Hello Parents of Division 5, 

The time has come to sign up for Parent-Teacher interviews which are scheduled next week on November 5th and 6th. Students will be dismissed 1 hour early to make extra room for as many conferences as we can fit in. The end of the day bell will ring at 1:30 on both days and interviews will begin promptly thereafter. 

Please click here for instructions from Mr. Davids to book an interview time. 

If you have any questions, please send me an email and I would be happy to answer them. 

Thank you and can't wait to meet with each of you!
-Ms. Olson

Dear parents of Division 5, 

I'd like to thank you for your orders from our Scholastic Book Club last month. With every order, our classroom gains Scholastic Bonus Bucks that we can put towards improving our classroom library and resources. I recently purchased the Grade 3/4 "Instant Classroom Library" which totalled over 40 new books for your children to enjoy:

Thank you again for supporting our book club! Please stay tuned in November for an upcoming order, including special holiday orders!
-Ms. Olson

Dear Parents of Division 5,

First, I would like to welcome our UBC Student Teacher for the school year, Melanie Ledlin to our class. She will be beginning her work at West Langley by visiting our classroom on Thursdays, followed by a short practicum that begins at the end of the month. This now makes the count up to 6 different adults that students may be working with in the classroom. As a result, I decided to create a Teachers/EAs page that can be your directory for our classroom staff. Here we have listed our photos, a small profile of our responsibilities, and maybe even some fun facts! 

Secondly, thank you for those who took the time to fill out the Help Us Get to Know Your Child survey at the beginning of the school year. I have been reading them as they have come in and have enjoyed seeing their world from the perspective of home. It gives me better indicators of how to work with them at school as well. The survey will no longer be available as a part of our website menu, but if you still haven't filled it out, you can still do so by clicking here.

Lastly, I have created a post (below) to walk you through how to work on your child's spelling words at home. This includes records of how they've been doing on tests each week. Please feel free to comment below if you have any questions and/or you can email me. 

Have a fantastic weekend and we will see you again on Monday! 

For those of you who would like to access the activities available for your child's spelling words on SpellingCity.com, this post is for you! 

The SpellingCity app is available for both iOS and Android devices. You can also access the web portal by clicking here. 

The rest of this post will detail step-by-step instructions of how to navigate the web portal, as well as give reminders about usernames and passwords.

Step 1: Sign-in

So now, you're at the website or in the app. Here are the log-in instructions below:

When choosing the Spelling Test option, please be sure to choose the Practice Test only. The final Spelling Test may only be taken once at the end of each week. 

Please do not hesitate to comment below or contact Ms. Olson if you have any questions regarding the use of the SpellingCity web portal or application for iOS or Android. 

Thanks for reading and we hope you check out SpellingCity at home with your child soon!

It's been a pretty fabulous couple of weeks so far in Division 5. We are having fun getting to know one another and getting our daily and weekly routines set up for the year.

We have begun diving into the Daily 5 literacy program, which promotes student self-regulation of literacy activity choice. I work with each student to determine their reading, writing, and spelling levels for personalized literacy activities, how to pick "good-fit" books for themselves, and strategies to use to improve in areas of literacy. 

For some of these activities, we will be using technology to get the students thinking about their literacy progress. Students will be recording their reading on an iPad app and listening to the playback to listen for areas of strength and areas for improvement. I like to compare this to athletes watching game-film; when you step out of the moment of performance, you are more likely to identify where you can make changes to improve. 

As a result, I'm asking for parents to send a pair of earbuds or headphones to school with their child. An attached microphone is preferred but not required (note: earbuds with small mics, such as Apple headphones, are also better for storage purposes). If you are unable to provide headphones, please send $2 with your child and I will pick some sets up at the dollar store. 

Please let me know if you have any questions - I would be happy to answer them!
-Ms. Olson