Butterflies in Kindergarten

In the past month, our Kindergarten classes have watched the cycle of life of a butterfly.

 This past week, our youngest students watched their beautiful butterflies emerge from their chrysalises and fly.  They were released in our garden soon after with the help of our excited Kindergarten students.

Reading buddies

The Gr.7/8 students from Mrs.Chan's class wrote and illustrated picture books based on their Language unit, Analyzing Text, targeted towards 5-8 yr old readers. Themes ranged from caring for the environment, to courage in the face of bullying, to keeping your messy room clean! They then paired up for Reading Buddies with students from the community class, Ms.Rozen's kindergarten class, Ms. Rawji's Gr.3's and Mr.Barlow's Gr.1/2s to share their stories.

This engaging activity allowed the older students to learn about the reading process: how young students learn to read, what topics they enjoy most, and how to more actively engage younger students. 

The picture books have been laminated and bound, and will be on display in the library to share with the school community.

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Taking care of our garden

Mr. Craig has returned to Charlton to help contribute to our fabulous garden!
He has organized a group of students to help provide the 'labour' to beautify the front of the school.
What a job they have done!

Personally, I would put our garden up against any school in the Region.  Please come and see it when you can. Thanks to all of our student volunteers, to Mr. Craig, Ms. Lai and Ms. Ellenbogen who have lead the push to give us beautiful gardens.

Sharing their stories

Today Mr. Vaz' Gr. 2/3 class shared the stories they have created with Ms. Verri's Gr. 1 class.  Older students read their personal stories to the younger students in the library.  The task of the younger students was to determine the main idea of the story being read to them.  This is their current learning focus in Gr. 1. As you can see, younger students were very interested....

The younger students will now work on their very own stories.  What a fabulous way for our older students to model 'narrative writing' and 'determining the main idea' for our younger ones!

Mental Health Presentations by the Student Leadership Team

Last week our Student Leadership Team went into classrooms and presented to individual Gr. 3, 4, 5 and 6 classes on topical mental health issues in those grades.  On top of making announcements every Monday on breaking myths around Mental Health, these students researched and created their own presentations on topics such as The Importance of Positive Relationships, and How to Deal with Stress and Anxiety.

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They then organized presentations with classroom teachers and presented to students.  The point was made that they were not experts, but wanted to share their learning around mental health and the ways to cope with the daily stresses and anxiety brought about in everyday life.

The leadership shown by this group was truly amazing!  Thanks to Ms. Rawji and Ms. Antoniou for helping to organize and focus the Leadership Team in their presentations.  And special thanks to the Leadership Team members, who worked above and beyond their course work to help educate their peers, and make Charlton a better place to be.

Film Awards and Charlton winners

The PlaYR Video Festival and Awards were held last night in Newmarket.  We had a number of students in our Gr. 7/8 classes participate.  Here they are at the festival:

Two of these students won the videos they entered into competition.  Parnia S won for Best Experimental Film, and Richy R won for best Drama.

Congratulations to all of the students who participated in the PlayYR Awards !!

The Charlton Garden

Have you noticed our garden lately?

A small but mighty committee, including a recently retired Mr. Craig, along with parents Ms. Ellenbogen and Ms. Lai have been working with a number of students to weed, plant and spread soil to make our garden beautiful. Ms. Vaid has been instrumental in gathering donations of plants and gardening tools in order to support the committee.
I have seldom been to schools with a more beautiful front entrance.  The 'Garden Team' has done a fabulous job at making the front of our school attractive, increasing our 'curb appeal'.

Come take a look when you have time.  

Thanks to the entire Garden Team for making the front of the school so attractive!