C'est L'Halloween - Oct 31

C'est l'Halloween!  It has finally arrived and the kids are incredibly excited!

Even through all the excitement, we were still able to do lots of great work today. 

This morning we started with a bit of typing through our Typing Club program.  The students are making good progress.

We then did Math until the first recess.  We talked about comparing large numbers and we even played a game doing these comparisons.  We definitely need to practice a little more to make sure the understanding is there.

In French we did our quiz on Avoir et Être which I will return next Monday.  We then did some catching up with our French reading in Raz-Kids and also did some leveling up within Raz-Kids.  The students are doing really well in terms of their stars:

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The Class TOTAL is: 253,730

YEAY - It means next week we get to pick a movie!

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The top three earners of all time are:

Isabella - 30,630
Kaitlyn - 29,680
Max - 18,220

Bravo tout le monde!

We also took some time in the morning to talk about All Saints Day and All Souls Day - Catholic traditions that happen the days after Halloween.  Ask your kids about it!

Here are two quick videos that we looked at about this.

All Saints Day (November 1)

All Souls Day (November 2)

The afternoon we continued to work on our Art and read a little more about the Sharing Circle.  We then, wrapped up the day with our own sharing circle.

A special thank you to Katerina's mom for sending delicious rice crispies.  It was a very tempting smell once we opened the box :).  Thank you so much for this delicious treat.

Thank you to Justin for bringing in treats for everyone.  It was very generous of you.

Finally, thank you to Rowan and her Grandma for the amazing looking cupcakes that they brought for our class.  They were also delicious :).

We were certainly spoiled today 😀

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NO SCHOOL 

Thursday Nov 1, Friday Nov 2

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Homework:

- Math review sheets (Semaine 8) - If not finished please bring these on next Monday.

- Raz-kids French books (Assignment 5 & 6) - due Nov 4

Important Upcoming Dates:

- November 1 - Faith Day - NO SCHOOL

- November 2 - PD Day - NO SCHOOL

- November 5 - Math-a-thon test

- November 5-8 - Swimming Lessons start

Art and Halloween go well together - Oct 30

The excitement is building... Halloween is almost here.

Today we did some reading in the morning followed by some math around "les nombres naturels".  We are learning how to represent numbers in many differnt ways and we saw six of those today:
- Forme symbolique: (ex: 1342)
- Forme décomposée: (ex: 1342 = 1000+300+40+2)
- Forme écrite (avec des mots): (ex: mille trois cent quarante-deux)
- En utilisant les positions: (ex: Millier: 1, Centaines: 3, Dizaines: 4, Unités: 2)
- En utilisant des matériaux de base dix (ex: blocks).
- En faisant un dessin (ex: drawing blocks)
Learning these really well will help us build a strong foundation.  Many of these show up in our weekly math homework too and may show up in our Math-a-thon :)

After math, we continued to work on our simple shapes art (lines, etc, using chalk pastels). Art can be a messy affair :)

To wrap up our morning, we worked with our Grade 1 buddies to create beautiful works of art as well using oil pastels.  Here are some pictures of the creative minds at work and some of the amazing final products.

This afternoon we continued to work on our own art before wrapping up the day with gym.

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TOMORROW

Short quiz on Avoir et Être!!!

&

BLACK & ORANGE DAY!

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NO SCHOOL 

Thursday Nov 1, Friday Nov 2

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Homework:

- Math review sheets (Semaine 8) - Tuesday -  all due Wed. Oct 31

- Raz-kids French books (Assignment 5) - due Oct 31

(Assignment 6 has also been posted if any of the students want to go ahead and read :) - these are due Nov. 4 - Many have already done it, Bravo!!!)

Important Upcoming Dates:

- October 31 - Morning prayer - Scarlet, Katerina, Justin

- October 31 - Quiz on Avoir / Etre

- November 1 - Faith Day - NO SCHOOL

- November 2 - PD Day - NO SCHOOL

- November 5 - Math-a-thon test

- November 5-8 - Swimming Lessons

About the Math-a-thon...

Reminders:

- PLEASE RETURN Field Trip Forms for Swimming, Volunteer forms (if you can volunteer on any of the days) and current swimming level forms.  

DADS NEEDED!!!

We really need some dads to help out with swimming from Nov 5 - 8.  We have lots of moms offering to volunteer but we NEED DADS TOO :)

Have a fabulous evening!

Ready for Halloween? - Oct 29

It is difficult to be thinking of anything other than Halloween, even for Madame, but we care about our learning so we continued to work hard today.

In the morning we did our sharing circle and many even shared what they will be for Halloween.  We will have many unicorns on the roads on Wednesday, I think :)

In Math we did some addition and subtraction review as tomorrow we start working on our natural numbers taking us all the way to the 10 thousands.  Being really good with borrowing and adding and subtracting fast will be crucial to help us have few roadblocks as we learn how to use bigger and bigger numbers.

In music we got to listen to our Halloween song :).  The students have heard it before so they were singing wholeheartedly along with the video.  We talked about some of the instruments we heard, what made them scary sounding and even made sure we understood all the words in the song.

In French we started a new writing task which some are doing with a partner.  The task involves looking at a picture and writing a story about what is happening in the picture.  Once they are done, these will be presented in front of the class.  We therefore need to make sure we do a good job of correcting our spelling and grammar mistakes.

In Health we continued looking at ourselves, what we like and who are the people who surround us.  We are also looking at an inventory of how we see ourselves interacting with others.  Being honest with our responses is really important here to be able to improve and grow :).

In Science we continued to work on vermicompostage and biodegradability of materials.  We will be looking at the impact of garbage on our oceans / water supply and will be wrapping up with a plan to help make lasting changes.  

In English we continued to work on and read Wonder.  It is a great book, we all love it.

  

Today we also took some time to organize our duo-tangs especially since Madame gave back a ton of marked work.  The students were encouraged to bring home their duo-tangs to show at home how well they are working.  While the best time would be Wednesday so we don't forget them at home, many wanted to take them home today.  Please make sure these get back to school for the next two days.

Finally, the students were informed about an art contest run by the district: 2018 District Christmas Card Submissions.  This is an opportunity for the students to create a Christmas card that could be used by the entire District.  The student who creates the successful piece will also receive copies of his/her card.  Remember, the theme is Christmas and therefore a religious Christmas theme must be evident in the design.  If your child wishes to participate, I will send home an Artwork Release Authorization From tomorrow.  All artwork needs to be submitted by the 14th of November as I need to send them in by the 15th.  Unfortunately, late submissions won't be accepted :(. 

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REMINDER: 

NO SCHOOL: 

Thursday Nov 1, Friday Nov 2

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Homework:

- Math review sheets (Semaine 8) - Monday -  all due Wed. Oct 31

- Raz-kids French books (Assignment 5) - due Oct 31

(Assignment 6 has also been posted if any of the students want to go ahead and read :) - these are due Nov. 4 - Many have already done it, Bravo!!!)

Important Upcoming Dates:

- October 30 - Morning prayer - Golden

- October 31 - Morning prayer - Scarlet, Katerina, Justin

- October 31 - Quiz on Avoir / Etre

- November 1 - Faith Day - NO SCHOOL

- November 2 - PD Day - NO SCHOOL

- November 5 - Math-a-thon test

- November 5-8 - Swimming Lessons

About the Math-a-thon...

Reminders:

- PLEASE RETURN Field Trip Forms for Swimming, Volunteer forms (if you can volunteer on any of the days) and current swimming level forms.  

DADS NEEDED!!!

We really need some dads to help out with swimming from Nov 5 - 8.  We have lots of moms offering to volunteer but we NEED DADS TOO :)

Have a fabulous evening!

A few days missed but back again - Oct 26

This past week was a bit challenging for all of us as the classroom and Mme Kiss got hit by the flu.  Every year, no matter how prepared we are, it still knocks on our door.  But we fight and we persevere. :)

Today in class we did some catching up and we worked on our online tools as well.  We started it all with a sharing circle and the students all shared their favourite part of the week. Mine was that the students were all so well behaved for our wonderful substitute this week and got so much work done while Mme was away. :)

To wrap up the week, we did some addition practice in math today, which we followed up with online work in Mathletics.  The students are progressing well.  Unfortunately, we did not get to go cover our problem of the week, but we will do so Monday morning right after Sharing Circle.  As such, we will not have a new problem posted.

In French we also did Raz Kids where most of the students finished their french assignments and we continued to read Le Petit Prince.  We are taking it slow as we need to build some understanding of the story.  Le test sur "Avoir" et "Etre" has been postponed to next week.

In Raz-Kids, I promised the students that when they reach 250,000 stars as a class, we can choose a movie to watch in class.  Well, I may have set the bar too low.  We have some very dedicated readers in the class and the class has over 226,000 stars already. :)  Next target will need to be set much higher :).

In the afternoon we continued with a bit more Raz-Kids as due to morning gym we only had 15 minutes in the morning which we then followed-up with the reading of Wonder.  Our group responsible for the worms also checked out how they were doing and gave them some additional moisture.  In terms of food, they were doing still quite well. 

We wrapped up the day with Gym again and by cleaning our desks.  Some are very good at it, while others need to practice a bit more :).

Next week will be a fun and a short week.  The students are off Nov 1st and 2nd (Thursday and Friday) after Halloween.  Hopefully the super long weekend will give them enough time to work through all the sugar they will collect on Halloween.  They are all very excited already :).

Homework:

- Math review sheets (Semaine 8) - Friday -  all days due Wed. Oct 31

- Raz-kids French books (Assignment 5) - due Oct 31

(Assignment 6 has also been posted if any of the students want to go ahead and read :))

Homework and assignments submitted this week will be returned to the students Monday!  Mme needs a bit of extra time to check them all.

Important Upcoming Dates:

- October 29 - Morning prayer - Chantal

- October 29 - Healthy Hunger

- October 29 - MATH-A-THON PLEDGE FORMS DUE

- October 30 - Morning prayer - Golden

- October 31 - Morning prayer - Scarlet, Katerina, Justin

- November 1 - Faith Day - NO SCHOOL

- November 2 - PD Day - NO SCHOOL

- November 5 - Math-a-thon test

- November 5-8 - Swimming Lessons

About the Math-a-thon...

Reminders:

- PLEASE RETURN Field Trip Forms for Swimming, Volunteer forms (if you can volunteer on any of the days) and current swimming level forms.  - WE ARE LOOKING FOR ADDITIONAL VOLUNTEERS ON THE 5th, and 6th OF NOVEMBER.  

WE ARE PARTICULARLY LOOKING FOR DADS TO HELP OUR YOUNG MEN IN THE MEN'S CHANGE ROOM.

Marching on :) - Oct 23

Ok... so yesterday Mme was sick so could not update the blog as planned, but back today and hopefully everything will be back up and running as before :)

This morning in Math we practiced our basic math facts using decks of cards.  We played in groups of 3 and we just practiced and practiced.  Hopefully all this practice will start showing in how much faster we can do these basic math additions, subtractions, etc.

Try this at home too with your kids.  You can just pick two cards and multiply them subtract them and add them.  Division would be a bit more challenging but we'll learn some games using that too soon.  (Remove the cards that don't have numbers and the Ace we treated as a value of 1.)

In French we focused on our last writing task and finished these so we can move onto other work and learn new skills.  We also did the spelling test from last week.

In Social Studies, we started working on some research work on Alberta and we used our books to find answers.  The plan is to use other tools next (i.e. computers) but we first have to get our group dynamics to be working a little smoother.  Sometimes group work takes a bit more focus on the group functioning well than on the content of the material.  Once group communication is optimal, work becomes effortless. :)

In ELA we continued reading Wonder after we did our spelling test.

And like that, in the blink of an eye, the day was over.

Homework:

- Math review sheets (Semaine 8) - will be handed out TOMORROW-  due Wed. Oct 31

- Raz-kids French books (Assignment 5) - due Oct 31

- NO ENGLISH HOMEWORK THIS WEEK

- NO FRENCH HOMEWORK THIS WEEK

- NO NEW SPELLING WORDS THIS WEEK

- Weekly Challenge (Will be updated tomorrow as last one will be discussed then.)

STUDENTS: Please bring back homeworks and tests once your parents have seen them!  We will keep these in your duotangs.

Important Upcoming Dates:

- October 24 - Morning prayer - Anika

- October 24 - Picture Retakes

- October 25 - Morning prayer - Justin

- October 25 - Sammy's Pizza

- October 26 - Morning prayer - Scarlet

- October 26 - Choir @ lunch

- October 26 - Math Quiz

- October 26 - Test - Avoir & Etre au present

- October 26 - OCTOBER SCHOLASTIC ORDERS DUE

- October 29 - Morning prayer - Chantal

- October 29 - Healthy Hunger

- October 29 - MATH-A-THON PLEDGE FORMS DUE

- October 30 - Morning prayer - Golden

- October 31 - Morning prayer - Scarlet, Katerina, Justin

- November 1 - Faith Day - NO SCHOOL

- November 2 - PD Day - NO SCHOOL

- November 5 - Math-a-thon test

- November 5-8 - Swimming Lessons

About the Math-a-thon...

Reminders:

- PLEASE RETURN Field Trip Forms for Swimming, Volunteer forms (if you can volunteer on any of the days) and current swimming level forms.  - WE ARE LOOKING FOR ADDITIONAL VOLUNTEERS ON THE 5th, and 6th OF NOVEMBER.  

WE ARE PARTICULARLY LOOKING FOR DADS TO HELP OUR YOUNG MEN IN THE MEN'S CHANGE ROOM.

Beautiful days ahead - Oct 19

We plan... we try...we adjust :)

Today we held our first Friday sharing circle in the morning, as suggested by Xavier, and it went really well, except for the fact that the number one best thing this week was the visit by the gecko :).  I guess a gecko can steal the show :)

During Math, we tried using Mathletics to start looking at the patterns that we have been working on for a while now.  Mathletics is in English, but the math concepts are the same.  The students can use this tool at home to practice and get more comfortable with many of the grade 4 math concepts.  There are games as well to help with the motivation :).  The login information is in their agenda.

During music we practiced our Do, Re, Mi's and the beat.  We will continue to practice playing the recorder gently in the weeks to come.

During lunch some of the students had choir.  Choir is every Friday at lunchtime.  I will try to make sure to give a reminder beforehand.  Thanks to Mr. Harries, our wonderful singers also got a recess right after lunch.

In French we were going to have our dictee but as we did not get a chance to discuss the words at the beginning of the week, some of us were not quite comfortable with the words.  As such, we used our brand new individual white boards and used the time to practice our spelling words together.  Students are encouraged to continue practicing these words at home as we will have the dictee on Monday instead.
We also continued reading Le Petit Prince.

We discussed some real-life scenarios in Health today.  The students had a chance to discuss some hypothetical situations that students could face in their day-to-day lives and were asked to come up with possible solutions.

In English, we did the same as in French for the spelling words.  We practiced on whiteboards and we will have the actual spelling test on Monday.

Finally, we closed the day with the opportunity to work on Raz Kids and for some to catch up on their French assignments in Raz-Kids.  A new assignment for next week has been posted.

Homework:

- Math review sheets (Semaine 7) - whole package due Monday Oct 22

- NO ENGLISH HOMEWORK THIS WEEK

- Raz-kids French books (Assignment 4)

- French Homework - Avoir et Etre - whole package due Monday Oct 22

- Les mots de la semaine & Words of the week

- Weekly Challenge (Solution will be discussed Monday)

Important Upcoming Dates:

- October 22 - Morning prayer - James

- October 22 - French and English spelling tests
- October 22 - Healthy Hunger

- October 23 - Morning prayer - Mia

- October 24 - Morning prayer - Anika

- October 24 - Picture Retakes

- October 25 - Morning prayer - Justin

- October 25 - Sammy's Pizza

- October 26 - Morning prayer - Scarlet

- October 26 - Choir

- October 26 - OCTOBER SCHOLASTIC ORDERS DUE

- October 29 - Morning prayer - Chantal

- October 29 - Healthy Hunger

- October 30 - Morning prayer - Golden

- October 31 - Morning prayer - Scarlet, Katerina, Justin

- November 1 - Faith Day - NO SCHOOL

- November 2 - PD Day - NO SCHOOL

- November 5 - Math-a-thon test

- November 5-8 - Swimming Lessons

Reminders:

- Please return Sacrament form (indicate which sacrament if any your child will be registering for this year)

- Mathathon pledge forms should be returned by Oct 29.  I am working on the math questions already :)

- PLEASE RETURN Field Trip Forms for Swimming, Volunteer forms (if you can volunteer on any of the days) and current swimming level forms.  - WE ARE LOOKING FOR ADDITIONAL VOLUNTEERS ON THE 5th, and 6th OF NOVEMBER.  

WE ARE PARTICULARLY LOOKING FOR DADS TO HELP OUR YOUNG MEN IN THE MEN'S CHANGE ROOM.

Bonne fin de semaine!

Cursive writing, abstract art, math quiz, Kahoot! and a gecko - Oct 18

Another fun and fast day and the weekend is almost here again!

Today we started doing a bit of cursive writing.  We will be doing this every Thursday morning to practice our handwriting skills and indirectly our fine-motor coordination as well. 

In math, we had our addition quiz which most students did quite well on.  The quizzes will be sent home tomorrow.  We then continued to work on our math review on patterns. 

Following math we started an art project that is a bit abstract and is really focused on using simple shapes likes dots and lines.  As Halloween is coming, we might hide in there some halloween themed colours and or designs. :)

In French we did a fun review of Avoir et Etre by using a tool called Kahoot! and whiteboards.  The students really enjoyed it and we will be using this tool again to do additional reviews.

In addition to two wonderful gym sessions hosted by Mme Tardif for the class, we also read Wonder in ELA and had a sweet visitor that some of us had a very close contact with: Mme Celine's little gecko.  :)  The gecko now has a new home in Mme Kiss' house.

Homework:

- Math review sheets (Semaine 7) - Thursday - whole package due Monday Oct 22

- NO ENGLISH HOMEWORK THIS WEEK

- Raz-kids French books (Assignment 4)

- French Homework - page 4 from booklet on Avoir et Etre.  

- Les mots de la semaine & Words of the week

- Weekly Challenge (Solutions for all problems except the latest are now posted too.)

Important Dates:

- October 19 - Morning prayer - Addison

- October 19 - PICTURE ORDERS DUE

- October 19 - French and English spelling tests

- October 22 - Healthy Hunger

- October 24 - Picture Retakes

- October 25 - Sammy's Pizza

- October 26 - OCTOBER SCHOLASTIC ORDERS DUE

- October 29 - Healthy Hunger

Reminders:

- Please return Sacrament form (indicate which sacrament if any your child will be registering for this year)

- Mathathon pledge forms should be returned by Oct 29.  I am working on the math questions already :)

- PLEASE RETURN Field Trip Forms for Swimming, Volunteer forms (if you can volunteer on any of the days) and current swimming level forms.  - WE ARE LOOKING FOR ADDITIONAL VOLUNTEERS ON THE 5th, and 6th OF NOVEMBER.  

WE ARE PARTICULARLY LOOKING FOR DADS TO HELP OUR YOUNG MEN IN THE MEN'S CHANGE ROOM.

Have a wonderful night!

Math, Music, Research and Reading - Oct 17

Based on recent work, in Math we are now focusing on building our basic facts knowledge and therefore today we practiced our additions skills. Tomorrow the quiz will be very similar to the sheet we did today.

In Music we continued working on the recorder and are now focusing on getting nice clear sounds out of our recorders and learning to read notes.

After recess we had the Calgary Public Library demonstrate to us all the amazing things we have access to as students for free.  I will be putting up some more details around this.  We, unfortunately, ran into some technical difficulties, so we need to look into this a little bit further to know how to access these resources.

Students can explore the Calgary Public Library Website in the meantime at https://calgarylibrary.ca/

We then took some time to catch up on our French assignments on Raz Kids.  Most of the kids are now up to speed, though some need to keep working on these at home.

In Science, we learned a little bit more about our worms and vermicompostage and we finally started writing down our experiences at Beakerhead in ELA.

The day went by fast but we are looking ahead to another learning filled day tomorrow :).

Homework:

- Math review sheets (Semaine 7) - Wednesday - whole package due Monday Oct 22

- NO ENGLISH HOMEWORK THIS WEEK

- Raz-kids French books (Assignment 4)

- French Homework - page 3 from booklet on Avoir et Etre.  This week we will continue to practice Avoir et Etre, but next week we will have a test to see how well we understand when to use these verbs.  

- Les mots de la semaine & Words of the week

- Weekly Challenge (Solutions for all problems except the latest are now posted too.)

Important Dates:

- October 18 - Morning prayer - Isabella

- October 18 - Sammy's Pizza
- October 18 - Math Quiz (Addition)

- October 19 - Morning prayer - Addison

- October 19 - PICTURE ORDERS DUE

- October 19 - French and English spelling tests

- October 22 - Healthy Hunger

- October 24 - Picture Retakes

- October 25 - Sammy's Pizza

- October 26 - OCTOBER SCHOLASTIC ORDERS DUE

- October 29 - Healthy Hunger

Reminders:

- Please return Sacrament form (indicate which sacrament if any your child will be registering for this year)

- Mathathon pledge forms should be returned by Oct 29.  I am working on the math questions already :)

- PLEASE RETURN Field Trip Forms for Swimming, Volunteer forms (if you can volunteer on any of the days) and current swimming level forms.  - WE ARE LOOKING FOR ADDITIONAL VOLUNTEERS ON THE 5th, and 6th OF NOVEMBER.  

WE ARE PARTICULARLY LOOKING FOR DADS TO HELP OUR YOUNG MEN IN THE MEN'S CHANGE ROOM.

Remember...

Have a fabulous evening!

Learning, Games and Hygiene - Oct 16

Another day full of great activities and learning.

This morning after working on math, we learned about a "Stick Dice" game that was a game played by the Pomo indigenous peoples of California.  We learned how different tools were used to make calculations in the past and how culture can be cherished and passed onto future generations even through math games.  This game also helped reinforce concepts that we are discussing and reviewing in class: data management, probability, patterns, numbers and operations.  Here are some photos.  I think it is safe to say that most students truly enjoyed the game. :)

After a well-earned recess, we had our wonderful school nurse, Jessica Borgford, speak to us about hygiene.  The students were very knowledgeable and were wonderful throughout the whole lesson.  Here are some pictures of that too :).

The students did so well, that Miss Borgford asked 4 of the students to help give the same hygiene lesson to the Grade 1 students after lunch.  Xavier, Kaitlyn, Addison and Scarlet were chosen to help out and they did a wonderful job.  Thank you to Miss Borgford and Mme Celine for letting our students help out their buddies in Grade 1.

During lunch, Mr. Harries also talked to us about WE day.  More information can be found at the following website.  This is something that the school will be focusing on this year.  

https://www.we.org/

Finally, in the afternoon, we did some work on determinants (grammaire) and we started reading a short story about Sharing circles. 

Busy, but fun day for sure :)

Homework:

- Math review sheets (Semaine 7) - Tuesday - whole package due Monday Oct 22

- NO ENGLISH HOMEWORK THIS WEEK

- Raz-kids French books (Assignment 4)

- French Homework - page 2 from booklet on Avoir et Etre.  This week we will continue to practice Avoir et Etre, but next week we will have a test to see how well we understand when to use these verbs.  

- Les mots de la semaine & Words of the week

- Weekly Challenge (Solutions for all problems except the latest are now posted too.)

Important Dates:

- October 17 - Morning prayer - Kaitlyn

- October 18 - Morning prayer - Isabella

- October 18 - Sammy's Pizza
- October 18 - Math Quiz (Addition)

- October 19 - Morning prayer - Addison

- October 19 - PICTURE ORDERS DUE

- October 19 - French and English spelling tests

- October 22 - Healthy Hunger

- October 24 - Picture Retakes

- October 25 - Sammy's Pizza

- October 26 - SCHOLASTIC ORDERS DUE

- October 29 - Healthy Hunger

Reminders:

- Please return Sacrament form (indicate which sacrament if any your child will be registering for this year)

- Mathathon pledge forms should be returned by Oct 29.  I am working on the math questions already :)

- PLEASE RETURN Field Trip Forms for Swimming, Volunteer forms (if you can volunteer on any of the days) and current swimming level forms.  

Have a wonderful evening!