Dear Parents,

I'm putting the final marks on report cards and this round is particularly tough. It's hard to move from a descriptive perspective in Kindergarten, where I'm describing what students can do, to a more evaluative stance in Grade 1, looking at their successes against a fixed bar.

There are C's and D's going home for some students, because the effort and engagement are honestly there, but sometimes the skills aren't quite yet.

I feel like I've prepared families for those grades with the feedback on progress reports, but I do look forward to touching base about what next steps might be--because it is early days yet in their school careers.

That being said, this week we're focusing on:

Health--Students are learning some of the less intuitive parts of the food groups, like how nuts, beans, and potatoes fit into the Canadian Food Guide. We're also learning about how to look at nutrition labels. I've sent home a scavenger hunt homework assignment due next Monday and we'll be continuing to discuss in class.

Math--Looking at shapes and symmetry and identifying shapes. We played a musical game today with shape names.

Language--Still working in our 4 reading groups. Students continue to make solid progress in their reading. Skittles performed The 3 Bears for us yesterday and many students helped us read a new book called "I am NOT a Dinosaur" about some of the different creatures that also lived millions of years ago. My favourite part is the timeline in the back.

Social Studies-- We started off the week talking about many students' experiences at the Women's March on the weekend, and particularly now, I think it's important to create an activists stance and talk as directly as possible to government. We'll be sending our letters to Trudeau's office by early next week and hoping to get a response.

That said, there's a lot of variation in writing speed and proficiency amongst the class. I'm working to ensure that everyone is successful.

Sincerely,

Ms. Goegan