Hello Grade One Families!

Thank you for checking in on our Grade 1 blog! Thanks to all the families that were able to make it to Meet the Teacher night!  The best part was seeing how proud students were of their new classrooms.  Here’s some news for our Grade One Group:

Field Trips

This past week, a newsletter was sent home from the office regarding the Terry Fox Assembly and Walk.  Unfortunately, there was a time error regarding the assembly.  Our Terry Fox Assembly will be in conjunction with our Blue and Gold Assembly, which is on Monday September 22^nd at 8:30 in the morning.  There will be no assembly after the walk on Friday.  Students are encouraged to wear school colours on both Monday and Friday.   At Monday’s assembly, we’ll be talking about Terry Fox and our Spirit Cup Challenge.  We’ll also have a special guest, Mr. Terry Fox, give a short presentation.  Mr. Terry Fox is actually the late Terry Fox’s uncle! 

Don’t forget to email your Grade One teacher if you are able to walk with your class on October 7^th to the Crossings Branch library!  Each class time is listed on the blog post below.  We’re hoping for some great weather on that day so remember to make sure your children are dressed accordingly!

Lunchtime

It is very helpful for lunchtime if your children are able to open their own snacks/ containers! Involving your child in lunch packing is a great way to help prepare with this! One suggestion from a parent was to open difficult packaging at home, and put snacks (such as fruit cups) into a reusable lunch container that is kid friendly.  When the students can open their own snacks, this helps build their independence! Thank you for your help with this!

Bell Times and Coming into the School

Don’t forget that the bell times have changed this year! We want to help the traffic in the office become a bit more manageable!  There is supervision on the playground before school at 8:05 am. 

The Warning Bell rings at 8:15 am.  At this time, students need to line up outside at our Grade One doors.  Grade One teachers will then invite students in.

The Dismissal Bell rings at 3:06pm. At this time, students can meet families in the boot room.  Having parents wait in the boot room will make our caretaking staff’s jobs much easier, especially when the weather changes.

On Fridays, the Dismissal Bell rings at 11:44am. 

We understand that sometimes parents need to speak with teachers in the morning.  If so, the best thing would be to either come in with the Grade 1 students at the 8:15am Warning Bell, or come through the office doors with your child.  The Grade One doors are locked for security reasons.  Please do not let other students in through the Grade One doors, as this could become a supervision issue! 

If your student arrives after 8:15, and there is no one holding the Grade One Door, please remind them to go through the office door!  We don’t want any little ones being locked out! If they go in through the office door, then they need to stop at the office to get a late slip!

Need a Desk??

The student desks that are lined up outside the library are free for the taking!! If you’d like to take some desks home, please help yourself!

Last But Not Least:

Don’t forget to check out our School Newsletter, which can be found by clicking HERE!  It includes important information such as Breakfast Club, School Council, Parking Reminders, and a Monthly Calendar.

Don’t forget to add these Grade One Dates to your calendar at home.  Thank you for a fun first few weeks!  Take care,

From the Grade One Teachers

September

Monday September 22^nd- Blue and Gold Assembly @ 8:30

Tuesday September 23^rd- Hot Lunch Grades 1-3

Wednesday September 24^th- Hot Lunch Grades 4-5

Friday September 26^th- Terry Fox Walk @ 8:45

October

Tuesday October 7^th- Crossings Branch Field Trip

Wednesday October 8^th- Firefighter presentation

Monday October 13^th- Thanksgiving! No School

Tuesday October 14^th- PL Day – No School

Wednesday October 15th- 22nd- Feed the Bug campaign

Tuesday October 21^st - Picture Retake day

Wednesday October 22^nd- Spirit Assembly @ 12:30

Thursday October 23rd- PD Day in PM only

Friday October 24^th- PD Day no school

Friday October 31^st- Happy Halloween! Details to come!

Grade One News

Hi everyone and welcome to our Grade blog!

We’ve had an awesome first week of school! Grade 1 is such a huge change from Kindergarten but our classes seems to be adjusting well! Here you will find the latest news in our classroom as well as upcoming events/ things to know. There will also be an updated monthly calendar list so you can keep track of what is going on around MMH for your child's Grade 1 year.

Please make sure you have provided your teacher with an email address that you use often and one where you don’t mind receiving emails. Of course, if you prefer a paper copy of handouts/ information/ reminders, teachers can provide one as well -please just let your teacher know.

Here’s a brief summary of what we will be working on:

InLanguage Arts we will be reviewing our letter sounds and printing. We will also start practicing our sight words, which will be written every week in the agenda. Each week we will practice these sight words and we ask that you please practice them at home! It is important that the students are able to READ (not spell- but if they can spell them woohoo!) these words without trying to sound them out. Our home reading program will begin in October. Thank you to the parents who signed up to exchange home reading! Teachers will contact the parents who have offered to help with home reading exchange closer to the start date.

InMath, we began with printing numbers 1-10 as a review, as well as testing out different ways to represent them. Our first two units in math are about numbers 1-10 and patterning. In Science we will start our Colours unit, and discussions about the season fall.

Morning Routine:

If your child arrives at school prior to the bell, please direct them to the playground. There is supervision there and it is a much safer place than the front of the school. The Grade One doors open each morning at 8:15am, when our first “warning bell” will sound. Another bell will go at 8:20am. Any student arriving after the 8:20am bell needs to enter through the office doors and ask for a late slip on the way by. This helps so much to ensure accurate attendance is taken. Thank you for your help with this!

Lunchtime:

We have had a good start to settling into the routine of eating lunch at school. Students are getting faster at handling their lunch kit from their backpack. Parents, you can help us out here! We ask that you involve your student when packing their lunch, so that they're aware of what's in their lunch kit. It's helpful when they know what they should be eating as their morning snack (10-10:15), lunch (12-12:24) and then as an afternoon snack (1:55-2:05). Don't forget to pack any utensils that they need! Some students are able to open up their containers on their own which is VERY helpful for us! Thank you for your support here!

There are peanut allergies in some Grade 1 classes so we exercise caution when students have peanut butter sandwiches, etc. Please remind your student to wash their hands after handling anything with peanuts!

Thanks to parents who signed up to bring snacks outside the classroom doors! When it comes time, you’ll receive a reminder for what you’ve signed up for via email.

Each class is also looking for a School Council Representative. School Council meets once a month (on a Wednesday) and your job would be to act as a liason between the school council and our classroom. The School Council also works on different committees and helps out with school wide events and fundraising. It’s a great way to get out and meet other parents in the school as well! If this sounds something you’re interested in, please let your teacher know! The first meeting is set for Wednesday September 10^th @ 6pm.

Field Trips:

OnFriday, September 26^th we are going on our Terry Fox Walk! We are leaving MMH just after announcements, and will walk over to Nicholas Sheran Lake. We go around the lake once where we meet up with the other Westside Schools, and then we head back to MMH. The Grade One teachers are looking for 2 parents per class to join. If you’d like to join us on our walk please just let your teacher know via email. We ask that younger siblings don’t come for this, as usually the walk is pretty exhausting for our Grade 1s. If you don’t want to walk, you are more than welcome to grab a spot at the lake and cheer us on when we pass! Students are welcome to wear our school colours (Blue and Gold) for this morning.

On October 7^th, our Grade 1 classes will be walking to the Crossings Branch Library for a tour! Here are the times that each class is going:

Mrs. Payne and Mrs. Fallwell’s class:

Leave MMH @ 9:45

Return to MMH @ 11:45

Mrs. Johnston and Miss Tsentouros’ class:

Leave MMH @ 12:45

Return to MMH @ 2:45

Each class is looking for 2 parents to help. If you are able to help walk with your child’s class, please email your teacher and let her know.

Although this is a long time away, our Grade 1 group will be going Skating at the Nicholas Sheran Rink on Wednesday December 17^th from 1:15-2:30. Each child will need a skating helmet and their own pair of skates! We’re hoping this early notice will give parents enough time to borrow equipment. Closer to the date, we’ll also ask if parents have any extra skates that we can share with those without.

Thank you for checking out our first blog post!

Here are some important dates to mark your calendars with:

September

Wednesday September 10^th- School Council Meeting @ 6pm

Thursday September 11^th- Meet the Teacher Night @ 6

Monday September 22^nd- Blue and Gold Assembly @ 8:30

Friday September 26^th- Terry Fox Walk @ 8:45

October

Tuesday October 7^th- Crossings Branch Field Trip

Wednesday October 8^th- Firefighter presentation

Monday October 13^th- Thanksgiving! No School

Tuesday October 14^th- PL Day – No School

Wednesday October 15th- 22nd- Feed the Bug campaign

Tuesday October 21^st - Picture Retake day

Thursday October 23rd- PD Day in PM only

Friday October 24^th- PD Day no school

Friday October 31^st- Happy Halloween!

 

Back to School

We're getting excited for the First Day of School!

This blog will be the online space for all Grade One things at MMH School!

Stay tuned for more information!

HAPPY SUMMER!

Hi everyone!

One very last blog post of the year.  It's difficult to express just how appreciative I am for all of your continued support over the last 10 months.  Thank you for all the gifts, beautiful cards and hugs!  I will miss your kids very much.  Have an AMAZING SUMMER!!

Please stop by and say hi next year!

Thank you!

-Anna Tsentouros

Hi everyone!
Thanks for checking in on the blog!  It sounded like everyone had a great May Long weekend which was the break that I think we needed as we begin the final countdown!  Can you believe there's only 5.5 weeks of Grade 1 left?!? It's absolutely crazy!!

From now until the rest of the year, we'll continue on working on different writing projects and sharpening up our math adding and subtracting skills.  We're also carrying on with our Plants and Animals unit in science!  The students took home their plants yesterday, and did they ever grow fast! They loved coming in everyday to check out the progress of their living plant.  Now we'll carry on with learning about animals.  This is one of my favourite units to teach because the students often know so much already about their favourite animals!  It's a great chance for them to really shine with showing what they know.

Our field trip to the Galt Museum was a lot of fun!  Belinda was our guest teacher, and she did an amazing job talking about Lethbridge's past heroes, and what our city was like in the past.  We'll continue with learning about Lethbridge's past and our own pasts, from now until the end of the year.

The Grade 1 team likes to do a few theme days in June, and these are listed on the calendar below.  1 being a "Pioneer" Day, and also a Camp Day.  We'll make sure your child knows exactly what they need to bring to school on those days in advance.

The Grade 1 team has also been busy planning our last Family Assembly, which is hosted by our little Grade 1 students!  The final Family Assembly will be focused on Habit # 6, which is Synergise. If you can come and watch our assembly in June, please do!

May 30th is the deadline for parents to have any written requests for next year into Paul Bryant.  Please email Paul or ask Elaine or June in the office if you have any questions about this.

I've added a few events below, and also edited some.  Please take a look and as always, email me if you have any questions!

Take care,
Anna Tsentouros

Thursday May 22^nd: Beach Day/ Spirit Assembly @ 8:30am

Tuesday May 27^th: Hot Lunch Grades 1-3

Wednesday May 28^th: Hot Lunch Grades 4-5

Thursday May 29^th: The SAAG-We will be visiting the Art Gallery! Thank you to the following parents who have volunteered to drive:  Darli McAughly, Dave or Kari Manser, Geoff Netzel, and Kriss Guenter.  If there’s anyone else who’d like to join us on this day please just let me know!

New Event: Friday May 30^th: Pow Wow at Nicholas Sheran Lake. We'll walk over with our Book Buddies. Please make sure your student has comfortable walking shoes!  

Tuesday June 3^rd- Pancake Breakfast- this a school wide event where families are invited to come and have a pancake breakfast. The breakfast is from 7-8:15.  We hope to see everyone there!

New Event: Wednesday June 4^th: Family Assembly hosted by the Grade 1s @ 12:30. 

New Event: Tuesday June 10^th: Grade 1/ Kindergarten switch day in the pm!

New event: Wednesday June 11^t: Grade 1 Pioneer Day!  Details will come out closer to this date. 

CHANGED DATE: Tuesday June 17th- Grades K-2 Sports Day! This is an awesome event that is WEATHER DEPENDENT! We are looking for 2-4 parents to help run stations outside. Please email me if this is something you’re interested in!

Wednesday June 18^t: Mr. Bryant’s Retirement Assembly. This will be sometime in the afternoon, and we will let you know when the time is set. This is one you won’t want to miss!

Thursday June 19^th- This is our back up day for Sports Day in case we get rained out on the 11^th.

New Event: Friday June 20: Grade 1 Camp Day! Details will come home closer to the date!  Be prepared to bring a flashlight and sleeping bag to school!

Monday June 23^rd- This is our Farewell Assembly, where we say goodbye to any staff members who are leaving our school. This assembly is from 9-10am.

Tuesday June 24^th-This is the date we have set for our Grade 1 Year End Picnic. The details of this event are still in the works, but parents will be invited to come have a picnic lunch with the Grade One students. This is an awesome event and you’ll definitely want to mark this one on your calendars!

Thursday June 26^th: Year End Assembly/ Last day of school- students dismissed @ 11:45.