New Year - New Routines

We are settling back into the school routines and have begun to adopt some new ones.  We are continuing with our daily check-ins and using self-regulation tools to help us work independently.  We have stress balls, play dough, pipe cleaners, and other fidgets as well as rocking chairs, bean bag chairs, and pillows to help us choose an appropriate level of stimulation to learn.

In addition to our self-regulation strategies for the remainder of the school year we will be setting classroom and personal goals using the Circle of Courage.  The Circle of Courage is a First Nations perspective based on the “Reclaiming Youth” concept pioneered by Dr. Martin Brokenleg, Dr. Larry Brendtro, and Dr. Steve Van Bockern.  It is based upon the idea that each human being has four essential needs: mastery, belonging, generosity, and independence.  Each quadrant must be maintained so that an individual will remain balanced.  Although it was originally used as a means of “reclaiming” at-risk youth who had been discarded by society, it has profound practical applications in a classroom.

Mastery - the desire for self-improvement and attainment of goals.
Associative Skills - problem-solving, creativity, perseverance, motivated, willingness to accept both challenges and constructive criticism as a means of improving one's skills

Belonging - being part of a community or group, having healthy and respectful relationships.
Associative Skills - trusting, feeling safe, empathetic, respectful

Generosity - being able to contribute to others without expectation of anything in return.
Associative Skills - empathetic, compassionate, supportive, willing to share

Independence - self-discipline, being responsible for one's own successes and mistakes, setting own goals.
Associative Skills - confidence, self-control, self-disciplined, assertive

The Circle of Courage incorporates the essence of what it is to be a successful student.  Someone could struggle in school, but have a desire to improve (independence), be willing to accept help (mastery), support others who are struggling with the same concept (generosity), and be able to ask questions because they feel safe in the classroom (belonging).  The best student is the one who realizes that they have a challenge in a particular area and then proceed to tackle that challenge.

Students will be identifying personal strengths in each of the four areas as well as areas of potential growth.  We will revisit these goals throughout the year and they will be shared at parent/teacher conferences and sent home at the end of the year.

If you have any questions or concerns please let me know.

More Resources

Reclaiming Youth International

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Circle of Courage - wiki

Thank You!

A great big THANK YOU to all parents, friends, grandparents, family, and others who attended our Christmas concert last night.

We had fun putting the skits and songs together and hope you had fun watching.

It was really interesting to learn about different cultures around the world and how they celebrate the holidays.

Petit papa Noël

Kyle and Alyssa will be singing a small section of this song as a duet.  (from about 0:38 - 1:00)

Christmas Concer Songs

Here is a copy of one of the songs we will be singing at the Christmas concert.  If you want to listen to it to practice please feel free!




Our second song is a New Zealand version of the 12 days of Christmas called "A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree"
The words and the tune can be found by clicking the link above.

Parent - Teacher Interviews

A great first day to parent teacher interviews!  It was wonderful to meet and see so many parents.  I hope this trend continues for tomorrow and Mrs. Fischer and I get to meet with the rest of the of our class on Wednesday night.

Remembrance Day poster/poem contest

Our class completed posters and poems for the Remembrance Day contest sponsored by the local legion.  The permission slip to allow the posters and poems to be entered in the contest are due Monday, November 4th.  The local representative will be at our school collecting the poster, poems and permission slips that day.  If the permission slip is not returned we cannot send the poster/poem to the contest.

Halloween is coming

The grade 4/5 class is getting very excited for Halloween.  There has been lots of talk about costumes and the assembly on Thursday.  We even had a chance to carve pumpkins in table groups thanks to Alyssa and her parents who donated 6 pumpkins to our class.  The students worked so well together and came up with some very interesting pumpkins.

Draws were made in our class to send each of these carved pumpkins home with a student to put it out on  their doorstep tomorrow evening.

REMINDER - We will be encouraging staff and students at Watson School to dress in costumes IN THE AFTERNOON only.

The K-5 students will be having a costume parade in the gym at 2:18pm.
Parents are welcome to attend the parade and stay for our monthly Raider of the Month assembly (scheduled to take place from 2:45 - 3:00).