Sunday, April 26, 2020

Weekly Update - April 27-May1

Hello Parents!

I hope this email finds you well and rested! I can't believe we are almost in May! 

I have shared the new workspace for this week titled "Learning at Home - April 27-May 1".  Please let me know if you have any questions.  Also, if your child appears to be having trouble in a particular area, don't hesitate to let me know.  I can always help!  

As we are now into week 5 of learning at home and it appears we will continue for the next little while as well - I wanted to remind you that if there is anything that is not working or you are finding it very challenging - please don't hesitate to let us know.  Mme. Caminiti and I spend a lot of time creating this workspace for you in hopes that it is easy to navigate and that the students enjoy the activities (for the most part - we know they would rather be playing!)  So if there's anything that we can change to make your lives easier or if something is not working for you - please let us know. We truly appreciate all the hard work that the students are putting in and that you are doing to support them learning from home.  We are all a team :) 

This week's Google Meet will be on Wednesday, April 29th at 2:00pm. Seeing their little faces is the highlight of my week!  

Please don't forget to send any pictures of their work if they have completed a PDF or one of the extra printables that is not connected to ReadWorks, Khan Academy or a Google Document.  

If you have done the 1km walk and did not already send pictures that you would like to share for the video, please send them asap!  Also, if you do not want to be in the video that may be posted to Twitter - please let me know! 

Thank you for your support and have a great week!

Mrs. Summers
Sunday, April 19, 2020

Weekly Update - April 20-24

Dear Families,

It was really nice to see most of the students this week on our chat!  When we are able to virtually get together, it really feels like we are still part of a community.  To continue with our tradition of weekly meetings, we will meet again on Thursday, April 23rd at 2:00pm. This week, we will start with a sharing circle and then I am trying to arrange for a guest speaker to read a book to us.

Communication

We have been encouraged by our school board and union to only use our work accounts for email communication.  Therefore, I will no longer be using marina.summers3@gmail.com as a form of communication. From now on, emails will go through my work account marina.summers@ocsb.ca . If you have any student work to send, please send to me at this new email address. I do apologize for this switch up, this will continue to be the preferred form of communication until this is all over.  

Quill

We are introducing one more online program (I know, it’s a lot!). It is called Quill and is a fantastic resource for grammar practice. To set up an account, simply click on this link quill.org/join/remote-owl and create a username and password. Please note, it is very important that your child uses his or her OWN NAME when creating a username, that way I know who is completing the work.


1KM Walk

This week, we are introducing our Linear Measurement unit. Every year when I introduce students to this unit, I take them on a 1KM walk through our school neighbourhood. This year, we are unable to do this as a class, but it is still possible for you to do this as a family.

One of the daily assignments asks students to go for a 1KM walk as a family and time how long it takes you to walk this far (you can use a smartphone to measure the distance). 

If you’d like to participate, take a picture while you are out on your walk, email the picture to me and I will  create an iMovie of our walks. It will be a way for us to do this together, without physically being together.

Of course this activity is OPTIONAL. Only participate if it works for your family.

I can't wait to see the photos!

New on Workspace - Challenge Section

Some parents were asking for some more difficult work in the responses received from our google survey.  We have added a section to the far right on the Workspace that has Challenge questions related to the math that we are currently working on. Feel free to try them out if you wish! 

Hapara Session

Last week, Mme. Caminiti and Mr. St Louis sent out a Google form inviting parents to a Hapara ‘webinar’. The goal is to help parents learn to navigate the system.  If you are interested in joining, but did not receive the invite, please send me an email and I will let them know. They are hosting two sessions this upcoming week:


If you haven’t seen the video that some of the St. Anne staff put together from our homes to yours - here is the link: 

This week's workspace will be uploaded later on tonight and available for viewing starting tomorrow morning.  It will be titled “Learning at Home - April 20-24”. Here is a video explaining the layout of the workspace and signing up for Quill if you need a refresher. 


Again, all of this work is provided in an effort to help you with working at home with your child. You may have some of your own work that you prefer to do, or some days might just be too challenging to find the time to sit down and do the work. And that’s OK! Our mental health is very important at a time like this, so please take care of yourselves. Also, we have tried to provide a digital option as well as a worksheet (paper/pencil) option for each day’s work - remember you do not need to do both. You can choose what works best for your child and family! 

Any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out! Have a great week!

Marina Summers 

Monday, April 13, 2020

Week of April 14-17 Update

Dear Parents,

Welcome to week two of learning from home. I hope that everyone was able to login to Hapara Workspace last week and take a look at our weekly workspace.  Our goal with this workspace is to streamline our lessons and place them all in one easy to access location.

Some notes from last week:

  • If your child is finishing the work quickly, and would like some additional work, please take a look at the calendar located at the top of the workspace. For each day, there is a suggested extra activity for students to complete (ranging from an Art Activity, to Prodigy practice).

  • If you child is completing the PRINTABLE homework, the only way for me to see the work is for you to EMAIL a picture of it to me (marina.summers3@gmail.com). If you try to submit it through Hapara, I only see a blank PDF file.

  • If you and your child are having trouble creating accounts with any of the online resources I’ve provided, please email me: marina.summers3@gmail.com and I will be more than happy to give you a call and walk you through the process.

Google Form:


The grade 3 team created a survey for parents to find out how the work we’ve been providing is working out for families. We want to make sure we are sending the appropriate amount, that it is easy for you to access and understand, and find out if there is anything additional we can do to support your at home learning journey. If you have a chance to fill out the survey, please take a moment to complete it this week. We appreciate your support with this.

Google Meet
I know that most of our students look forward to meeting with each other on Google Meet. It’s the next best way for us to meet when we can’t be together as a classroom.  Going forward, I will have one Google Meet planned for your child a week. Some weeks, we will do large groups. Other weeks, I will have small group sessions that are focused on a Reading or Math task.

This week’s Google Meet will be scheduled on:


I will send an invitation to the meeting through your child’s school email.

This week will be a large group session, where we will do a little math challenge, a sharing circle, and if there is time at the end, a quick read aloud with them. Please remind your child about video etiquette and how stuffies should not be a distraction nor should they be silly on the chat feature. Just like the classroom :)

I will be publishing this week's Hapara Workspace titled "Learning at Home - April 14-17" in a few minutes with work from Mme. Caminiti and I for this week. The work tasks won't be live until tomorrow morning and will be due Sunday, April 19th.

I hope everyone was able to find some time to unwind this Easter Weekend, despite the change in our routines. At my house, we had many video calls with family. As well as our very first Easter Egg hunt with my daughter who just turned two - that was exciting! It wasn’t the same as years past, but it was still special.

As always, any questions, comments or concerns - please don't hesitate to reach out!


Marina Summers
Sunday, April 5, 2020

Week of April 6-April 10 Update

Good afternoon, 

I hope that everyone is enjoying this Sunday with their families.  I wanted to give you an update as to what this week is going to look like for "Learning at Home".  

The grade 3 team has created a Hapara Workspace and everything that you need for the week will be in there.  Think of it as a "One Stop Shop".  We have done our best to outline a bit of a schedule for you as well as keep the workspace organized into days of the week.  Our hope is to do one of these a week while we are learning in this format - from home. 

As you probably already know, the Ministry has suggested that we provide 5 hours of work per week (one hour per day) and we've done our best to do so.  You are more than welcome to do more if you would like, but we are mandated to provide you with enough work for the 5 hours.  The five hours is supposed to be broken down half and half with Math and Literacy.  Literacy includes French instruction time as well.  If there are concerns with any of this matter - please let me know.  Also, if you child is taking way longer than that allotted time to complete these tasks, please also let me know and we can adjust accordingly.  

Your child will find this workspace that we are talking about by going to the OCSB Student Portal - https://sites.google.com/a/ocsbstudent.ca/k-6/ and then going to Hapara Workspace. From there they will sign on using their google student account (firstname.lastname@ocsbstudent.ca) and they will have access to what we've shared with them in the 3e Summers folder.  Mr. Pouliot (another grade 3 teacher at St. Anne) created a wonderful explanation video to explain this process and the workspace if you wish to watch it.  
** Just a note that the "Evidence" column that links to the actual student work won't be accessible until first thing tomorrow morning as we had to create a start and end date.  It will be "open" for submissions until Sunday, April 12th. 

Mme. Caminiti and I will be doing a quick Google Meet Video Chat tomorrow morning at 10am for the students to walk them through the Workspace and ensure they understand everything as well.  Feel free to sit in with your child (if you're available) for this chat if you would like to be in the loop as well.  We hope to do another call this week on Thursday afternoon for a more relaxed check in and "hangout".  Your child will receive the link to participate in this call tomorrow morning right before the call to their student email address so have them look there for the invite.  

As we navigate this new way of learning over the next little while, please be patient as we try to do our best to provide the students and you with the best possible options for learning at home.  I understand sometimes it can be frustrating and overwhelming and I'm here to help so please reach out!  

That's all for now, 

Marina Summers