Glen Stewart Primary

September 2021

Welcome to 2B!

Hello Everyone!

My name is Kathy McAleer. This will be my seventh year teaching here at Glen Stewart and I am very excited to be back in the classroom. I look forward to getting to know you and all my new students! I have 4 grown children, 7 amazing grandchildren ranging in age from 21/2 to 11 years of age, a big, beautiful dog, and an orange tabby cat named Tiggs!

This first few weeks of school will focus on getting to know each other, building a sense of community, and establishing our classroom routines to give us a good foundation on which to build our learning.

I will send out a weekly update to you for every Monday morning (posting on Sunday evening with hopefully very few exceptions :)) to keep you informed of our learning and any other relevant information that I need to share with you. This will be the format used if at any point during our school year online teaching is reintroduced. The island is very lucky with respect to Covid-19, so I am very hopeful that this will NOT be the case, and our schools will continue as is!

Things will be a little different for us all this year. Working together for the benefit of our children with understanding, patience and open communication will make this 'new normal' easier for us all. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions, suggestions or concerns!

Take care,

Kathy McAleer

UPDATE: September 13, 2021

With the unfortunate situation with covid outbreak in the Charlottetown family of schools and our school being closed for the next three days as of today, I will be working on preparing for online teaching in the event of a longer closure. I will notify you of any updates as I receive them. Hopefully this will be just a little bump in the road and we will be back in the classroom this week.

Our Meet the Teacher event is being held virtually at this time on Thursday, September 16th. I will provide you with more information on this as well as we navigate our way through this week.

Take care,

Kathy McAleer

Quick Overview of our Day!

Welcome to Grade 2!

Kathy McAleer

Overview of the Classroom

Rules and Routines

Manners and respect within the classroom/playground
Walking feet
Voice scale
Zones of Regulation (blue, green, yellow, red)

Morning Routine

Math
Good Morning Circle (This includes calendar, morning message, mini lessons for math, class discussions)
Fundations
Writer’s Workshop
Guided Reading

Afternoon Routine

Science / Health / Social Studies
Silent Reading
Math / Language Centres
Crafts

Specialist Classes

PE - Days 2, 4, 6 at 8:30 a.m.
Music - Day 1 at 10:00 a.m.

Day 3 at 9:30 a.m.

Day 5 at 9:00 a.m.

Library - Day 6 at 1:45 p.m.

Aside from the regular supplies, it is recommended that your child also be equipped with the following:

Water bottles daily
Indoor footwear
Change of clothes in kitbag for those ‘just in case’ incidents, especially on wet days!

Face mask - These are mandatory for wearing on the bus and also when moving through the hallways while at school.

Other items of interest

Utensils - When packing your child’s lunch, please make sure to include any utensils necessary. There will be no disposable utensils available this year.
Toys from home - NOT PERMITTED. This will include things such as cards (hockey or other types) and mini sticks as well until further notice.
Class reward systems: I have a little reward system in 2B to add a little fun and incentive to our learning. The children receive tickets for a wide variety of things, such as kind deeds, work well done, completed homework, etc. They keep track of their own tickets using a tally mark system. Once a certain number of tickets have been earned, they choose a little prize. The rewards vary from small sweet treats (such as suckers, small bars, smarties, skittles…) certificates, and non-edible rewards (such as bubbles, notebooks, bouncy balls, silly pencils...etc.) Again, if you are not comfortable with sweet treats in particular, please let me know.

Lunch Orders

Lunches can be ordered online and paid online as well. See info on school site.
Island wide lunch program is excellent. Pay only what you can afford: Anywhere from $5.00 to $0.00. You decide. This info is kept confidential.

Bussing

If you need to make a change to your child’s end of day busing, a please call the office with this information early in the day. A dated note from home is also acceptable with their first and last name, classroom as long as you are sure your child will remember to hand the note into their teacher upon arrival to school. If a note or phone call is not present, the child will be sent home on their normal bus run. DO NOT NOTIFY YOUR TEACHER OF ANY BUS CHANGES BY EMAIL.
Please Note: Buses are quite full this year and can not accommodate bus changes for play dates, birthday parties, or things of this nature.

Peanut Free / Seafood Free

This includes tree nuts and peanut substitutes as well, so as to avoid any confusion or anxiety for children with life threatening allergies.

Arrival

Our school doors open at 8:00 a.m. The children are to come directly inside upon arrival. It is best to be here no later than 8:20 a.m. so that your child has time to be in class and ready to start their day by 8:25 a.m. If your child is going to be late or absent and it has not been pre-arranged with myself please call the school at 902-569-0550. We are required to keep electronic attendance. After 5 absences you will receive a phone call from me. After 10 absences you will receive a letter from the school….
Our PE classes begin at 8:30 a.m. It is important your child arrive in time to be ready to participate fully.

Special Days

In 2B we love to celebrate special days throughout the year. I bring a special treat for the children on birthdays. They choose between ice cream, choc chip cookies, rice crispy squares, cupcakes, and sugar cookies!
If there are any concerns regarding this tradition, please let me know.

Homework

Homework will begin Sept. 20th as long as we are in class with face to face learning.
Reading every evening. Extra ‘tickets’ for weekend reading:)! Please initial. Record how your child found the text. (E-Easy, R-just Right, H-Hard)
Spellings
Once each week I ask that your child use one of the weekly spellings in a sentence. Make sure their sentence begins with an uppercase, has spacing between the words, punctuation at the end, and that it makes sense. The sentences should be at least 5-7 words at minimum.
Once each week (not to begin until further notice) I will ask your child to provide a response to one book of their choice that was read for homework.
The plastic bag your child has with their name on the front in pink is to hold their homework scribbler and any finished work or other paperwork they may need to take home, as well as any papers they need to bring to school. This bag needs to travel back and forth between home and school daily. PLEASE place it back in your child’s kitbag after use every evening.

Communication

Class google site: This will be updated weekly Sunday evenings for Monday morning (with hopefully few exceptions! :)
Email: ktmcaleer@edu.pe.ca
Phone between 2:35 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

I am hopeful that we will be back in class this week.

Take Care,

Kathy McAleer

Terry Fox School Day Run

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