Under The Arch

So excited to welcome the grade ones this fall!

Is your child going into our grade 5/6 class this coming year? If so, get ready for some beautiful geometry as we dive into early geometric concepts and connections!

If I had a child entering Grade 1, these are five simple things I would focus on to help strengthen their literacy foundations:

1. Know their letters and sounds

Help your child recognize both uppercase and lowercase letters and learn the most common sound connected to each one.

2. Play with sounds in spoken words

Try rhyming, clapping syllables, identifying beginning sounds, or thinking of words that start with the same sound. These simple games develop important listening skills without requiring your child to read.

3. Read aloud every day

Even 10–15 minutes a day helps build vocabulary, comprehension, background knowledge, and a love of books. Choose stories your child genuinely enjoys and talk about them together.

4. Play simple letter and phonics games

Go on a letter hunt, match objects to their beginning sounds, build letters with playdough, or sort pictures by sound. Keep it short and playful.

5. Listen to audiobooks

Audiobooks introduce children to rich vocabulary, fluent reading, and stories beyond what they can read independently. They are wonderful for car rides, quiet time, or while your child draws or plays.

None of these activities needs to feel like a formal lesson. A few minutes of consistent, enjoyable practice over the summer and throughout the school year can make a meaningful difference.

The goal isn’t for every child to arrive in Grade 1 already reading or writing independently. It is to give them strong foundations and positive experiences with language so they are ready to keep learning.

Tomorrow’s the day! We’re looking forward to welcoming our Forest Voyagers for a fun week of forest exploration, beach time, shelter building, and outdoor adventure at Moorecroft Regional Park.

A Pro-D Day can be more than simply spending the day outside.

Our Salmon & Stream Adventure is designed as an immersive outdoor learning experience where children explore the river, forest, wildlife, and salmon habitat directly in the landscape they are learning about.

Throughout the day, students will hike riverside trails, investigate stream ecosystems, look for signs of wildlife, take part in hands-on activities and explore the relationships between salmon, healthy waterways and the surrounding forest.

The program is led by experienced, trained outdoor education staff who know how to turn exploration into meaningful learning while still leaving plenty of room for curiosity, movement and adventure.

Children come away having spent a full day outdoors, but also with a much stronger understanding of the ecosystem they were part of.

Salmon & Stream Adventure
October 9, 2026
Top Bridge Regional Trail – Allsbrook Road
Ages 7–12
$65

Registration opens August 18 at 8:00 a.m. through the Regional District of Nanaimo.

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Beginning in September 2027, our outdoor program fees will increase to bring them into alignment with our enrichment program offerings.

We wanted to share this with families well in advance so there is plenty of time to plan. Our outdoor programs offer full, thoughtfully developed learning days with small groups, experienced instruction, hands-on skill building, curriculum planning, and a strong focus on meaningful time outdoors.

This change will help us continue offering the level of care, preparation, and quality that we want for every child who joins us.

There will be no change to fees for the 2026–27 school year. The new fees will take effect beginning with the 2027–28 school year, and full details will be shared before registration opens.

Behind the Reading Lesson #6

Once skills are being taught in the right order, the next question is: when is a child ready for the next one?

Finishing a lesson doesn't necessarily mean a skill has been learned.

Before I move on, I want to see whether a student can use what we've taught without relying heavily on prompting. Can they recognize the sound? Blend it into a word? Read it when it appears somewhere new? Can they use it again a few days later?

Those small checks tell us far more than simply completing a worksheet or reaching the end of a lesson.

And this is something parents can watch for at home too: look for independence, not perfection. A child doesn't need to get everything right, but they should be beginning to use the skill without you supplying the answer.

That's why checks are built throughout my literacy program. They help you know when to keep practising, when to revisit something, and when your student is ready to move forward.

Teaching reading shouldn't require guessing what comes next.

Yay!!! We're setting up for another great year which means new materials will arrive over the next few weeks! These came today ❤️