Friday, September 20, 2019
We just finished week three in portable two and here is a bit of what’s been going on:
Meet the Teacher Night – Thursday night was Meet the Teacher Night. It was great to see everyone that was able to make it. I hope you enjoyed the tour of our classroom from your personal tour guide. The students were excited to show you our classroom and what they’ve been up to.
Remembering Alice Trusdale – On Friday, we walked to WHAM (Waterford and Agricultural Museum) to learn about a brave and hard-working community member named, Alice Trusdale. Alice grew up in Waterford. She was born in 1892. Alice attended Waterford Public School and Waterford District High School. After graduating, she attended Guelph to become a nurse. Alice served in the First World War as a nurse. She died in September, 1919 (100 years ago). Alice didn’t die during the war, she died while working in a military hospital in Kitchener (one of many facilities set up across the country to care for the thousands of sick and wounded soldiers coming home from the war). While she was working at the military hospital, she caught a disease from the soldiers and died.
James and Catherine are the curators of the museum and they did some activities with us in honour of Alice Trusdale. Some of the activities included, watching a short video, viewing photographs, seeing artifacts and memorabilia, and making a wreath lay at her grave stone. After our trip to the museum, we all walked to the cemetery in Waterford to lay the wreath at Alice’s grave stone. Since Alice was in the First World War, she has a special grave stone to honour her time in the war. We did a pastel rubbing of the grave stone and it is now hanging in our classroom to honour Alice. Below are some pictures of the event:
Math – This past week we learned about division (up to 100 divided by 10) and the inverse relationship of multiplication and division. The cheerios came out to help us make arrays to represent a variety of multiplication and division fact families. We also practiced writing multiplication and division equations on our white boards.
Reading – Reading is just one part of our language program at school. So far, we have been developing our independent reading skills, listening to read alouds, and learning to pick just right books. Our classroom library is filled with books on topics that we’re studying and books that we’re interested in. Our classroom library is organized into three basic categories: fiction books (books made up by an author), non-fiction books (books that contain true, factual information), and poetry.
Writing – Students were introduced to part of our writing program this past week called, Independent Writing. During Independent Writing, students can write their own books. They can choose between writing fiction, non-fiction, or poetry books. They can also choose between writing chapter books, picture books, graphic novels, comic books, scripts for plays, journals, diaries, and a lot more. The possibilities are endless. It’s exciting for me to watch their excitement come alive as young authors.
Waterford Public School Makes the Newspaper – Click on the following link to see the article that was written in the Simcoe Reformer about the buddy benches at our school: https://www.simcoereformer.ca/news/local-news/waterford-students-make-buddy-benches
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to email me at julie.pragnell@granderie.ca OR call me at school: 519-443-8942.
-Mrs. Julie Pragnell
The Pragnell Press 