Welcome to 3A Portable 1: First Day News!

Welcome to a brand new year of school.
This year promises to be an exciting and eventful year filled with awesome learning, great new friends and amazing discoveries. I have extensive teaching experience and have been in grade three for many years by choice!  It is an important year for students and I love the learning that happens there!  As well as being a busy, engaged teacher, I am also a busy mom of three children!  So I try to look at things from both your parent perspective and a teacher perspective when making decisions.  Open communication is key to creating a successful learning partnership this year.

There are a number of important pieces of information I would like to give you right away to get the year started.

1.  Indoor Shoes:  Indoor shoes are VERY important!  We live and learn outside.  That means that the playground dirt easily makes it's way into our learning space.  We often use the floor and carpet area to spread out to do collaborative work and we want to keep the space dust and dirt free!  Please send INDOOR SHOES tomorrow if you have not done so already.  Thankyou.

2. Hand Sanitizer:  We are a collaborative group of learners in our class (or we will be soon enough!) which means that we share MANY supplies and learning tools.  This unfortunately means that we also share germs.  Being inside the school, we would have had access to washrooms with soap and water for frequent hand washing.  This is not the case outside.  Therefore, I am asking students to ensure that they have hand sanitizer in their backpack or lunchbag so that they can wash their hands prior to eating anything.  This will keep the germs and sicknesses at bay.  Thanks for your cooperation in this health matter.

2b. LUNCH: There are a lot of wasps outside at this time of year and they, too, make their way into our learning space--who can blame them, it is a great place to be!  Therefore, please do not send sugary snacks and drinks in your child's lunch.  Water bottles are the best source of hydration!

3.  BLOG: This blog will be updated weekly with a class update or newsletter as one way that you can be aware of what we are doing in the classroom.  Please check back weekly so that stay informed about our learning.  WE do not often send home student work because we do so many collaborative pieces rather than worksheets.  Therefore, this blog is one way to know what your child is doing at school. BOOKMARK THE BLOG ADDRESS FOR EASY ACCESS!

4. Other communication:
a)Your child will have his/her own digital portfolio set up where we will put pieces in almost daily so that you can see the work that your child is producing in the classroom. You will have full access to view and comment on your child's digital portfolio from home.  Please remember to stay positive in your comments to your child about his/her work posted.   This will come via the app SEESAW!  Stay tuned and I will let you know when this is fully set up.

b) TWITTER: We have a very active twitter account for our classroom.  Please follow us as this is another day to get daily updates about what we are doing in the 'outdoor learning space'.  Follow us at:    @mrscookesclass301

c) AGENDA: Your child's agenda is a very important form of communication between home and school too.  This is checked daily by me so you can always leave notes about concerns, questions, messages to call you, etc. in the agenda.  Please try not to leave messages on voicemail as that is not checked often. We are a busy learning environment and I prefer to spend my time with students engaged in meaningful learning and tend not to check voicemail often.  If you would like me to call you, leave a note in the agenda and I will call you within the day.  PLEASE SIGN THE AGENDA DAILY SO THAT I KNOW YOU ARE RECEIVING THE IMPORTANT UPDATES FROM SCHOOL THAT WE WRITE THERE.

d) Other Digital Platforms: We will be using Google Classroom as our primary means of homework and additional inquiries for the year.  I will let you know when this is fully set up and operational.  It will most likely be after the reorganization late September so that we can ensure that we have a settled class of students before beginning such big initiatives.

This is a good start for some important start up information for the year.  More information will come in the days and weeks ahead.  I look forward to working with you and your child this year to help him/her reach his/her full potential.

Mrs. Cooke