April 30th, 2023

Good morning Franklin Families! Happy last day of April. Here are your reminders and updates.

Reminders:

1. 1. The Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) SEA Assistive Technology Team is offering a three part learning series on using digital tools that can help to support your child in reading, writing, and vocabulary.

Part One: Reading – completed on Monday, April 17

Part Two: Writing – completed on Friday April 28th

Part Three: Vocabulary

Learn about Google Read&Write tools that can help your child with building vocabulary in reading and writing activities at home.

Wednesday, May 3, 2023 from 12 to 12:30 p.m. (meet.google.com/ptk-kgfa-amq)

2. May 30th and June pizza orders are now open until Sunday, May 22nd at midnight. No late orders will be accepted. See the School-Day message that was sent out this past week.

3. For those interested in some math programs for their children, there are some via University of Toronto (virtual or in-person). Details can be found here…..https://www.mathematics.utoronto.ca/outreach/current-programs/grades-1-8-programs
Always at your discretion.

4. Children coming to school on time is a future life skill (for future jobs) and when on time, children receive important morning messages/updates upon arrival from their teachers. When arriving late regularly, they miss key information and the beginning of lessons. Please help your children organize their time in the morning or get ready the night before, so they arrive at school on time.

5. This is the final opportunity for you to email me (Linda Cotnam) regarding next year with respect to information we may need when placing your child. Please remember that staff work extremely hard to place your children in a classroom that benefits their learning. These decisions are based on school observations, peer relationships, academics, conflicts, strengths, needs, groupings and more. As a staff, we want your child/children to be in a class that works for them, their peers and the teachers.

As a reminder, school/in-class is a place for students/children to LEARN how to make new friendships, work with different educators, practice collaborating with others, practice problem solving, practice conflict resolution, and so much more. Recess time is when children can find other friends to play with, e.g., friends that they play community sports with, play in their neighbourhoods with, etc. As they are children, we understand that this can be scary for them or challenging, and that there will be good and not so good days. Part of learning is to face unknowns, problem solve and adapt with the guidance and help of educators/adults. Again though, we want your children to be successful and do our very best to create environments to allow for this to happen.

Should you have a request though, it should not be a request for a certain teacher or combined/straight grade as again, students need to learn how to adjust to different teachers and expectations and we are limited by the class structures we get. Should you have a request based on a medical/mental health scenario and have some guidance to offer, please email me (linda_cotnam@wrdsb.ca) and explain the situation and why you are suggesting a certain scenario.

Please note – If you have an incoming first year K child, we do try to place them with the K teacher their sibling had this past year and feel free to email on this.

Finally, all suggestions are considered but are never guaranteed.

Updates:
1. JK/SK, grade 2 and 4 students should have received a dental screening notice from Public Health. Dental Screening at Franklin for these grades is booked and on the calendar for May 24th and 25th.

2. Grade 6 Parent Night for students attending Sunnyside next year is – June 15th, 6:30-7:30pm. Please save the date.

Quote of the Week:
“Every day, in a 100 small ways, our children ask, ‘Do you hear me? Do you see me? Do I matter?’ Their behavior often reflects our response.” ~ L.R. Knost