Week of March 9 - 13

Rock Your Socks for Down Syndrome Day 

is this Friday, March 13.  

In support of Lily and all children with Down syndrome, we would LOVE IT if all students wore brightly coloured, mismatched socks on Friday, March 13! We will be posting this as a school-wide event.

Photo from https://www.worlddownsyndromeday2.org/about-wdsd

To learn more, here is the WDSD website. https://www.worlddownsyndromeday2.org/about-wdsd

Other Happenings

Pizza Lunch - Wednesday

Dear Everybody Presentation (Holland Bloorview) - Friday

March Break - March 16th - 20th

Spring Weather and Change of Clothes

Please could all students bring a change of clothing in a bag to be kept in the classroom.  We have space in the room to keep a bag for each student.

Our playground is muddy and wet and as the season transitions into Spring, we will be having a lot more rainy (and hence muddier!) days.  At Clairlea, we encourage students to be outside in almost all weather conditions, enjoying the play possibilities that all types of weather bring. 

Having kids sit around in wet socks and pants/jeans/leggings is not a great idea. Also, the office staff should not be hunting around for change of clothes when kids get wet. 

Each student should have a spare set of clothes, several pairs of socks! in the classroom for a quick change. I will not be sending wet and muddy kids to the office to call parents to bring clean clothes. 

Also, please have kids come to school with outdoor shoes (preferable rain boots!!) and indoor shoes. Our carpet and floors are becoming very muddy because students are not changing into indoor shoes. Thanks you! 

We have a busy week ahead! As always, thank you for your support. 

Ms Vincent

Pyjama Day

When the weather is viciously cold, the playground is icy, and the wind is nasty, we relax in pyjamas, drink hot chocolate, eat Oreo cookies and call it a movie afternoon.

Week of February 23

Hi all

Wet'suwet'en Protests
We will be weighing in on the Wet'suwet'en protests all week. What are the issues? Who are the stakeholders? What is the Coastal GasLink? Where are the blockades? Where is the Wet'suwet'en land? What is the difference between elected band councils and hereditary chiefs?

I acknowledge that I am not an expert on Wet'suwet'en and, as an ally, I come to the table with my own opinions but we will work hard to lay out the issues with an open mind and with a view to understanding.

Five Circle Round Dance at Nathan Phillips Square on Saturday.
Image from Toronto Star, February 23, 2020.

• Scientist in the Classroom and Light Workshop on Monday afternoon. I've invited Phinnemore's Grade 4's to join us. We'll have a big class in tight quarters but I know we can all work together to make this a great workshop!

• Continuing on with Geometry and measuring angles. I LOVE  how our Grade 4's have had a growth mindset as we learn how to use protractors! You guys ROCK! 

• Working on our online research skills (using Canadian Encyclopedia on the TDSB Virtual Library), taking dot jot notes and then writing our paragraphs in our own words and citing our sources - Celebrating Black Canadians is in full swing! 

• Our Canada unit for Social Studies is on hold for this week - we'll ramp up in March. 

Looking forward to a fun and very busy week!

Clairlea School Council

http://clairleacouncil.blogspot.com/

• Check out Recipes In A Jar on our School Council's blog. What a great initiative! 

Ms Vincent

Week of February 17

*** Measuring Angles booklet has gone home (with protractors). We are learning how to measure angles so be patient with yourself as you continue learning and getting better with this new skill.  Also, this booklet is for YOUR practice. Take your time completing it. I do NOT mark homework. ***

Hi all

This morning, we had dental screening - all students saw a dentist - reports will be sent home as needed.

Geometry
We've started working on angles, this morning. We have not completed enough to send home practice work. We will get through more learning and practice tomorrow and students will be able to practice what they have learned, at home.

STEM 
This afternoon, we used Dash and Dots and students applied their math learning about angles.
They programmed the robots to move a) in four 90 degree angles, b) a geometric shape that has an angle of 120 degrees, and c) a triangle (angles always adds up to 180 degrees).

Underground Railroad
We worked on shared reading and mapping the Underground Railroad for slave movement from Slave States to Slave Free States and through into Canada. Key vocabulary included: slaves, abolitionists, prejudice and racism.

This week:

• continuing on with Black history;
• Geometry - angles
• Researching Black Canadians who have had an impact in Canadian Society (using Canadian Encyclopedia) - to lead into a writing assignment. 
• Guided Reading all week

If no settlement is reached by Friday, there will be a Provincial Strike Day and subsequently no school for students. Thank you all for your continued support. 

Looking forward to a busy week. 

02.02.20

02.02.20 - Happy Palindrome Day!

This Week

February is African Heritage Month.

In Room 206, for the month of February, we will focus on celebrating achievements and legacies of Canadians of African descent across many areas of life: law, engineering, health, science, writing, sports, activism, education, and journalism. 

As always, if you or your family has anything to share, I most welcome whatever your bring to the table. 

Phase 5 Strike Action

Provincial Strike Day is Thursday. Clairlea teachers will be walking outside Christina Maria Mitas' Constituency Office on Lawrence Avenue East

TDSB Strike Day is Friday. I believe we will be in the Clairlea neighbourhood, stationed at the back parking lot. 

As always, thank you for your support through coffee, donuts, muffins, hot chocolate, bathroom and warm up places, words and emails of support.

Please visit https://etfocb.ca/ to remain informed on ETFO action.

The Week That Was

This week, we built elevators and moving sidewalks to support students with disabilities at Clairlea. As we are all Engineers and Scientists in Room 206, we work hard to understand how our knowledge of small machines, such as pulleys and gears, can be used to make positive change in our world.

We know that Clairlea needs an elevator or a moving sidewalk 😃, so here are a few of our designs. More pictures to come as our Engineers are still busy fine tuning their structures, and drawing and writing up their designs.

Engineers George and Nicholas made a wheel out of yoghurt container lids that lifts the elevator car. The elevator car has a drop-down ramp that allows a wheelchair to roll on. Their LEGO wheelchair (not shown) has a motorized computer screen!
So 21st Century!!

As you can see, the "Transporter" allows students (or people with heavy suitcases and backpacks) to travel effortlessly through the building. Our Engineers, Ewan and Nayab, designed and built a sidewalk that actually moves in a forward and reverse rotation, effortlessly. The LEGO bricks provide stability and you can see handrails for mounting and dismounting.
Hello, TTC! We're doing it in Room 206! 

In this compact and clever design, our Engineers designed an elevator car that actually rotates forward and backward to help people get on and off. 

This design is rather excellent because our Engineers, Nazara and Sanjna, attached the wheel and pulley system to the projector cart, thereby allowing more height to their design. The cable system runs through the top of the cart to allow maximum leverage.

Universal Design - What you can't see in this picture is the "Emergency" and "Floor" buttons that allow students with a limited range of functional ability to travel effortlessly throughout the building. Engineers Selena and Eirini thought of everything! 

Engineers, Gabriella and Hibbat, built a "double car" elevator that transports people and animals because really, what's a school without horses on the second floor?

See you all Monday. 
C. Vincent

Week of January 27 / 20

Hello everyone

Today, I have sent home each student's Math portfolio for you to sign. Please return so that I may continue gathering and filing Math written assessment to share with you.

As you know, student marks and learning skills have been submitted by teachers to the office. TDSB has decided not to have Administrators input marks and learning skills into report cards. Therefore, no Term 1 report cards will be sent home. However, I will be in school on Friday, February 14th from 8:30 am to 3:30 pm should you wish to meet with me to discuss your child's progress.

Please check your child's backpack for the Parent / Teacher Interview Form to request a 15-minute timeslot.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with questions or concerns. I can be reached via email at carol.vincent@tdsb.on.ca

January 20 - 24

Hi everyone

Please see below these pictures and update for rotating strike information.  

The Week that Was

We have had a busy and good week.

One of the best ways to get kids to read is for them to share what they are reading.  I like to use book talks regularly. Kids grab their books, sit in our circle and volunteer to share what they are reading, why they like the book or simply recommend their book to certain readers in the class. Sometimes they don't particularly like their books, and that's ok too. Also, this allows me to see genres or authors they like and I can order books, accordingly. Some of their favourite books come from home, some are picture books I have in my personal collection and some are books from our class library or school library.

We ended the week with our first STEM (I'm going to add the A and make it STEAM because they will be doing some drawing around this activity).

The Dash & Dots and iPads are always a huge hit with this crew. In Friday's activity, the kids were using metres as their unit of measurement and programming their robot to move to a specific destination, turn around and travel back home. The linear movements and roads were easy and the kids who were working on winding paths had to come up with some pretty good strategies. Either way, they all complained that there is never enough time and why can't we do this for longer and it's not fair that we only get two periods. THANK YOU to Mr. Farquharson who gave up his prep period to allow them even more time with the robots! 

Inclusion in the Classroom

Many parents ask how having students with a variety of abilities in the classroom lends to teaching and learning.

In this activity, I have students in partners measuring in millimetres and centimetres and we are recording the measurements on the whiteboard for the whole class to see and compare. You can see L is recording the measurements on the whiteboard and she is practising listening and writing single and double digit numbers as her math activity. Writing on the whiteboard is also part of L's occupational therapy requirements and building fine motor skills.  While I was present, the kids very much stepped in to help L with writing numbers. We are a TEAM!

Rotating Strikes

Pending an offer of agreement within the next few hours, it looks like teachers will be starting rotating strikes on Monday.

Teachers will be outside the school by the parking lot starting at 8:30 am on Monday. There are two shifts - morning and afternoon. I'm in the morning shift. Please come by and show your support.

Negotiations include the four key areas below.  Please visit https://etfocb.ca/ for more information.














See you all on Tuesday.