Greetings parents and guardians,

Welcome to the 2016-2017 school year! I’m looking forward to working with some familiar faces, as well as meeting a handful of new ones this week!

To start off, I’d like to quickly introduce myself to everyone. My name is Andres Araneda, and I will be teaching grade 6 French Immersion this year. This is my eighth year on the job, and I’ve had experience teaching all subjects from kindergarten to grade twelve. I speak French, Spanish and English, and I am currently a full-time student at the University of Regina. When I’m not busy working on my master’s, I enjoy cooking and learning about world cuisine, video editing, playing and listening to music, and working on my visual art projects. I plan to bring all of these components into our classroom in one way or another, in hopes to create the most fun, engaging and challenging learning experience that I can possibly bring to my students.

As the homeroom teacher, I will be teaching my class French, Math, Visual Arts and Health. In addition to this, my class will also be learning from a wide range of excellent teachers including Mr. Motlik (Science), Mme Lazorko (Phys. Ed.), Mr. Boutilier (English) and Mme Haynes (Arts Ed.); as well as new coming teachers Mme Fortier-Fréçon (Visual Arts and Phys. Ed.) and Mme Weir (Social Studies).

Over the next few weeks, we will be focusing a lot of time on establishing classroom rules, routines and expectations. Furthermore, we will be taking the time to review important information relating to literacy and numeracy.

For the first couple of weeks in math, we will be working on patterns, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. It is extremely important for all students to practice these math skills inside and outside of school as much as possible, as a good understanding of these concepts will allow them to better grasp some of the things we will be covering later this year.

Students will be working with various types of texts this month in order to brush up on vocabulary and comprehension skills. We will be writing and working on written compositions, and even creating our very own blogs. We will be reviewing how to use language reference tools such as dictionaries and thesauruses, and learning how to review and correct our own written work.

As for literacy, I would like students to take some time each night to read at home. Whether your child is being read to, they are reading to a sibling, or they are enjoying their favorite book; literacy in any form will greatly benefit your child. I encourage students to bring their own school appropriate books from home, just as long as it’s something that they are interested in reading. Whether it’s a newspaper article, a comic book, a magazine, or a popular book series; any form of reading is good reading. As always, we will have a weekly library period so that students can sign out both English and French books.

Although technology is all around us, I encourage all of my students to take a break from the screen each night to explore some of their other interests. We will be having weekly language comprehension tests, which will require students to become familiar with the weekly topic at hand, by reviewing and studying notes taken in class throughout the week. Please remind students to take time each night to review what they’ve been learning in class. Encourage your child to share with you what they are learning in class, as sometimes this alone can be a great way for them to study!

I have set up a classroom blog that I will be using to keep parents and guardians updated on some of the things we are doing in class (including assignments and important dates and information). As stated earlier, students will also be creating their own blogs where they will be writing journal entries and creating all types of different assignments using this format.

Mr. Araneda’s classroom blog:

https://aranedaclass.edublogs.org

If you have any questions or concerns, I can be reached via email at the following address:

andres.araneda@rbe.sk.ca

I look forward to starting out this great year with this incredible group of young individuals. I wish everyone the best of luck and I hope to meet all of you in the coming months.

 

Sincerely,

 

Mr. Andres Araneda

Grade 6 French Immersion

Elsie Mironuck Community School