscle – the more we practice the better we will get at something.  Our brain was designed to learn and we shouldn’t quit or give up when things are hard…after all, we can all do things now that we couldn’t do 5 years ago!
• We lerned about the importance of setting goals and will be setting some short and long term goals next week.
• we learned the difference between real reading and fake reading. We learned a big new word called Metacognition – thinking about your thinking!  We made a ‘real reading salad’ to demonstrate that real reading includes both text and thinking!
• we reflected on the tragedy of 9/11.
• We had a special guest do a cooking demonstration on building the ultimate burger.  This was compared to building the ultimate paragraph!  Did you know that the top portion of a burger bun can be compared to a topic sentence?  True story!

I will try and get some pictures of our first week to you in the next several day!  Have a fantastic weekend!

Mrs.Goosen

Hi everyone!  I wanted to let you know that we are waiting for an upgrade to our blog – one that gives us a pretty background and more features, like the subscribe button!  Once you are able to subscribe I will have the students put a note into their planners.

Thanks for your patience!