Hello R7A Parents at the end of a beautiful fall weekend –

After such a beautiful Saturday, I hope you are dry and cozy on this exceedingly wet day. Sunday?!

The rainy weather kept me out of my kayak, off the hiking trails, AND intent on progress reports. I suppose that is a good thing! Students will be receiving their progress reports on November 7th. Parent-teacher interviews will be on November 14th and 15th.

Again, another busy week at VMPS. Hallowe’en or Black and Orange Day, is the students’ highlight, of course, on Thursday, October 31st. All students are invited to wear black and orange or an appropriate costume for an elementary school. Masks will not be worn during class or recess. We adults do not want to get scared! I have lots of Halloween decorations which the students can use to decorate our classroom. We will be having a Pumpkim Bowl football game, boys v. girls, and an afternoon dance.

In Language Arts, students are working on their summarizing skills and in creating an 8-frame storyboard based on a creation story. Writers’ Workshop on Monday will be focusing on punctuation, with very scary sentences. BOO! I will fit in a scary read-aloud and we will be visiting our little kindergarten reading buddies. Friday, November 1st is Day of the Dead, a significant Mexican family celebration. Sssshhhh, (students don’t know) we will be starting to watch the Disney film, “Coco”, and then do some media literacy work, learning about and discussing film techniques. In Geography, we continue to work on landforms and learning how to take jot notes. I showed R7A a brief video on Mount Kilimanjaro, a defunct volcano and the tallest, free-standing mountain in the world. They were quite fascinated and learned a lot about geographic terms and the 4 ecological zones of the mountain. We will watch the next video. I will be climbing Mount Kilimanjaro next summer. I am including the link to the first video, if you are interested.

SCENTsitive – a new word. We are asking all Intermediate students to not wear any body sprays, colognes, perfumes, body mists etc.. Some of us at school are highly sensitive to these scents. Last week, after a particularly heavy application of mist on someone’s body, I was left with an immediate and severe headache. Please remind your children – common sense but no extra scents!

Being kind, compassionate and understanding are hard to do, but necessary for us all. We are still working on being kinder to each other in R7A and in showing consistent respect to all teachers at VMPS. Learning is our job at school. I have told the students there will be no more note-passing during classes, no more calling out, no more gum (which often lands on the underside of tables). If they can remember and practise being attentive, respectful students, then I will create a language unit based on notes and gum. Yes, I will! Please remind your children that school is a place of work, with endless opportunities for learning and growing. Passing notes is also risky business with secrets often becoming public. Please also remind your students that social media and messaging are very powerful tools. If they have nothing good to say, don’t say/send it.

Along this theme, Ms Davies, our wonderful student success teacher, is coming in every Monday afternoon to team teach Drama with me. Here is some information about what Ms Davies does for our students and our community.

Student Success

Vincent Massey’s intermediate division has a Student Success Teacher working together with our students, staff and families. 

Goals of Student Success:

• Support students’ achievement and success
• Support students’ social growth
• Remove barriers 
• Enhance students’ sense of well-being.

What Student Success Might Involve (depending on student needs/goals): 

• Whole-class or small-group workshops on areas such as organization, time management, collaborating more effectively with other people, career exploration, high school preparation, etc.
• Managing the transition to high school (including course selection)
• Collaboration with:
  • Classroom and support teachers 
  • Parents, guardians and families
  • School administrators and support staff
  • Community organizations (e.g. Big Brothers Big Sisters, The Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre, Rideauwood Addiction & Family Services, etc.) 
• Meeting new people or friends
• Helping students plan their personalized pathway through school and beyond
• And more!
• How Students Get Involved with Student Success:

• By being in class (all students are part of some student success activities)
• By asking
• By being referred by a teacher or other caring adult

The Student Success Teacher: 

• Meg Davies (megan.davies@ocdsb.ca)When:

• Monday, Wednesday, Thursday afternoons
• Tuesday, Thursday mornings

Have a very good week. Here are two photos from my Saturday kayak ride.

.

Ms Swail

Good afternoon R7A families –

Again, another busy week at Vincent Massey Public School starting with school photos tomorrow (Monday). I guess I should get the leaves and twigs out of my hair after cleaning out our eavestroughs!

Monday, October 21st is Election Day in Canada and we will be discussing election results during the week. If you have not already, please get out and vote. Our own grade 7 students are only 5 years away from being given the privilege of voting.

Our class, like the rest of VMPS, is collecting non-perishable food items for the WE SCARE HUNGER food drive for the Ottawa Food Bank.  We already have about 10 items, so please, remind your R7A student to bring some good stuff in for the food bank.

Language Arts projects continue this week with the completion of our residential school journal entries. Guided reading groups will be starting their creation/origin stories work and project. Our kindergarten reading buddies will be glad to see us on Wednesday. Please, please, encourage your children to read every day.

In Geography, we will be learning about the pangaea, the earth’s supercontinent. We will also be learning and writing about the actual layers and structure of our earth before we move into the fascinating world of landforms.

Have a very good week,

Ms Swail

Hello R7A families –

I trust you are enjoying and savouring this long, Thanksgiving weekend. The colours are magnificent here in the capital whatever the colour of the sky.

This week begins the WE SCARE HUNGER Food Drive campaign at VM. We are raising awareness of poverty and hunger in Ottawa and will be donating non-perishable food to the Ottawa Food Bank. We are asking each student at VM to bring at least two items that have been examined for their expiry dates, please. The food drive is being organized by the Leadership Group which any R7A student can join. We had our first meeting last week with a lot of good energy and enthusiasm in the room. Meetings are held on Tuesdays at first recess and are facilitated by Ms Eichel and me. So, please send in some non-perishable food items!!!

This is a busy sports week: the girls’ football tournament will be held tomorrow, the boys’ on Wednesday and the Intermediate cross-country event will be on Thursday.

IEPs for the 2019-2020 school year and first term are going home this week. Please review the document carefully and let us know if you have any questions. There is one form to sign. Please do not send back the IEP – that is for you and the student.

In Language Arts this week, we continue creating journal entries from the perspective of someone involved with residential schools. We are also starting group readings of new creation stories which the students will be summarizing in graphic cartoon strips. In Geography, students will be consolidating skills in identifying and using latitude and longitude. Please continue to encourage your students to read for at least 30 minutes a day on average. We are all going to work on increasing reading levels this year.

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Take very good care –

Ms Swail

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good afternoon R7A families –

Welcome to another good week at VM.. This is a short week as Friday is a PA Day. All the more reason for us all to work hard and have fun, and for the students to sleep in on Friday. Staff will be engaged in professional development on that day.

As Thanksgiving weekend follows, there will be no school on Monday either.  Here in Ottawa, there is LOTS to do. Just check out the following link to learn about pumpkins, butterflies, fall colours and haunted houses! I will be out of town at our family cottage hiking, kayaking, eating and trying to stay warm!

https://www.todocanada.ca/thanksgiving-weekend-events-activities-ottawa/

This week, we will still be working on learning about, and practising respect inside and outside of class. Growing up is all about learning and knowing what is right, and then knowing and showing what you believe in. It’s a tough road but essential to becoming a compassionate, giving person and citizen. I am still on that road and I know how hard it can be to be understanding and see outside of your own perspective, but it is so necessary. Please feel free to share with me any stories you might have about effective ways to talk with young adults.

This week, in Language Arts, we will continue to work on our summarizing skills. We will also be learning about residential schools and writing letters or journal entries from the perspective of someone involved in the schools. In guided reading, we will be reading creation stories and learning how to chart and describe a plot.  We will be reading aloud from Beetles and Angels, which is all about struggling to make good choices and making mistakes. Writers’ Workshop and Reading Buddies with Ms King’s kinders are also on the schedule. In Geography, latitude and longitude continue with a brief test at the end of the week to show skills and understanding. We will then be moving on to learning about the earth’s structure and landforms. Our passion project sessions will happen on Thursday. In Visual Art, if there is time, we will continue to learn about Haida art forms. In DPA, we will be climbing Blue Mountain as we have already conquered 350 kilometres of King Mountain.

Screens and teens: last Thursday, our grade 7 intermediate students participated in a one-hour presentation by Rideauwood Addiction and Family Services on Screen Time. We learned how all of us, whatever our age, can be affected negatively by excessive screen use (TV, tablet, laptop, console, phone) and of the addictive quality of screens. The presenter advised all of the students to examine their own screen use. As parents and adults, it is important to know the signs of over-use when screen time becomes addictive and dominates a person’s life. We can become withdrawn, angry when the screen is restricted or taken away, sleep-deprived, show a loss of interest in activities we used to love, e.g., sports or reading, and/or need to continue to be on our screens despite knowing we have a problem. This can affect anyone, of any age. There are many practical strategies to use as parents: restrict use; ban devices from bedrooms; monitor and guide use; practise restraint ourselves!  Attached is an article from Today’s Parent on how parents can understand and manage screen time at home. https://www.todaysparent.com/kids/tween-and-teen/screen-time-guidelines-canadian-paediatric-society/

Have a very good week. Below are photos I took yesterday while apple-picking. My grown-up daughters were laughing as I tried to position myself under a tree to get the best shot. Most apple-picking orchards will be open next weekend. Lots of fun, and the one we went to in Mountain had made-on-the-premises apple cider doughnuts!

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Ms Swail