October 27

The week of October 28th – November 1st, 2019

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.

Image result for boo!

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: 

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

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

.

Ms Swail


Posted October 27, 2019 by hbswail in category Uncategorized

About the Author

I am a grade 7/8 teacher here at Vincent Massey. I have been teaching for 16 years and this is my third and best career!

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*