First Week of School - SUPERB START-UP!

Dear Families,

Wishing you a safe and wonderful long weekend with your family and friends!  I've heard some students going away camping and to their cottage.  Here's to sunshine and blue skies!  Have an absolute blast, but please continue to be safe :)    

What will I be up to?  Well, I'll be spending quality time in my perennial and vegetable gardens 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.

I also plan on spending time hiking and exploring some new trails!

I surveyed the class and was delighted to see that the majority of my students have vegetable gardens on their property.  This is amazing!!  So perhaps you will be getting your hands and knees dirty too this weekend ;)  If you do, enjoy being outdoors and one with nature!!  

Simcoe County Museum:

We had a most wonderful field trip on Thursday!  It was such an engaging and exciting experience.  I am sure your child came home with enthusiasm too :)  

Students in grade 3 learned all about Pioneer (aka Early Settlers) life.  Since the pandemic began (Mar. 2020), we haven't been able to go on field trips so we were VERY EXCITED and I could feel the immense gratitude from the kids.    

This opportunity showed us what a blessing it is to go outside our school property to think, learn, and grow together on a topic that links directly to what we've been learning with Mrs. Johnson.  

At the museum, the kids got to dress up, play pioneer games, learn about how to make butter and enjoy a scone with the butter, watch an instructor make a nail, being in a pioneer school with a strict teacher (I was even a little nervous), and each student came home with their very own beeswax candle that they got to make.  

The program was very well organized and taught the kids purposeful information about Early Settlers.   

Below, I have a collection of photos that I was able to capture to share with you so you can get a glimpse of what we were up to :)  Enjoy admiring these and ask your child about the various photos to see if they can articulate what learning was occurring.  

The staff at the museum were really impressed with our students' behaviour saying "Wow, this has been one of the best behaved group of students we've ever had!"  

This warms my heart as I too believe Nottawa is filled with the VERY BEST!  Way to go boys and girls, you've represented the Nighthawk family with pride!  #charactermatters  #kidswithintegrity

Math:

Thank you boys and girls for all your hard work in this week's data assessment.  Students answered a variety of knowledge/understanding, thinking/application, and communication type questions.  

It took a lot of hard work and determination, but everyone did it!!  I'm very proud of students' efforts :)

I am still in the process of marking these assessments so they will be returned in the next while.  Stay tuned :)

Art:

Your child has brought home his or her very own Norval Morrisseau inspired art called The Copper Thunderbird.  These turned out terrific!  I hope you will enjoy these as much as your child enjoyed creating it!  

I have sent home an accompanying information sheet for you which outlines a little bit about the Indigenous artist and the meaning behind the Thunderbird :)  I hope these are helpful.

As many of you know, I feel very connected to Indigenous studies and encourage my students to continue learning about Canada's First People (not just solely on Orange Shirt Day in September), in doing so, it is part of our ONGOING commitment towards Truth & Reconciliation.   

Our class family cares and believes in "The time is always RIGHT, to do what IS RIGHT."

Drama:

Please have your child visit our Google Classroom over the weekend where I have posted a drama assignment.  It is an exciting opportunity to integrate The Arts and Drama!  

Students will create a puppet, write a script, make a mini-stage, and perform a video monologue to present.

I have posted 3 example video monologue's for students to check out and get inspired!  They're by our very own Nottawa students from my previous class.  

Enjoy this assignment!  Stay in character with your puppet and have FUN!

Health:

From the beginning of the school year, we have been learning about and practicing mindfulness to strengthen and empower our mental and emotional well-being. 

What is it?  

Mindfulness is awareness of present experience with acceptance.  

What is the purpose of mindfulness?  

When we are mindful, we are focusing our attention to the task at hand and we are not entangled in the past or the future, nor rejecting or clinging to what is occurring at the moment.  This kind of attention to the present moment without worry generates energy, clarity, and joy.

How do you practice mindfulness?

Mindfulness can be practiced every day in an informal way, where any mental event can be an object of awareness. By directing our attention to our breathing, listening to ambient sounds in the environment, labeling our emotions, or noticing body sensations while brushing our teeth.

Watch the video below for more insightful information :)

After viewing this video, we had a class discussion about the following image.  What do you notice?  

Please ask your child what the illustrator's message is for its' audience :)

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 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:

"A winner's not someone who hasn't lost, but someone who didn't quit."  - Elliott

Meegwich,

Ms. Gill