Month: May 2023

Events, Growing Readers Tips

SPARK Book Fair Launch

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Dear parents and families,

Our two-week online book fair is officially underway! You can shop thousands of books across all categories on Spark Book Fairs at up to 90% off. Plus, they offer free shipping on orders over $45 CAD!

By placing an order during our book fair from May 29-June 11, 20% of your purchase will automatically go to Halton Hills Christian School in cash rewards.

To keep track of the fundraising progress and check out what Spark has to offer, visit our landing page here: https://sparkbookfairs.ca/organization/HHCS-bRRttcF6Qssr

HHCS, the last day for Accelerated Reader tests is coming up soon- June 9! Students should make sure to plan out their time accordingly and to do their best to make their goal. Keep reading, HHCS!!

GROWING READERS TIP- WHEN KIDS SAY “I DON’T WANT TO”

 

How do we help kids feel motivated to read? Ideally, we want them to feel self-motivated to pick up a book and enjoy it. But sometimes a little extrinsic motivation can be a stepping stone to being intrinsically motivated. Here are a few ideas to motivate your child to read. 

 

Have your child set a goal for the number of books he/she would like to read or hear. Set up a special treat for accomplishing the goal.

 

Let your child pick the books he/she wants to enjoy. The power of choice can be extremely motivating. 

 

Carve out a reading time in your home where everyone is engaged with books at the same time. 

 

TAKE AWAY:  Carving out time, setting goals, and allowing choice are huge motivators to read. 

 

 

Authors, Events, Growing Readers Tips

Field Trip to the Forest of Reading Festival

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Last week I took a group of students to The Forest of Reading Festival – “the largest literary festival for young readers in Canada.” What an amazing experience! This group of students, over the past few months, had read a selection of books from the nominated list for the Silver Birch award. They then voted for which author they felt was most deserving of receiving the award. At the festival, the winning author was announced. It did indeed feel like a “rock concert for reading”! We also went to some author workshops, waited in line for author autographs, got some free books, and generally walked around and had fun!

One of our students got selected to be a presenter on stage! Very exciting!

It was so amazing to see kids everywhere reading, and during an author workshop to hear them share about books that have been special to them and their families and friends.

My shirt says, “It’s a good day to read a book.”

These girls waited so patiently to get a photo op with the winning Silver Birch author- Colleen Nelson, who won for her book Undercover Book List!

GROWING READERS TIP- DID YOU KNOW?

 

If you read to a child 15 minutes a day, by age 5 that will add up to:

27,375 minutes or

456 hours or

19 days!

 

TAKE AWAY:  Read for at least 15 minutes every day.

 

Don’t forget- Spark Book Fair is coming in one week!! (Book Outlet). We ran this book fair a couple years ago with great success because of the amazing prices and wide selection for adults and kids.

Events, Growing Readers Tips

Books About Flowers and Springtime, Save the Date for Online Book Fair

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Save the date! An online book fair is coming May 29-June 11 with Spark Book Fairs! (Book Outlet). We ran this book fair a couple years ago with great success because of the amazing prices and wide selection for adults and kids.

With Mother’s Day and May flowers all around us, I thought this would be a good week to post some great book choices about flowers, spring, and gardening. I’m sure many of you will be gardening on the upcoming long weekend!

Little Green Thumbs: 10 Garden-Filled Picture Books for Spring

Books Celebrating Spring and Gardening- A Mighty Girl

Picture Books About Gardening

HHCS Moose News

It was wonderful to have so many families at school recently for the Celebration of Learning night! Thank you for the support for the Terra Cotta Cookie sale in the library to raise funds for a Storywalk- looking forward to sharing more about that in the coming weeks! We hope that you also got a chance to read the new issue of our student newspaper- HHCS Moose News. The digital link is above.

 

GROWING READERS TIP- How to Help New Readers with Words

 

It is common for new readers to get stuck on words. Here are a few prompts and questions you can try to help your child decode the words:

Look at the first letter and say the sound.

Give it a try.

Are there any parts of the word you know?

Look at the picture for help.

Skip it, read on, and then come back to try.

 

Using these prompts and questions encourages your child to do the problem solving instead of relying on you to tell him/her the word.

TAKE AWAY:  Prompt to problem solve decoding words independently.

Authors, Events, Growing Readers Tips

Author Visit with J. Torres

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Grades 4-6 had a visit from author J. Torres last Friday! We were excited to meet this graphic novelist and comic book writer. Mr. Torres showed us his book Stealing Home, about a boy’s experience during the Japanese internment. We learned more about graphic novel terminology and what it is like to be an author. Some of our junior division students will be seeing Mr. Torres again soon when I take them on a field trip to the Forest of Reading Festival! Stealing Home is nominated for a Silver Birch Award- exciting!! Thank you so much to Mr. Torres for his presentation and his time with our students.

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https://www.jtorrescomics.com/

-From Growing Book by Book- BENEFITS OF BEDTIME STORIES

Bedtime stories hold a special place in many peoples’ hearts. Here are just a few of the benefits of reading or telling your child a story every night.

  • Provides a few minutes at the end of each day to bond with your child.
  • Shows that you value reading.
  • Helps kids calm down before bed.
  • Builds your child’s listening vocabulary.
  • Helps instill a love of reading and books.

 

TAKE AWAY- Read or tell a bedtime story every night to your child. 

Events, Growing Readers Tips, Scholastic Book Club

Grand Battle of the Books and Scholastic May Digi-Flyers

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May English Flyer

May- English

May French Flyer

May- French

Summer Reading Guide

Summer Reading

My Class Code
RC391237
Shipping to the classroom is back! Just order online from the digi-flyer, enter the class code, and items can be shipped to the school instead of having to have a minimum $40 order to ship to home like before. Of course that is still an option too if you prefer.
In a previous post, I wrote about how our Battle of the Books teams participated in the Round Robin tournament at the Halton Hills Public Library. On Thursday night the top two teams battled it out in the final Grand Battle! Our junior and senior teams both finished in second place overall for all the schools that participated in Halton Hills. I am proud of these students for their hard work! We had fun competing and working as a team. Go, Moose!!

GROWING READERS TIP- OPEN AND CLOSED

There are two types of questions we can ask.  They are open and closed questions. Closed questions generally have only one right answer and are a short one word response.  For example- “Is an apple a fruit?”  Open questions/prompts encourage kids to talk and generally have lengthier responses.  For example- “Describe an apple.”

Try open type questions when asking your child about their day or a question about a story they are enjoying.  You will get your child thinking and talking.

Take away- Open questions encourage my child to think and talk.