Dear families,
Dawn and I enjoyed seeing the many families that joined us at curriculum night. To follow up on the discussion, please be sure to look at the français section of our blog (under Pratiquez !) for a user-friendly catalog of TPL’s French books. Congrats to the 10 students who participated in the cross-country meet on a not so welcoming day. There were many stories of braving the elements and pushing on through to the finish line. Personal Dictionaries Some students still need to finish adding the first list of high frequency words into their personal dictionaries. Here's a link to the list. Students should complete this task for Thursday. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ax6Vj5QBVTmo43nOYFwJuIctcjW4z3u3chWv75XMo7c/edit?usp=sharing Homework The English homework this week is related to the chapter books that students have chosen. Their task is to keep reading for a minimum of 20 minutes per day and to use the handout to write about the internal and external traits of the main character. This will help them develop the main character in their Room 109 mystery stories due on Halloween. I've enjoyed reading the many creative plots that students wrote in their story map assignment. A fair number of students were absent at the end of the day and so here’s the homework as a Google doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KReQ19vTzUxTHtcpUbxPJC1kHhiNRyAEUPl79bkGVMY/edit?usp=sharing The Math homework is to practice for the Multiplication quiz on Thursday:
TUESDAY, 3 - Day 1 -Cross Country practice 8:00 AM (gr. 1-6). I'm not sure if the upcoming XC practices are just for students who qualified for the next round. I'll find out on Monday and let the students know. WEDNESDAY, 4 - Day 2 - International Walk to School Day: Start fall off on the right step by joining students and families across Canada in celebrating iWALK/iWheel. THURSDAY, 5 - Day 3 -Cross Country practice 8:00 AM (gr. 1-6) -Terry Fox Run (PM) all classes,
Have a nice weekend! Kind regards, M. Quigg
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Happy Rosh Hashanah! to the families who are celebrating.
Thanks for being patient with us in the month of September as we update IEPs, prepare for Curriculum Night (next Thursday, 6:30-7:30), and assess the students to see what their individual needs are. Oh, the forms... Thank you for your support in getting forms in. Please be sure to send them along as soon as possible if they are still at home. A message from Mme Gooden: -Word on the Street, takes place this Sunday, September 24, 2017 and the Mosaique, the French Bookstore located within the Alliance française, will be there. Word on the Street runs from 11 am to 6pm. -The Toronto Public Library has leveled readers for French Immersion students. The collection is from the Quebecois editors called Escalire. Please speak to your librarian to help you and your child in locating and selecting books. Equally of interest to the grade 4/5 age group and for those who would like to read interesting short stories in French, the library has a large collection of the paperback magazine J'aime Lire. English Writing - Halloween Story Project In English writing students will be writing a fictional mystery story about a made up event that took place in our classroom, 109. Our classroom, with its history of being LL's Science lab has many qwirky things in it such as old microscopes, beaker jars for chemistry, a large rock and mineral collection, and a painted fireplace at the front of the room. On Monday, students wrote down ten things that they observed in the room that they could use in their story. Our grade 4s are new to writing in English. They will receive a lot of guidance and the emphasis at this point is on the joy of writing. The editing steps and spelling checks will come later. Students will share their finished stories in costume on Halloween! This week's English homework (if it is not completed in class) is to begin creating a story map for their story. We will edit the story maps next week to make sure students have their ideas organized before they begin writing. Math We have begun the year looking at number patterns with a focus on the many patterns in the multiplication table. The curriculum for Grade 4s is to know their times tables up to 9x9 and for grade 5s the amounts are not explicit but I would like them to know their times tables to 12x12. Like a musician learning scales, having facility with multiplication will help with many math units throughout the year. More than just memorization we are learning strategies to get at each answer. I always emphasize in class that the "x" means "groups of" such as 3x5 is 3 groups 5. Here is a good video that outlines some of these strategies. It's for grade 2 but the strategies apply nicely to grade 4 and 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loAfuwCh1QY For a more memorization based approach here is a helpful video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2IQB9I7zX0&t=3s Please click the Math button under "Pratiquez !" for fun card game ideas to practice multiplication. Quizzes We will be having a quiz each Thursday for the next three weeks. Ongoing Math homework will be to study for these quizzes: Thursday, Sept 29th
Homework Most of the homework for this year will be Math and English work assigned from me and the homework routine is - assigned on Fridays and due on Thursdays - or Friday if it's been a busy week. There will sometimes be unfinished classwork that will go home if it has not been completed in a reasonable amount of in class time. This work should ideally be returned in two days. Mme Gooden will sometimes assign French or Social Studies homework. This will often be in the form of a class assignment that needs to be completed because it was not completed in a reasonable amount of class time. -A friendly reminder that each student must have a water bottle (labelled and indoor/gym shoes that stay at school) -Please visit the LL blog for more info about Curriculum Night and Cross Country. Kind regards, M. Quigg Dear families,
It has been wonderful for Mme Gooden and I to get to know new students in the past six days of school as well as a positive experience for me to reconnect with familiar faces. Thank you for supporting the photos and objects intro project. Each day a student has been sharing her or his interests and life outside school with 5 photos and 3 objects. If your child has yet to present, you can load the pictures on a USB flash drive or you can email me the pictures if it’s more convenient. Forms! September is the month of forms. Please make sure they come in signed as soon as possible. Many thanks. The snack program is only for K-3 this year. Students will have a chance to take home-prepared snacks out at recess and eat from their lunches in the afternoon if they are hungry so long as they are continuing to focus on their work and the snack/food is not messy. Homework is due each Thursday. Curriculum Night is Thursday September 28th from 6:30 – 7:30. Mme Gooden and I will lead two info sessions starting at 6:30 and 7:00. We hope to see you there. There will be time for general questions about the program but not enough time to discuss individual questions. We can arrange times for these conversations to occur. Cross Country: The team will meet and practice on Tuesday and Thursday mornings in the school yard at 8:00 a.m. For more info about the team, please see and dates please visit and follow our school blog: https://lordlansdowne.wordpress.com/ Blog: I am having difficulty setting up an option that allows you to follow our class blog. I will ask our tech guru Mme Aradj but in the mean time I would be grateful if you could send me an email to [email protected] so that Mme Gooden and I can set up a class email list and we will send a short email each time the blog is updated. A simple “my email” in the subject line would be great. Thanks for this. [email protected] Please remember
Thanks and best wishes, M. Quigg Dear families of grade 4 and 5 French Immersion students in room 109,
Welcome back to the beginning of a new school year at Lord Lansdowne! We are pleased to be members of a fantastic team of educators and to have the opportunity of being your child’s teachers. We appreciate your time in reading this rather long but important newsletter. Mme Gooden will teach the following subjects in the morning:
M. Quigg will teach the following subjects in the afternoon:
Building Character We know that children learn best when they feel safe and included. We will help your child develop his or her social and emotional skills by facilitating a community that holds kindness, diversity, and inclusion as core values. We will structure many lessons around the TDSB monthly character traits: September – Respect, October – Responsibility, November – Empathy, December - Kindness & Caring, January – Teamwork, February – Fairness, March – Honesty, April – Co-operation May – Integrity, June - Perseverance September In September we are building our class community by learning more about each other and ourselves. The first few weeks of school are a time for your child to adjust to new routines and expectations, review prior knowledge, and are a time for us to assess how best to meet each student’s individual needs. The following is a list of rules and we encourage you to go over them with your child:
Home Communication Please check your child’s backpack regularly for forms and newsletters. You can contact us though the school phone with notes delivered by your child. Please follow our blog for important updates and helpful information: www.info109.weebly.com We will sometimes communicate by email. We appreciate your consideration that we are rarely at our computers in the day and that email should be used primarily to set up a time for a meeting or a phone conversation. Thank you. Homework We will be following the recommendations of the TDSB’s Homework Policy. It states… “There is a strong connection between reading to or with elementary children every day in English or in one’s first language and student achievement.” We also encourage reading in French at home at a ratio of roughly 1:3 in French to 2:3 in English. We stress that all students read for a minimum of 20 minutes per day. Regular reading and journal/diary writing is incredibly valuable for progress in all strands of learning. Students will be receiving weekly homework. It will be assigned each Friday and due each Thursday. Homework is to be submitted inside the green folder. The Math vocabulary is in French. Please visit the Math page on our blog for a French-English glossary of Math vocabulary. If your child encounters vocabulary that he or she does not understand, we encouraging him or her to use a dictionary or an online translation tool. Homework is a valuable opportunity for your child to practice skills with your support. Please actively support your child with homework to make sure that he or she is applying his or her best effort. Homework that is rushed or unchecked will be marked as incomplete. Thank you for your support. We aim to find a balance between enough homework to achieve skill practicing goals and not too much that it interferes with other family activities. Water Bottles Each student needs to have a water bottle. We have a sink in our classroom but not a water fountain. Students can leave the classroom to use the washroom but not solely to drink water. Please arrange to have a school-designated water bottle labeled with your child’s name. Suggested School Supplies Students are encouraged to bring their own pencil case with pencils, erasers, pencil crayons and a pencil sharpener. The school will also provide some of these supplies, however, by mid-year we are often running out. It would be ideal if your child had his or her own pencil case with the above items in plentiful supply throughout the year. Photos We will sometimes take pictures of students engaging in learning activities throughout the year. We will share them with you at certain points in the year using a private online link. Please let us know if you do not want your child to appear in these albums. Lunches Learning takes a lot of energy! Please encourage your child to eat his or her entire lunch. (We are sure this is also frustrating for you when you see half eaten lunches come home.) We want each student to have a full tank for the entire day of learning. Nutritious, low-sugar lunches will help your child to maintain focus throughout the day. Please limit the amount of candy-type items that come to school because they get eaten first and the more nutritious food goes uneaten. There will be times in the afternoon when your child can continue to eat food from his or her lunch. Changes in Transportation If there are ever any changes to your child’s home time routine, for example, if you plan to pick up your child who normally rides the bus or you wish for someone other than the designated person to pick up your child, you must send a written note or notify the office. Peanuts/Nut Allergies and Other Special Dietary Needs At Lord Lansdowne and da Vinci School, we have many children who have life-threatening allergies to peanuts/nuts and other specific foods. To protect our students, we ask that you do not send any food treats for the whole class (i.e. cake to celebrate a birthday). If your child wishes to celebrate something special with the class, other non-food treats such as fancy pencils or erasers would be a welcome alternative. Thank you for your understanding. Snack Program The snack program will begin shortly. Each day your child will receive a nutritious, nut-free snack that follows the Toronto Public Health food guidelines. Gym Shoes Please make sure your child has a pair of running shoes that fit well for gym class and also as indoor shoes for when there is mud outside. Having indoor is essential to ensure a dust-allergy safe zone for our students with asthma. Volunteering Parent volunteers are most welcome in the classroom once routines are established. Please advise us if you have a particular interest, skill, or hobby that you would like to share. Some of the best learning moments in the class are when parents or community members share their skills and passions. Please don’t hesitate to arrange visit! Checklist
It is an honour to be your child’s teachers and we look forward to guiding your child’s learning throughout this school year. Warmest regards, David Quigg & Dawn Gooden |
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