Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays

Dear Families,

It is with a warm and open heart that I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and soon to be a Happy New Year!

I hope you have an enjoyable and safe holiday with your loved ones.  Many lead such busy lives, but I believe the holidays are a time to slow down, be present, and think about all the ones we love, cherish and respect.  I hope you get many opportunities to spend much deserved quality time as a family.

As an educator, I am very blessed to have such caring, loving, and amazing family, friends, and students in my life!!  Look at your child above, his or her kindness shines through even behind a mask!!

I will definitely miss seeing your child’s enthusiastic and beautiful spirit over the holidays and I am delighted we’ll all be reunited and get back into our daily routine of fun and learning in January!  See you on the 3rd.

Thank You:

I would like to take this moment to extend my utmost gratitude to ALL my families and their child(ren) who took the time, thought, and energy to donate generously to SickKids, The Living Wish Foundation, Indigenous artists' small business, and/or provide me with other holiday gifts.  I have tears of JOY as I write this!!

In class, I also had to hold back tears as I read some of the messages parents wrote to me.  I don't take it lightly or for granted, they're sealed in my heart!!!

I will cherish your kindness always!  It means the absolute world to me knowing that I have your unconditional love and support.  Knowing and FEELING this on a daily basis is something that I value so much!  My students are truly my GREATEST GIFT!!

It has been a productive school year thus far, and I look forward to creating many more beautiful memories in 2022!  

I'm SO HAPPY and PROUD to be part of our Nighthawk family!! Again, parents thank you so much for your generous contributions!! 

Virtual Holiday Concert:

It is my pleasure to share with you a link to this year's virtual holiday concert.  Click the link :-)  

Virtual Holiday Concert

Please enjoy the slideshow as a family.  Your child has NOT seen this yet so it can be a wonderful opportunity for you all to seize and savour it together :-)

Our class' performance using boom whackers with Mr. Morin was outstanding!  I'm very proud of the outcome for this!!  Thank you to all the students who dressed up for this performance, you all looked darling!

A Gift of Peace:

This week, we spent quality time making a PEACE inspired gift bag for our families.  The kids are excited to share this with you!  

Inside each bag, you will find a peace dove (ornament) with a heartfelt message, a poem by Maya Angelou entitled "Amazing Peace," "A Gratitude Scavenger Hunt," a peace stone, Chinese prayer paper with peace written in a variety of languages, and finally, a beautiful handmade Christmas card by your child which I know you will adore!  

Yes, that's right, you're definitely going to enjoy these precious gifts as your child's whole heart and spirit went into it :)  Enjoy!

Peace Placemat:

Your child has also brought home a placemat (see below) which you can enjoy filling out as a family before your holiday feast.  This is similar to what was brought home for Thanksgiving so you will be familiar with this friendly activity :)

I encourage you to please pass your peace stone around the table and share what peace means to you this holiday :)  You can then record your answer in one of the quadrants.  

If your child would like to share his or her placement with me in the New Year, please bring it to school for us to celebrate!  

Edible Christmas Tree Creations:

It was an exciting day in our classroom!  Everyone was looking forward to finally creating his or her own edible Christmas tree with delicious icing and toppings!  

Students worked collaboratively in their THINK, PAIR, SHARE groupings and loved spreading the icing on their trees and then decorating it with gummies, sprinkles, cookies, etc ... Check us out!

They TURNED OUT GREAT and some kids chose to eat them at the end of the day; my apologies in advance if your child came home buzzing (hyper), hehe.

Thank you parents for your continued generosity in providing numerous delicious toppings for your child to use and build their sweeeeet trees!  They appreciated this too! 

Holiday Door Decorating:

This year, our class was assigned to creating a door based on the movie "Shrek the Halls."  We worked really hard on this and our door turned out wonderfully!!  Check it out :-)  

The hard work that went into this paid off.  Way to go boys and girls!  Please ask your child what he or she contributed to our door.

Letters to the Canadian Armed Forces:

A special mention to Rose, Elliott, Finley, Evie, Emily, Jardine, Clara, Reeghan, Ainsley, Parker, and Evelyn who lovingly completed their holiday letter for a member of the Canadian armed forces.  This act of kindness will be felt and remembered always!!  Thank you, THANK YOU!!  

I am also very grateful to the parents who supported their children in this writing task.  I read through these letters and I am so touched and excited to mail them next week!! 

The purpose of this activity was for my students to acknowledge and remember all the men and women who are serving our country, especially during Christmas time when they will be away from their families.  We want the armed forces to know that we are thinking of them and value all their amazing contributions to keep us safe, strong, and free.

  

Mystery Special Guest:

On Monday afternoon, we had the pleasure of having a very merry special guest come to our school to play and sing along to some holiday tunes!

Did your child come home and share this with you?  It was Mrs. Opt'Hoog AKA Mrs. O!!!  Many students who have had the pleasure of having her as a teacher were excited and said, "She's so FUN and good at the piano!!"

Thank you Mrs. O for volunteering your time and energy.  We sure MISS YOU and can't wait for you to be back at Nottawa for the 2022/2023 school year!

Math:

Your child has completed his or her patterning assessment.  I appreciate all the support you've provided for this unit of study and helping prepare your child for this test.   

Please consolidate (think, pair, discuss) your child's patterning word problem and test that came home in the agenda today.  Each student completed these tasks independently in class :)

We have wrapped up the patterns unit of mathematics and will be moving on to Number (Addition, Subtraction, Money, Multiplication, and Division).  Expectations will be posted on my next blog post.  Stay tuned :-)

Distance Learning:

Finally, thank you for providing your child with a bag to help pack up their belongings for the holidays.  I remain hopeful and optimistic that WE WILL RETURN BACK TO IN CLASS LEARNING on January 3rd, however, this being said, we must all be prepared to pivot to distance learning if need be.

In preparation for this, your child has brought home an envelope with a labelled note on it with 4 weeks worth of work to help maintain and continue some of our regular programming such as:

-word study homework

-extra math practice homework

-grammar sheets

-daily math questions aka "Brain Breakfast"

-word test notebook for dictations

Please leave the envelope intact during the break and if we happen to have to go back to distance learning, your child will use the work provided at home.

If we are able to return to in school learning, please bring the envelope of work back to school on Monday January 3rd 2022.

Many thanks for your cooperation, understanding, and support in this!

If we do go to Distance Learning, please have your child access Google Classroom to join my Meet at 9:30 a.m. and I will outline what we will be doing.  

I will have posted our a daily schedule with tasks under CLASSWORK using Google Slides :)  

Stay tuned everyone!

Mindfulness:

Please watch and share this heart warming video which pays tribute to this year's heroes and reminds us all about the power of kindness especially WHEN NOBODY'S WATCHING! I love it :-)

Growth Mindset:

From my heart to yours ... meegwich,

Ms. Gill