Lunch Monitor

What a great smile!  Wouldn't you love it if every

time you got served somewhere publicly you 

received a beautiful smile like this?  Being a lunch 

monitor is more than just dishing up the lunch. It's 

about developing good school citizens. It's working 

as part of a team, it's about learning to be

responsible, it's about showing care and respect to
others, it's setting a good example, it's being a caring
member of our school community who enjoys

helping out to make our school community its best.          

Lunch monitor

One of the first to volunteer to be a lunch monitor!

Leadership opportunities

Being a grade 3 at our school is a really BIG deal!

Our grade 3s are incredible leaders and we offer

them as many leadership opportunities as we can. 

The grade 3s of division 4 are embracing them!

Making sure we are only voting once

Our grade 3 scrutineers took their jobs VERY 

seriously. They politely greeted the voters, checked

off their names, explained how the ballot worked,

and escorted them to the voting booth.  It was very

exciting. Mythical creatures won the vote so we 

will start with the mythical creatures of Harry

Potter as that was the most popular choice. 

Voting for the PM Program

Because we'd kept our voting booths from last

year, we decided to pull them out again when voting

for the first PM Program theme. 

Cross-country

Here's another example of a growth 

mindset. Doing your best even when

things don't go your way.  I believe 

this is a top 30 finish even though this

athlete had slipped and fallen at the

very beginning of the race. Again,

some runners may have decided their

race was over at that point. Not her!  She 

got up and had to chase approximately 

200 girls to the finish line!  How 

amazing is that?

Another great athlete sprinting all the

way to the end!

What a great day!

Many of division 4's students were 

members of the cross-country team

coached by Ms. Conklin 

This was a terrific example of a growth

mindset. This athlete did not have a great

start to her race. She thought she had 

lost her mum amongst the hundreds of

parents who were at the meet.  Can you

imagine how scary that was?  Well it

was very distressing and right up until

the race started she was in tears. As you 

can imagine, not the best mindset to start

a race with. For some children, it would 

have been easier and safer to say they 

weren't going to run.  Not for Addi!  She 

got out there and ran her best. I was so 

proud of her!

Determination

Cross-country

Another couple of athletes working 

sure hard in their races!  Even though

it was a bit sloppy out there, these

two fellows came across that finish

line with huge grins on their faces. 

They illustrated one of our school

values:  finding joy. 

Social Emotional Learning

Social Emotional Learning

Division 4 was really lucky to have some help from Ms. Lia at the very beginning of the year teach us some great strategies for helping us to develop our self-regulation strategies.  As adults we do this all time and we're not always aware that we are using strategies that we've developed on our own.  As educators, we now feels it's incredibly important to help our students learn to self-regulate (be in charge of their brains, bodies, and emotions) throughout the school day.  At school, all staff members are working hard to develop a common language about social-emotional learning (SEL), so you might hear your child talking about expected and unexpected behaviours, or the size of the problem.  Or you might hear your child talk about the zones: blue, green, yellow, and red.  Being in the blue zone might be feeling tired, sick, sad, etc.  Green is the optimal zone for classroom learning where one is focussed and calm.  Yellow is a zone where one could be overly excited and red could be where you feel angry or frustrated  its important to remember that its not bad to be in the red or yellow zone  sometimes its absolutely essential that we are in those zones.  Every classroom already has many strategies in place to help kids with their own learning.  We are working on a common language as our school does so much learning together as a community.

Sea Crows

Sea crows

This lesson has become a favourite tradition at the Annex.  We start the year with an amazing field trip to the beach to scavenge for found treasures to build our own sea crows (scarecrows of the beach!).  After reading a wonderful story, Sea Crow by Shannon Stewart, we plan and design our own sea crows at school and then head off to the beach to create real sea crows.  The big idea in the story is that the main character has worries and she is able to overcome them using her own strategies.  We use this story because it is so easy for all of us to connect to it.  Connecting is one of the most important reading comprehension strategies that we can teach our students.  Connecting happens when you find yourself saying, "This reminds me of….. and I understand how the character (s) feel because I felt like …"  Division 4 is working on making connections while they read or while they are being read to.  

"In a galaxy far, far way," a school blogger has finally escaped!  I have no excuse for not keeping Div. 4's blog up to date so after reflecting on the goal-setting process with the students in division 4 this past week, I set my own goal of getting the class blog up to date.  That's my first step.  After that, I will try to post something once per week.