Spring is Nearly Here!

Dear Parents

I hope you are well and enjoying the blooming Spring weather.

I'd like to start by congratulating the Grade 6 girls of Cedar class for getting into their schools of choice for Grade 7. I know that you put effort into your applications and your offers for a place at your new school is well-deserved. Congratulations as well to Stella, in grade 5 for her acceptance to Karen Kain School of the Arts. 

The students of Cedar Class have been working very hard, their accomplishments and efforts have been outstanding and they are truly worthy of their place of leaders in the school. They have set the bar very high for the standard of work at our school and are setting a great example in so many ways. I am extremely proud of all the girls and want to recognize their excellent attitude towards their school work and studentship.

MATH: We have just written our summative test today for Measurement. The grade 5s are taking their tests home this evening for reflection, parent signature and to think of questions that will better help them understand areas where they may still be unclear. We will take up the test tomorrow while the Grade 6s are finishing theirs.

We will be spiraling back to Number Sense and Numeration now to focus on fractions and fractional sense. 

LANGUAGE: We are beginning a genre study of stories from Ancient Civilizations. There is an interesting exhibit at the Lilian Smith Library of old books about Ancient Civilizations that we are planning to visit tomorrow morning. We will get to see these books and hear a talk given by the librarian who has curated the exhibit.

We will start with stories from Ancient India in our own Language classes, specifically the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. In the Waldorf tradition, these stories are meant to have great meaning and relevance to the stage of development of our Cedar class students. Elyse Pomeranz, our Waldorf mentor, describes the sharing of these stories as medicine for the queries and questions and challenges students at this age are faced with and that they explore themes within this genre that are just right for this stage of life. These classic texts are fascinating, beautiful and appealing, chosen for the inherent aesthetic experience of reading them. The girls will be encouraged to enjoy the exceptional language and nuances specific to these works of literary art. 

These stories will also provide the students with fodder to develop their own narratives. Inspired by these stories, the girls can work to cultivate their own writer's craft. The students will be encouraged to explore similar themes in their own writing as they learn more about an important culture in history. 

SOCIAL STUDIES: We are now focusing on government in Canada. Having a solid understanding of the origins of our country and the consequences of first contact between Europeans and First Nations, we continue to investigate issues of restoration through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. 
We are also investigating issues of municipal and provincial levels of government e.g., human rights relating to gender and identity issues. 

HPE: It's time for Health in Cedar Class. We will be learning to understand health concepts such as the effects of cannabis, illicit drugs and alcohol  and will be beginning our work on Human Development and Sexual Health. It is essential to note that the content of these classes has been carefully developed by Curriculum Development at the ministry level. As teachers we have been mandated and instructed to teach content directly from the resources we have been provided with, only.

We are also training for Track and Field. Dates will be sent out soon informing you when the meets will be held. They will be at Bickford Park, which is in the East End. daVinci is racing on a different day from LLPS so I will be on my own. Let me know if may be interested in accompanying us, cheering for the team and helping out. 

ART: We are heading off to the AGO next week to see Georgia O'Keefe. We are looking forward to our tour and hope to be inspired by her techniques and subject matter. Thank-you to Cheryl, our art and handwork instructor, who will be joining us to volunteer for the day. Thank-you, as well, to Ashley Toste, our first year student teacher from Jackman Institute, OISE, who is joining us as well.

I hope you enjoy the warm evening tonight, hopefully a promise of many more to come.

Happy 2017

Dear Parents

I hope you all had a restful holiday and are enjoying a safe and happy beginning to the New Year!

Thank-you so much for the lovely Christmas gifts. I felt very spoiled by all the comforting and delicious treats and the very thoughtful and beautiful cards. I am very lucky to be working with this very special group of girls in Cedar Class and with such supportive parents.

We had an exciting end to 2016. Cedar class students worked very hard all fall on perfecting their pieces for the concert, I was very proud of their focus and determination and  I thought they performed beautifully. The Winter Fair was just charming. It is such a wonderful tradition and we all appreciate the parents who work so very hard to make it all happen. 

I would like to thanks Cheryl, Maya's mum, for coming in every Day 3 to work with the children on their handwork. I cannot say this enough, but without Cheryl's incredible expertise in this area, we would not have such an enriched handwork program. I hope you liked the beautiful handmade ornaments the girls made. We all learned so much from her classes.

I would also like to thanks Lawrence, Siobhan's mum, for accompanying us on our day out to Fort York. This was an incredible field trip and the program was carefully tailored to support our Social Studies /History focus this year, Causes and Consequences of Contact between First Nations and Europeans (New France before 1703). The teachers and presenters were extremely knowledgeable and students were allowed to see, feel and discuss historical artifacts and evidence. We loved our baking experience and left feeling pretty happy that we were not living in the 16th or 17th century. 

MATH: We will be rounding up our strand on Data Management this week or early next week and will be starting Geometry as our next strand of study.

LANGUAGE: We will be beginning our reading response books as well as Book Club, where students present a book they have enjoyed independently to the class. We will also be beginning our Literature Circles where students will be working in small groups to read and discuss a novel together.

We will also be working on the components of writing a narrative and will be using stories from Early Civilizations as our mentor texts.

SOCIAL STUDIES: We will begin our reports based on inquiry questions that students will research and write about, using their summarizing skills and work towards organizing information to present it to an audience. 

HANDWORK: Cheryl will be teaching the students the art of Zentangle, beginning tomorrow. 

HPE: We will start our strand on Net and Wall Games, really fun stuff and Cedar class will be delighted to have gym indoors :)

...without going on too long, we are excited about upcoming studies and events. I would love to plan some more field trips, to the AGO and the ROM. 

Folkdance will be starting up soon.

Keep warm, everyone

November News

Dear Parents

I hope you are all enjoying our sunny and warm autumn. We, in Cedar class, have been noticing how long the brilliantly coloured leaves have been staying on the trees this year. 

LANTERN WALK

Our da Vinci Lantern Walk is  tomorrow evening, Thursday, beginning at 5:30. The children have made beautiful lanterns that can go home after and be used for decorations to light the dark nights ahead and to celebrate the other winter holidays this year. I will not be attending, as I am doing a course at OISE every Thursday evening. I'll be sorry to miss the event.

MINDFULNESS

We have been working on our Mindfulness practice and linking it to brain science. We have learned about how regular practice can help us self regulate, controlling the  brain's limbic system, in response to cortisol release (the stress hormone) which stimulates our "fight, flight or freeze" response. Our breathing practice can help slow down these automatic reactions and encourage a more measured response and reflection. The practice also helps build awareness and compassion, for ourselves and for others. I have been reading aloud excerpts from "Brainstorm", a wonderful book by Daniel Siegel, for and about adolescence. He includes some guided meditation. His guided meditations are also available online. Just go to his website and click the resources tab, or follow this link.
http://www.drdansiegel.com/resources/everyday_mindsight_tools/


REMEMBRANCE DAY

Lord Lansdowne and da Vinci schools will be having an assembly on Friday morning at 10:30. Cedar class students are singing a song with Oak class, "The Power of Peace". All parents are welcome to attend. 

REPORT CARDS AND PARENT INTERVIEWS

Report cards will be sent home on Monday, November, 14th. Parent interviews are scheduled for Thursday, 17th, evening and Friday 19th, morning. I do, however have my class at OISE on Thursday evening, so it would be appreciated if I could arrange appointments around it. I am available to meet any morning or afternoon all next week as well as on Friday, from 8:30- 2:00. If you would like to meet on Thursday, I will be here until 5:00, so my last interview would be 4:40 pm. 
Please let me know on Monday's form or by email, what time works best for you.

What is Number Sense? and Terry Fox Day

Hello Parents

I wanted to share with you a great video from Jo Boaler, the Math professor from Stanford University who brought us The Week Of Inspirational Math, done the first week of school in Cedar Class.

https://www.youcubed.org/what-is-number-sense/

Click on the link above to take you to her explanation of What is Number Sense. 
Tomorrow we will be investigating visual representations of multiplication statements. We intend to explore these visual representations which will give meaning to the multiplication processes, helping us solve more complex statements (4 digit by 2 digit, grade 6) (3 digit by 2 digit, grade 5). 

Tomorrow is our Terry Fox Run. Each class at LLPS and da Vinci will have the opportunity to run around our track for 45 minutes. We intend to run, even if the weather in inclement, but will call a rain day if there is any chance of heavy rain or thunder. 

Please send a tooney with your daughter tomorrow to support this fund raising opportunity. 

Many thanks

Cedar Class 2016/2017

Dear Parents

Thanks for being patient while our blog was getting up and running. This year's contact list has been given to me and we are now ready to roll.

I hope all of you enjoyed a peaceful long weekend and had a chance to celebrate in the beautiful autumn weather. We had the opportunity today, in Cedar class, to write our messages of gratitude after reflecting on a poem called "Thanksgiving" by Ivy Eastwick. 

Many thanks to those of you who were able to drop by Cedar class' curriculum night last Wednesday. It was a pleasure to discuss some of the highlights of Cedar class with you and answer your questions. For those of you who couldn't make it, I sent home a brochure this afternoon which briefly outlines this year's curriculum. I am available to meet with you or to discuss any questions or concerns you may have. Please don't hesitate to contact me at gillian.thornley-hall@tdsb.on.ca to make an appointment, if you wish. 

Among other things, we outlined a new form of student/teacher/parent communication called Seesaw. It is an application that gives you a digital peek into the classroom and can be regarded as a conversation starter between students and parents about some of the things we are doing during our school day. We will be sending home a letter in the next few days to further explain how to use it. 

LANGUAGE: We are currently developing critical literacy skills through analyzing various forms of text. We are examining the process we go through, BEFORE (prediction, making connections to personal experiences) DURING ( identifying author's purpose, main idea and supporting features) and AFTER reading (further question, reflections on perspective viewpoint, whose voice is heard and whose voice is missing?). This process helps us increase comprehension, deepen our understanding of the text and encourages meaning making and inference beyond what is explicit. We are also working on developing summarizing skills. 

We use the CASI ( Comprehension, Attitudes, Skills and Interests ) assessment in grade 5/6 as one of our diagnostic reading tools. Students write this test in September, February and in May and it helps to give me insight into student reading levels and progression throughout the year. It is, by no means, the sole form of reading assessment, but it is helpful in highlighting where students needs may be and can help me target instruction that is focused on supporting students in specific areas. 

We have also successfully launched the writers' notebook wherein students are allowed to write freely and regularly about what interests them on a daily basis at home. This practice of journaling has the combined benefits of helping students to develop a relationship with themselves and get to know their inner lives more deeply, as well as improving all aspects of writing including generation of ideas, expression and fluency. 

We also have a diagnostic writing assessment that students will write this week. It is a very enjoyable writing activity that, again, helps me determine and assess students' current and developing writing levels.

MATH: We are continuing our first strand in Maths, Number Sense and Numeration. We have been working with whole number, specifically, place value, magnitude of number, estimation, rounding and mental math. This week we will be working on addition and subtraction. 

SOCIAL STUDIES: Cedar class is well underway with their inquiry and examination of life in New France before 1713. It has been so exciting to discover why French voyageurs and settlers came to Canada in the 1600s and what their relationship with the First Nations was like. We will begin to explore causes and consequences of the contact between early settlers and the First Nations People. I have been reading a novel aloud to Cedar Class students called The Bride of New France by Suzanne Desrochelle which is a historical fiction biography of a French girl sent to Canada as a Fille de Roi. We will also be reading stories and novels from the First Nations perspective which will broaden our understanding of the complexities inherent in these early relationships and how contact changed forever, the ways of life of the First Nations People. We were so fortunate to have Grace Blanchette's aunt, Rae Blanchette come in and share her knowledge and understanding of the first French settlers, among whom were her ancestors. Her stories of her ancestry brought to life our developing concept of what life was like at that time and what the integration of European and First Nations culture looked like from the time of first contact. Her stories were so interesting and engaging and the art and artifacts she brought taught us so much.

HPE: All Cedar class students are doing fantastically well in developing their fitness skills. We are becoming stronger, fitter and healthier through our first strand of PE, Fitness Development. We have Daily Physical Activity (yoga class) and gym classes, twice a week. 

Art: We have been enjoying experimenting with watercolours and sketching in preparation for a larger piece in this medium. We also did a visualization of what our heroine, Laure, of the read aloud about New France, and drew what she saw as she sailed down the St. Lawrence River towards Quebec. We then compared our images to a piece of artistic evidence found in historical archive of The Ville de Quebec, painted in 1701. 

Thanks for checking in and stay tuned for our next blog update

More Busy Days Ahead

Dear Parents

I hope you're enjoying the typical, Southern Ontario blast into summer, with these crazy temperatures!

We, in Cedar class, have been so busy and so productive and we don't intend to slacken the pace in the near future. I hope you agree that Cedar class students performed beautifully for our Spring Concert. Thank-you to all the students in Cedar class and da Vinci School who worked hard to maintain their focus during the performance, your effort and talent was truly evident. Thank-you so much, Tanya, (Kieran's mum), for your beautiful program and invitation designs. You really captured the feeling of the afternoon.


Cedar class put outstanding effort over the past few months in taking a leadership role with our Fitness Friday and Running Club program. Not only have we learned so much about functional fitness, we have gained experience promoting, planning and instructing fitness Friday sessions each week. We are obviously all the stronger and fitter for it, as two of our Cedar class students are advancing to the city finals in track and field at Birchmount stadium on June 9th.
CONGRATULATIONS Leila, who will be competing in the 80m dash and Sanaa, who is competing in the 1500m. Good luck in the next week with your training, athletes. Thank-you Nicolas and Cheryl for accompanying us to the meet at U of T last week.

We are also very proud of Alessandra who will be performing in Sword in the Schoolyard, an opera performed by the Viva Singers of Toronto. We are looking for 2 parent volunteers to accompany us to next Friday's performance. Please let me know if you are able to join us.   

Next Saturday, June 4th is the TDSB 5km Healthy Schools Run/Walk. I know this event falls on a weekend, which is precious to us all, but the students of Cedar class would appreciate going as they have been pivotal, again, in the planning, promoting and training of students from the LL da Vinci Schools community. It takes place at 9am at Downsview Park (run at 10:00). There is free parking and it is also accessible by TTC. Please let me know if you have any questions about the event. I have preregistered all Cedar class students in hopes that they can make it and bibs will be sent to the school next week. Thanks in advance for your support with this event.

We look forward to our Grad trip to the Humber Arboretum, South Campus on June 23rd. Permission slips will be sent home next week. We hope to make this a memorable day for Cedar Class graduates and their grade 5 peers. Last year parents contributed to a picnic in High Park and we were hoping to have a similar type of celebration with a potluck lunch , plein aire. Maybe we will have some time to do a little nature sketching, some nature inspired poetry, or toss around a ball or Frisbee after our workshop on birds. All parents are invited to join us on this day.

We also look forward to our in-school ceremony and celebration on Friday, June 24th. It promises to be a wonderful afternoon. More to come on this soon....

April is the cruelest month!

Dear Parents

I am you are surviving the last blast of winter which has so rudely interrupted our pleasant Spring. I really hope the weather turns a corner and heads out of the Arctic Vortex in time for our trip to The Island School.

ISLAND SCHOOL

I will be sending home a few more permission slips and other info pages before we head out on the 18th of April. We will need permission to use bicycles and I have been asked to resend the clothing/packing list. I will also be sending home a sample daily schedule. I am talking through general expectations and making final programming plans with the students. I would also like to thank the da Vinci parent council for the generous donation of $50.00 per student towards the cost of the Island School trip. 

OTHER EXCURSIONS AND EVENTS

This month is chock full of events and special days to brighten up this unwelcome return to winter;

April 7th - Story Telling at the Spadina Library- Cedar class will be hearing a Swampy Cree Elder tell stories from the Oral Tradition.

April 8th- Jump Rope for Heart - Cedar class as well as the entire LL Davinci community will be taking part in this fun, fund-raising initiative that raises awareness, as well as funds, for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. If you have not had a chance to donate on-line already, you may consider doing so before Friday. 

April 12th - Grade 6 students will accompany me (Mrs. Wortley) to a Professional Development and info half day at Lakeshore CI to learn about how to prepare for and help organize the 2016, 5 km FunRun at Downsview Park on June 4th. We will be telling you more about it and share our learning.
from the day.

April 13th - International day of Pink


April 14th - Taffelmusik- Cedar class and Oak class will be seeing Taffelmusik perform a concert about Bach, field trip permission forms will be sent home by the end of this week.

April 15th - PA day, no school

April 18th - 20, Island School

April 21st - TUSC, Rooted in Math workshop- permission slip to come home ASAP

April 22nd - Earth Day Assembly

....more news and updates soon