Week #34: May 12th - 16th

Dear Families, 

Wishing you a safe and wonderful Victoria long weekend with your family and friends!  I've heard some students buzzing about going away camping and to their cottage.  

Although the weather’s projected to not be so sunny, we can always hope ❤️🙏🏾💙 

Check us out enjoying the stellar sun & blue skies this week in our amazing school yard as we shared our writing pieces with each other 🥰

What does this weekend bring for me? Well, I'll be spending quality time at the cottage in Baysville, and also hopefully some time in my perennial and vegetable garden to get them ready for the summer months.  

Have I shared that I also love gardening?  Yes indeedy, I do!  My family used to own a garden center at our motel which blossomed my passion for plants.

WORLD MEDITATION DAY:

World Meditation Day is coming up on Wednesday May 21st and our class will take part in the goal of having 50,000 student challenge with Dreamwalkers Meditations. 

That's right, 50,000 students meditating in schools all over the globe for World Meditation Day - amazing!

Meditation is a powerful tool for addressing children's mental and emotional wellbeing, as well as academic success.   Meditation and mindfulness techniques are proven to enhance concentration, self-regulation, emotional control, empathy, and learning skills.  

I've seen, heard, and felt this in our very own classroom filled with 23 children!  Honestly, I could not imagine NOT incorporating mindfulness techniques each and every day.  It's the game changing factor in why we have a CALM CLASSROOM.

These benefits not only contribute to a more conducive learning environment, but also empower your child(ren) with essential skills to navigate life's challenges.  

May also happens to be Mental Health Awareness Month, so by participating on May 21st, it will give us a well-aligned opportunity to be kind to our mind!

Chase leading one of our Mindful Minutes this week 🧘‍♂️ 

World Meditation Day's experience is a unique application of the health curriculum's expectations to explore a variety of techniques for emotional regulation, stress management, and mental wellness.

PARENTS - please don't forget to take time to be kind to YOUR mind as well ;)

🧘 MEDITATION MONDAYS:

We’re now in our second 4-week session of the Meditation Club, and it’s been a journey in cultivating calm, focused, and empathetic learners. 

The heart of this initiative is simple but profound: calm kids lead to calm classrooms. Each Monday session gives students a chance to reset, reconnect, and return to their week with more intention and balance.

My precious meditators 🥰

After each meditation, we take a mindful walk soft start together — a grounding practice that helps us ease back into the day with clarity and self-regulation for ourselves and one another.

✨ Special shoutout to Teagan, who joined us this week and showed leadership and presence during our session. Your calm energy set a beautiful tone for the group — thank you!

🗓️ Upcoming sessions will be held at 8:45 - 9:15AM: 

• Monday, May 26th
  
  
• Monday, June 2nd
  
  
• Monday, June 9th

🌿 Curious about what we practiced? Check out the meditation we did on Monday! It’s a wonderful way to invite self-care into your own day too.

Body Tapping Meditation - Kindness 

Let’s continue building a community where mindfulness and kindness thrive.

📐MATH: ➕➖✖️➗

This week in math, students have been exploring:

🔺 Angles – learning how to identify, classify, and measure different types of angles, including right, acute, straight, and obtuse.

📏 Properties of Rectangles – understanding the unique characteristics of rectangles, such as 4 sides/vertices, equal opposite sides, right angles, and parallel lines.

📐 Calculating Area – applying formulas to find the area of rectangles and making real-world connections to how area is used in everyday life.

Through hands-on activities, discussions, and problem-solving tasks, students are building strong spatial reasoning and deepening their understanding of shapes and measurement. 

It’s been a great way to link math with practical, visual learning!

Check us out in math action below and ask your child what some of the activities they completed this week using the images below 👇🏾 😃

🌍 CANADA – OUTDOOR LEARNING FOR SOCIAL STUDIES: 🍁📚

This week in Social Studies, we took our learning outside the classroom and partnered up to dive into some reading and researching about Canada’s provinces and territories. 

With books and our curiosity in hand, students explored the unique features, cultures, and industries that make each part of our country so special.

Learning about Canada’s diverse regions helps us understand the rich history, natural resources, and economic contributions that shape our nation. 

From the fisheries in the Atlantic provinces to the oil and gas industries in Alberta, to the vibrant cultures in the North every province and territory has something valuable to offer.

This kind of learning not only builds knowledge, but also encourages national pride, appreciation for diversity, and a deeper connection to the place we call home ❤️

Students sure enjoyed being cozied up by a tree 🌳 to discover fun facts and new vocabulary. It was a great reminder that learning can happen anywhere especially when we're engaged, curious, and working together!

📚 GRAMMAR RULE #15 – PRESENT TENSE VERBS WITH SINGULAR SUBJECTS: 📝

When we talk about something happening right now (present tense), we need to make sure the verb matches the subject of the sentence.

👉 If the subject is one person or one thing (singular), we usually add an "s" to the verb.

Example:

• She run ❌
  
  
• She runs ✅ (Because "she" is one person, we add "s" to "run")

More Examples:

• He eats lunch at noon. 🍎
  
  
• The dog barks loudly. 🐶

Below are the kids hard at work practising this grammar rule with partners ☺️

🎯 Try It at Home!
 Pick a family member and take turns making sentences! Here are two ideas to try:

1. Use the word "play" in a sentence where the subject is ONE person.
    (Example: "My brother plays soccer after school.")
   
   
2. Use the word "jump" with a singular subject like "The cat" or "She."
    (Example: "The cat jumps on the couch.")

TRACK & FIELD:

The students in grades 4-8 have had some track practices the past while and this is also our focus in gym class.  

Please note, having proper track attire and outdoor running shoes is highly recommended to help set up your child for success.

Our Track Meet is Thursday, May 22nd

The events that we've been learning and training for are:

• Standing Long Jump
• Triple Jump
• Long Jump
• Relay
• 100m 
• 200m 
• 400m 
• 800m
• Ball Throw

As a school family, it is very important to us that your child actively participates and does his or her personal best during these events.  

I wholeheartedly understand that there may be exceptions and I will always encourage the children to 'listen to their body' as that's of utmost importance.  

Not participating because 'you don't want to' is strongly discouraged.  You never know what you can achieve if you don't try.  

Remember every one - COMMIT, DON’T QUIT ;)  Always believe in yourself!

A big congrats to all our athletes and a special shout out to our Charlotte C., Alex, Keenan, Teagan, Raiden, Isla, and Avery for achieving ribbons for the 400m & 800m final!

Way to go boys & girls, you raced your heart out this week 🥰

🏃‍♀️💨 CONGRATS CHARLOTTE: 🥇🌟

The staff and I are thrilled to celebrate Charlotte for setting a new record in the 400m race! 🏁 

Her speed, dedication, and perseverance are nothing short of amazing — a true display of what happens when talent meets hard work. 💪🔥

What makes Charlotte’s achievement even more inspiring is the humility and grace 🌸 with which she leads. 

Despite this huge accomplishment, she remains grounded, kind, and always ready to lift others up. 🙌💖

Charlotte is more than an outstanding athlete, she’s a true role model 💫. 

Her peers look up to her, and her influence extends far beyond the track even the adults around her are inspired by her quiet leadership, drive and positive energy. ✨👟

🏆 Way to go, Charlotte! I look forward to cheering you on in all the great things to come! 🎉👏

BLUE MOUNTAIN FIELD TRIP:

Jot this down please, on Friday May 30th, our class will be going to Blue Mountain for our day of FUN at Blue!

If you haven't already done so, you must complete the following steps (see below) in order for your child to participate in the activities provided.  Everything you need to do is on School Cash Online.  

Any questions, please direct them to the office with the secretary :)

1.  Complete the permission form

2.  Please pay the trip fee of $45.00

3.  Sign the Blue Mountain waiver 

Thank you in advance for your diligence and efforts in completing these steps.  

I would also like to thank our parent volunteers who will be joining us Finley L. Mom & Finley V.'s Mom. I will be placing the children with an adult to form 5 groups of 6 :) 

Hopefully the weather will be cooperating and it'll be a bright and shining day for US!  However, what ever the weather brings, I know we're going to be appreciative of this opportunity and have a blast!  

Please ensure your child is prepared by dressing for the temperature, pack lots of water, and snacks.  I also encourage talking with your child about responsible and respectful behaviour during a trip of this nature.  

It is very important that we stop, look, and listen when we are asked to do so to ensure everyone is SAFE and CARED FOR :)

TECHNOLOGY:

Here at Nottawa, we are blessed to have a class set of Chromebooks. In my 20+ teaching career I have never had this so I feel very lucky to have the technology readily available in our portable each and every day.

We have been using them for our digital workbooks, Google Classroom assignments, and research purposes.

Recently I have had to speak about the proper use of technology at school. Students are reminded to use the Chromebooks at school ONLY for educational purposes.

During work periods, I give the children time to work through unfinished tasks and trust that they're utilizing class time wisely. We often talk about the importance of being attentive and accountable at all times.

There are 23 children to monitor so it can be challenging for me to be watchful of every student's tabs on their screens as I support other children at my guided table (small group instruction).

It would mean a lot to me if you could please speak to your child about the importance of integrity and to use technology provided for their academics and not "games or chats" etc ...

Thank you in advance for your support and understanding in this endeavour.

🎉THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING OUR SILENT AUCTION: 🎁💫

It makes me emotional writing this 🥺, a huge THANK YOU to all the families from our class who donated items this week for our upcoming Silent Auction Basket at the Fun Fair! 

Your time, energy, and generosity have helped create a great sports themed basket ❤️ 

Every single item makes a difference and we as a school family are so grateful for your support. It's because of caring, community-minded families like you that events like this come to life. It truly means the world! 🌍💖

 If you’re still interested in donating, there’s time, we will be collecting sports items until next Friday, yay!

Let’s keep the spirit of giving and togetherness going strong as we look forward to an incredible Fun Fair in June!

✨ “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller

ALEX:

Thank you to Alex and family for continually providing tabs for kids.  

Your contributions have been helping us to try and reach our goal of collecting enough tabs to fill another 5 gallon water jug, yay!

Placing his tabs happily into our 5g jug with Chase 🤩

Wowie, that’s a lot of tabs, thanks Alex 😃

TedTALK:

I get so excited with inspiring messages and videos!  This week, I came across this awe-inspiring TedTalk and it literally left me jumping for joy because the content of its message is exactly what's been the focus for the 'climate & culture' of our classroom.  

Key words such a GRIT, RESILIENCE, F.A.I.L., and GROWTH MINDSET are all concepts your child is familiar with as we've discussed the importance of them.  YahooOooOOoOo!

The strongest predictor for success is "We have to be willing to F.A.I.L., to be WRONG, to START OVER AGAIN with lessons learned."    

As your child's teacher, I promise to continue instilling a growth mindset, utilizing their challenges as opportunities to progress, and encouraging a never give up attitude until goals are achieved! 

That's right, we got this boys and girls!! 

Now please enjoy listening, watching, and feeling the heartfelt talk by Mrs. Angela Duckworth :) 

MINDFULNESS:

The video below takes you through what being in the moment means. #Mindfulness is all about living in the PRESENT MOMENT, that is why it is a gift.

We live in an age of distraction and many of us spend the better part of our lives planning over the future or ruminating over the past.

There are so many times I hear others speaking about some space in the future, making stories, building plans. Yet, one of life's sharpest paradoxes is that our "future" hinges on our ability to live in this very moment.

"We're living in a world that contributes in a major way to mental fragmentation, disintegration, distraction, decoherence," says Buddhist scholar B. Alan Wallace.

Life unfolds in the present and yet we let the present slip away like quick sand: unseized, unrelished and totally squandered in our worries about the future or in our quest to understand the past.

John Kabat Zinn says, "Ordinary thoughts course through our minds like a deafening waterfall". And deafened we are: to the sound of the bird, to the falling rain, to the laughter of our child, to the thunder of the cloud, to the hello of a friend."

"We course through life blinded by a future and yes, blind we are: to the beauty of the spring, to the flight of a bird, to the yellow in the flower, to the hopes in our child, you the mischief in that laughter."

This moment is very powerful! This video's quest is to bring the wonderous "moment" to you so that you and your child can cultivate a sense of awareness in you.

This MOMENT just needs to be still and you can feel the SILENCE WITHIN. All you need to do is "breathe"...

Now please listen to the video and discuss some of the ways YOU CAN BE MORE PRESENT in your thoughts, words, and actions today and EVERYDAY!  

I encourage you to try some of the suggested mindful strategies and enjoy living your best life not only this long weekend, but for your whole life!

GROWTH MINDSET:

Thank you, Teagan, for this week’s powerful message, inspired by Greta Thunberg’s famous words:

"No one is too small to make a difference!" – Teagan 💬✨

So, what does this mean?

It reminds us that every voice matters, no matter how young or small we may feel. Making a difference doesn’t always require big actions, sometimes, it starts with a kind word, a helping hand, standing up for what's right, or simply believing in yourself and others. 🌱💪

Whether it’s caring for the planet, supporting a friend, or choosing to lead with kindness, you have the power to create change, right now, just as you are.

Let’s carry that mindset with us into the long weekend and remember: we all have the ability to make a positive impact. 💚🌍

Have a wonderful long weekend, 

Ms. P. Gill