Thursday, January 29th, 2026

***This week, I sent home a set of practice pages for math and writing, so that students can work on them throughout our current units and ask for help from parents when they are struggling with the content. There was a multiplication/division booklet, a fix the sentence page, and a set of reading comprehension questions that you can use throughout the year to help your child develop those skills. 

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Upcoming Dates

January 28                               Fun Lunch - Subway

January 29                               NO SCHOOL for Kindergarten - Kindergarten Assessments

January 30                               Non-Instructional Day - NO SCHOOL

February 11                              Wear Red and Hearts for Valentine's Day

February 12 & 13                     Teacher Convention - NO SCHOOL

February 16                              Family Day - NO SCHOOL

February 25                              Fun Lunch - Coco Brooks Pizza

February 26                              PINK Shirt Day

February 27                              Non-Instructional Day - NO SCHOOL

March 17                                  Wear Green for St. Patrick's Day

March 18                                  Fun Lunch - Subway

March 19 & 20                          Parent/Teacher Conferences

March 19                                  NO SCHOOL for Kindergarten

March 20                                  Parent/Teacher Conferences - NO SCHOOL

March 23-27                            Spring Break - NO SCHOOL 

Recommended areas to focus on at home to help your child:

**Highlighted areas are the ones we are either focusing on right now, or the ones that they need the most support with.

- Reading every night:

• focusing on fluency (can they read without stopping to sound out each word),  
• expression (changing their tone of voice to match the punctuation and dialogue of characters), and 
• comprehension (ask your child questions about the story while they read or after they finish). 

- Math

• addition and subtraction, both with and without regrouping (this could be practiced using worksheets or card games like addition or subtraction war)
• skip counting by 2s, 5s, 10s, and 25s (a great activity to practice this is by counting coins)
• Reading time on an analog clock. 
• Place Value: expanded form, written form, standard form, and block form 
• 3 digit Addition and Subtraction with regrouping 
• 10 more, 10 less, 100 more, 100 less: Write down a set of numbers and have your child calculate what the number would be if you were to have 10 more, 10 less, 100 more, or 100 less. 
• Skip counting by 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s, 7s, 8s, 9s, 10s, and 25s
• Counting money (especially coins) is a great way to practice skip counting. 
• Adding and Subtracting decimals
• using money to pay for items, whether in a store or pretending at home is a great way for kids to practice adding and subtracting decimals in a hands on, practical way. 
• Multiplication and Division facts 

- Writing:

• spelling (you could also practice this skill playing games like 'Horse' using a basketball, net, and choosing different words to spell). 
• printing mechanics (are the letters legible, is their a clear size difference with capital and lowercase letters, are their spaces between the words)
• punctuation and capitalization 
• Using nouns, adjectives, and verbs within their writing
• Opinion writing: have your child tell you their opinions on things either in verbal or written form, but have them give at least 3 reasons why they have that opinion, and have them further explain each reason as well. 
• Persuasive writing: have your child write about something they want, and ask them to give at least three reasons why they should get it, and have them add lots of detail to their writing. 
• Writing letters, focusing on formatting and expanding ideas. 

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Literacy:

- We started the week by learning about the proper grammar and punctuation used for dialogue within written text. We learned about what a tag is, the different placements for them, and then brainstormed different dialogue tags we have seen within the books we read (ex. said, says, yelled, whispered, etc). Throughout the week, we practiced these skills and completed a worksheet to identify and label the tags in incomplete sentences, and then students were given a picture prompt and encouraged to include dialogue within their story. 

- We focused on the ew, ue, and oo sounds in phonics and practiced reading these words with a spinner game. 

- We have been focusing on developing our reading comprehension skills and discussed the importance of these skills (like when we read signs that tell us important safety information) and then we practiced these skills throughout the week in various ways (reading signs and explaining what they mean, reading about athletes like Messi and Patrick Chan and answering questions about them). 

- We started a new project that we will be working on over the next few weeks. To help develop our verbal comprehension and visualization skills (which are important for visualizing storylines when reading books) we will be listening to a kids story podcast called The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel. As we listen to the podcast, we will be completing journal pages that target specific skills. The class is very excited about this and will begin listening to the podcast next week. 

Math:

- We continued our new unit on Multiplication and Division. We learned strategies for multiplying and dividing objects by using manipulatives and drawing arrays. We practiced our basic facts for multiples of 1 and 2, and will continue this unit next week. 

Science/Social:

- We went to Mrs. Coleman's room and completed centres related to force and energy, as an introduction to our new unit in Science. We also joined her for learning about the first interactions between Settlers and Indigenous people as we continue on in our unit in Social Studies. 

Art:

- Every afternoon, we worked on our art card designs, which were inspired by the Canadian artist: Jason Carter. Our artwork included a mountain range, a flowing river, and an patch of land at the bottom of the page. Some of us added an animal to our work, and we used oil pastels to colour the image.