Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a great holiday! We will all be adjusting back into school routines and schedules. Thank you for continuing to help your child make good choices for sleeping, eating and getting outside so they are ready to learn at school.  

A reminder to check your growing child's indoor shoes, and any winter clothing they might have left at school to make sure everything still fits! We did try to clean everything out over the break, but there always seems to be odds and ends that get left. Thanks so much!

We have a new student in the Clubhouse! Please welcome Maegan in grade 3. Her family has recently come from Hong Kong. Everyone has been respectful and kind Dr. Coffin citizens helping her with routines and getting settled!

Math - We are continuing to work on Number sense...we practice "Math 8 ways" in class...

• choose a 2 or 3 digit number 
• add it, subtract it from itself or another number
• show place value (ones, tens, hundreds), 
• greater than, less than, 
• write it out in words, 
• ask if it is odd or even (show it in equal groups if it even, or is there unequal groups, numbers left over?) this helps with understanding of multiplication and division
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Writing - this week we are starting Cursive Writing! We will group the letters according to how they are written instead of alphabetical order...so "a" "d" "g" and "q" this week.

We are writing about our holidays (one event) using the questions for our introduction sentence (top bun)

• when - During the holidays
• who - my cousins and I
• what - went skiing
• where - to COP

Then adding juicy words, details, similes (meat and cheese)

And finishing with a "wrap up" sentence: thought, memory, something I learned (bottom bun)

Reading - we are getting back to guided reading groups this week and hope to finish up our books and write up some book reviews, then move on to our new books. Thinking about and asking the 5 W questions, or asking "tell me about your favorite part/character" or "can you draw me some pictures about your book?" after reading at home will encourage greater understanding and connection to what your child is reading.

We have also started a new book called The Burgess Animal Book for Children. It has all our favorite characters and some more to learn about all their adventures. Ask me what Peter Rabbit just learned about from Jenny Wren!

Gym - we are practicing basketball skills, control, passing, keep away and shooting for the next few weeks.

Art - we started a study of The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson artists - we chose one of their paintings to sketch and will paint them over the next couple of weeks. We are also finding facts about the artists and thinking about why the artists chose the colors they did and how their landscape pictures are similar and different. 

A reminder that the weather is supposed to get quite cold over the next couple weeks...brrrrr...so thanks for remembering all those winter "extras"!

I believe it is our TREAT DAY this month...more details to follow!