Hello Lyonsgate Families,
Remember to keep an eye on the school calendar for upcoming events and activities.
- Casa and Toddler students will welcome their parents into their classrooms for Primary Show & Share taking place Nov. 21-24. Please click here to select a day for your visit.
- Elementary Open Classroom is November 21.
- Elementary students have a field trip and some Friday activities coming up.
- Parent-Teacher conferences are on Dec. 2. There is no school that day.
See below for updates from your children’s classrooms.
The fall leaves are everywhere, which means that it is getting colder. Colder weather presents a lot of interesting new work for our community. There are new coats, boots, mittens, and scarves to practice putting on. As the weather changes, so does our process for getting ready to go outside. We know that extra time is needed in the hallway to prepare for a fun and comfortable time playing outdoors. The work being done to master these skills is very important and is all part of the adventure of getting our classroom out the door each day. This is a good time to mention that labelling these new items of clothing is very helpful to them ending up on the right hands, and in the right backpacks.
We’d like to thank everyone who was able to make it out for our talk about movement on Thursday. After a couple of years of Zoom meetings, it is so wonderful to once again see families face-to-face, in the classroom.
Thank you,
Ms. Gervais, Mme Craigie, and Mr. Davis
Hello Casa North Families,
November has arrived! Thank you again to all who attended the Parent Education last week. We hope it got you all thinking about when to intervene with your child, or when to let them be.
Our first term Show & Share is just around the corner (November 21st-24th), and we hope you are getting excited to come & view your littles in action!
How does Show & Share work? Show & Share is an opportunity to visit to our classroom and have your child demonstrate how they work with 1 or 2 pre-selected materials. Each time slot is 30-minutes, and will hold up to 6 families at once.
What do I do during Show & Share? Allow your child to lead the way! We ask that you do not touch or manipulate the materials, interfere or prompt verbally, or “assist” in any way. You are here to observe! Whether the material is being used properly or not, it is an amazing opportunity to see who your child is when they are working at school.
“You are now entering the world of our Casa classroom. If our chairs are too small for you, remember they fit us just fine. If we seem to talk too much, remember that is the way we learn our language. If you must walk around our “mess,” remember it is through this manipulation that we learn. If we approach you, remember we are open, friendly & curious, and we want to know you as our friend. Enjoy our world, and when you leave, we hope you carry with you some of our enthusiasm for living & learning!”
Sign-up is above. We look forward to hosting you!
Additionally, please keep an eye out for the Casa North Flower Arranging sign-up link. Parents can choose a date to bring in a bouquet for the week; students who have been shown our Flower Arranging activity can use this bouquet to beautify our classroom with miniature arrangements. It is a well-loved & cherished activity in our classroom, and we are excited to welcome it back to our shelves. Thank you in advance for your assistance with this.
Best,
Ms. O’Sullivan, Mme. Murati & Ms. Canessa
Greetings from Casa South,
We have so much language work happening in our class right now. Here is some information regarding our approach to a path leading to Total Reading or reading that encompasses not only skill but also a personal connection with an author’s story.
There are two main paths that lead to “Total Reading.” The mechanical path and the interpretive path and the two must be developed side by side if harmony is to be maintained and reading is to be a joy. The mechanical path involves decoding, or sounding out, letters into words, sentences, phrases, etc. The interpretive path involves comprehending what an author has written; this path can be open to interpretation. We work to develop both paths in our Casa classrooms.
Our first step is to offer to children endless experiences involving all their senses. The more they do, see, hear, feel, taste, smell the more they will have to think and talk about, and later write and read about. This lays the groundwork, or base, for all the remaining steps to follow. We begin with experience and gradually move step by step through to Total Reading. It’s a lengthy journey that is not always straight forward but necessary that may eventually lead to more wonderful experiences.
Total Reading
Interpretive Reading
Mechanical Reading
Word Building
Connection of Sounds with Letters
Phonetic Awareness
Hand Work
Vocabulary Enrichment
Story and non-fiction books, poetry, songs, conversation
Experience
Happy reading to all!
Ms. Robinson, Ms. Dewey and Mme. Perazzo
Following the excitement of Halloween, the students turned their attention back to the area of geography, where we study the laws of nature, the physical world, as well as aspects of political geography. Last week, students participated in a series of demonstrations of different types of forces including tension, compression, shear, bending, and torsion. They learned about how these forces can affect human endeavors, and why we must account for these forces when designing structures. They loved watching a video of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsing due to forces created by high winds! We are all looking forward to continuing our work with forces this Wednesday during our field trip to the Museum of Steam and Technology.
Marissa and Michelle
Important Dates:
Field Trip — Wednesday, November 9
The class will be visiting the Museum of Steam and Technology to learn more about different types of bridges and participate in an engineering challenge to build and test different designs.
The chartered school bus will be departing from Beulah Park at 9:00 a.m. Please ensure your child arrives at the Elementary campus by 8:40 a.m. to walk to the bus as a group. Following the program, we will return to campus for lunch and outdoor time.
Indoor Physical Education — Friday, November 11
Through the month of November, students will be heading to the local karate dojo and rock-climbing gym for indoor physical education experiences in our community. Students should come prepared on Fridays through November in comfortable clothing that allows for lots of movement and stretching.
If your child is in Years 3-6, they require a waiver to participate. Please read below for information from the climbing gym about the required waiver:
Each climber will need a completed Gravity Climbing Gym Release Form.
For participants under the age of 18, the release must be signed by their own parent or court appointed legal guardian. Participants who have attended events within the last 2 years at Gravity may already have a waiver on file but we recommend you call us to confirm.
The form can be completed online at the following address: http://www.gravityclimbinggym.com/release-form
When completed, parents will receive a pdf copy of the signed form. Please print this pdf and send it in with your child. This gives the school the ability to verify that each participant has a completed waiver prior to the day of your event. Lyonsgate will bring these forms with them on the day of the event to speed up the check in process.
Open Classroom – Monday, November 21
Parents are welcome to visit the classroom after school to view the students’ work and mingle with our classroom community. The classroom will be open to guests from 3:30 p.m.-4:15 p.m. We hope to see everyone there!
