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Good morning R7A Families –

Above is our class picture taken in October including our wonderful DHH students, Austin, Grace and Nada. All students have been given a photo.

It was a pleasure to meet and speak with so many of you this past week at our interview sessions. Thank you for taking the time to come by and say hello and discuss your child. I will be following up on the many things we talked about.

I am including some photos of our RECONCILIATION board, just outside of the classroom. The board is full of orange tiles with student commitment toward Reconciliation. The individual letters incorporate indigenous art design. We are adding images of residential school children and Saabrin’s description of what we were doing with the project.

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READING: As I told many parents and students through the interviews, it is imperative that your children are reading at home every day. This will strengthen their fluency, comprehension and open up new worlds of knowledge and understanding. Any kind of reading is fine – graphic novels, short stories, novels, fiction, non-fiction. Please take action and get your children to read if they are not right now. Students should also have restricted time on their screens – to allow for other activities such as reading and athletics – and to avoid becoming addicted to screens at the expense of so many other activities necessary to positive emotional and physical development. I am happy to lend books and to recommend reading.

It sounds like it is going to be yet another snowy, wet week. Please remind your children to dress well and warmly. Indoor shoes are completely necessary. 

Whatever the weather, there is always something going in our great city, often at little or no expense.  https://www.narcity.com/ca/on/ottawa/things-to-do-in-ott/30-things-to-do-in-ottawa-that-you-have-to-add-to-your-winter-bucket-list. Maybe even a Grey Cup celebration!!!! Go RED BLACKS!!

Ms. Swail

 

Greetings R7A Families –

For those of you new to Canada and Canadian winters – welcome to the snow! The cross-country skiers are already out on the trails and others of us are still frantically trying to find our shovels. Keep warm as a cold front descends on Ottawa on Sunday.    Wet snow turns to cold ridges of ice and white. PLEASE advise your children to wear appropriate clothing for the cold days to come. Running shoes are not good in the snow – they get wet and very cold. Students should be wearing hats and gloves as well. Some of our students seem to be very warm-blooded!

Ms Swail talking to students in the yard???????!!!!!

I hope to see you this week at the Intermediate parent-teacher interviews. For Intermediate student interviews, we are all in the large gym so that you can meet and speak briefly with all of your child’s teachers. Thursday, November 22nd, 4:30 – 7:15 pm, and Friday, November 23rd, from 8:30 – 11:15 am. Interviews are conducted on a first-come, first served basis. If you want a meeting longer than a ten-minute interview, please contact the teacher. We have a lot of people to see on Thursday and Friday and necessarily have to keep interviews short. I also strongly recommend that students come with their parents as they are the topic of the interview!

On Friday, November 23rd, there is no school for the students. On both Thursday and Friday, the school will be holding a Scholastic Book Fair to raise minds and funds for the school. The Book Fair will be in the library. As students are required to read at least 30 minutes a day (on average), why not let them choose a book for the PA day and weekend ahead?

In the classroom, we are finishing our creation story storyboards and working on grammar and sentence structure. Some of our students will be tutoring students in the grade 5/6 class who need support with their writing. In Ourstory, we continue to learn about New France and indigenous and non-indigenous relations. We will be watching a few videos about this time, to complement our reading and reviewing of images. Perhaps you would like to check out the CBC series, “The Story of Us” to see what and how your child is learning and talking about in class. In Health, after our community feast, we will be starting to look at how to create, understand and maintain healthy relationships.

If you have any concerns or questions, I am always available by e-mail. Heather.Swail@ocdsb.ca

Take good care; keep warm.

Ms Swail

Hello R7A Families –

Would you please let me know via e-mail whether you receive and read this weekly blog? Thank you. It is always good to know who is out there and who is reading the blog.

Report card envelopes and student- and parent- input cut-off forms should be handed in as soon as possible, please. With the report card, you would have received a note about parent-teacher interviews next week, on Thursday evening and Friday morning. If you would like a separate, longer meeting, please let me know. Most of the R7A students are doing well, academically – which is just fine!

This coming week we will be planning a class potluck based on our work on food groups in Health Education. Our next Health unit will be on healthy relationships and social media. Please do have regular conversations with your children about and what they are using on their tablets, computers and phones. Two major areas for vigilance concerning social media for younger teenagers are the amount of time on-line and the appropriateness of communication. I will be sending information home as the unit goes on.

This past week, a few of our students met with the grade 5/6 class to share and read out their residential school journal entries. Ms Kirk, the other teacher, and I were very impressed by the creativity and the empathy of the writers and the audience. Some of our students will be working with the younger students on their writing. This will be a good and enriching experience for all.

Dress warmly – it looks like Ottawa’s winter is coming! The leaves are still stubbornly clinging on the oak trees, and some snow is on the ground. Below is a photo we took on our last day of climbing in Peru this August. There is true beauty in snow!

I hope to see many of you next week on November 22nd and 23rd.

Ms. Swail

Ausangate Mountain range, Peru

Dear R7A Families –

Hope you all enjoyed an extra hour of sleep on Sunday morning as we leave Daylight Savings time and head toward winter. There is a sobering thought – winter.

We had a good week at school with Hallowe’en being a very exciting day for all. I am now weaning myself off small candy bars and Hershey kisses. Many, many Intermediates dressed up and had a great time at the Halloween dance.  The dance was very loud and energetic, organized by the Student Council with music by Mr. McKean’s sound technicians. My ears are still ringing! The students were really having a great time.

This week, students met in their guided reading groups and started reading and analyzing different, Canadian indigenous creation stories. They are working on their comprehension and summarizing skills. I am looking forward to seeing their finished creation story comic strips. After summarizing the text in 6-8 frames, they will then be creating colourful, water-colour pieces focusing on key scenes and language from the stories. We have a lot of artists in the room. Should be fun! We are building our Reconciliation tile board outside of the classroom and the students are creating a beautiful banner using indigenous patterning and colours. I hope to have a photo for you next week. In Language Arts, I will also be starting a read-aloud of the book, “Hana’s Suitcase” which tells the true story of a young, Czechoslovakian girl during the Holocaust. We will also be visiting our kindergarten reading buddies on Friday.

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In Ourstory, this week we will be quickly learning about the development of New France and what it looked like in 1713 as the conflict between the French and English continued to build and affect the colony. As always, we will use our “indigenous awareness” skills to understand and enrich the learning. The students will be doing a gallery walk through many painted images depicting life at the time. I want them to notice the composition and content of the images, and use their critical thinking skills to find the messages and biases in the images. What do you notice?

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On Friday, our school will be holding a Remembrance Day ceremony at 11:45 in the morning. All are welcome.

Here are some other dates for you to know:

• November 7              Photo Retakes and Rooftop photo
• November 8              Progress Reports are sent home
• November 9              Remembrance Assemblies- 9:00am (Grades 1-4), 11:45 (Grades 5-8)
• November 21            Parent Council 6pm
• November 22-23       Parent-Teacher Interviews
• November 23            Professional Development Day(no school for students)

Yes, progress reports will be coming home on Thursday. Please review the report with your child, particularly the Learning Skills. If you have any questions or would like to meet before the parent-teacher interviews, please let me know. Heather.Swail@ocdsb.ca

Have a truly wonderful weekend and week. PLEASE ENSURE YOUR CHILDREN ARE READING EVERY DAY.

Here is a link to activities in Ottawa in case you are looking for outing ideas.

Things to do in Ottawa

Adios,

Ms Swail