August-31st-September 4th

Hello Everyone,

It was very nice briefly meeting some of you on the first day of school! A little bit more about me is that I recently graduated from Mount Royal University’s Education program in April and taught Elementary Physical Education from May and June! In my spare time, I enjoy exercising, playing golf, pickleball, following professional basketball and golf and also reading and spending time with friends and family. One of the highlights of my summer was going to Las Vegas for a few days with my cousins where I got to ride a helicopter and an ATV!

As a teacher, I value the opportunity to positively shape the learning experience through a student-centred approach. I emphasize hands-on learning and making curriculum content relevant to students’ lives and interests, while using a variety of assessment tools to support diverse learning styles and needs. I strive to foster a respectful and honest classroom environment, build meaningful relationships, and encourage students to develop confidence and resilience in their learning and being.

I have really enjoyed getting to know all of your children this week! Students have taken part in really neat projects and have gotten more familiar with the routines within the classroom. You can ask your child whether they have had the opportunity to have a classroom job!

This week students got to take part in a bunch of activities centred around ‘back to school’ and ’getting to know me’ that will be used to decorate and personalize the classroom. Ask your child about their Super Shoe—a paper shoe that they draw/write on—which is segmented and will include all of their favourites (movie/book, food, animal) and will be laminated and placed under their coat-hook to serve as the label for where they put their belongings. Additionally, students had the opportunity to practice their computer skills start creating an All About Me Poster on Google Slides, where they will include images about more of their favourites. These should be on display in time for the Open House!

Here are some of the highlights of the other highlights of the week! Students played 2 Truths and Lie, in which they practiced their sentence writing, by writing out true and false statements about themselves. From there, students narrowed their statements down two truths and a lie and then most students presented to their classmates, who had to guess the lie. This week students had the opportunity to work with their table-mates and worked with them to create the largest paper chain from four pieces of paper per table! Students discovered that cutting thin strips of paper to make the loops was the most effective in order to create a long chain. From there, we measured all of the chains and added the length of all of the chains combined, where we found out that we had created more than 25 metres of paper chains. We also had the opportunity to join Mrs. Bossenberry’s Grade 3 class for a walk in the community. We look to consistently have these walks while intertwining curricular outcomes within them. Students also were paired and met with their buddies from Mrs. Hosaini’s Grade 2 class. Before we met them, we brainstormed characteristics of a ‘top-notch’ buddy and explored the important opportunity of mentoring younger students. For math, we played two math card games. The games were review of grade two content; the first one focused on adding to 100 and the second one, “Math Addition War” focused on adding numbers together and comparing their sums to their classmates to see which was larger. Additionally, we started a math assessment testing their two and three-digit addition and subtraction skills. Lastly, during read-aloud we started reading Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, which will soon be directly be connected to the comprehension aspects of the English Language Arts curriculum. 

As you may have seen in your child’s backpacks, Student Health Plans were handed out. If needed, please fill them out and return them to me. If not, they can be discarded. 

Please reach out anytime to me on my email at jagurevitch@cbe.ab.ca! Have a great weekend and I will see your students next Tuesday!