News for Week of March 30 - April 2, 2026
It's Holy Week - a time for prayer and quiet reflection. Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday and leads to Easter Sunday, the most important time in the Catholic church. On Palm Sunday, we learn how Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem and the people waved palm branches at Him shouting, "Hosanna!". On Holy Monday, Jesus and His disciples went into the temple and Jesus overturned tables since people were selling things rather than praying. Holy Tuesday - Jesus and His disciples returned to the temple and taught the people many things through parables and gave the people the New Commandment. On Holy Wednesday, Judas agreed to hand over Jesus for silver coins. On Holy Thursday, Jesus had the Last Supper, which is the institution of the Eucharist and also the first mass. He also washed the feet of His disciples. Jesus asked His disciples to pray in the garden with Him all night, and they fell asleep. On Good Friday, Jesus died on the cross. The stations of the cross happen on Good Friday. Holy Saturday is when we learn that Jesus is dead in the tomb. The evening of Holy Saturday is considered the "vigil" and Easter celebrations can begin then. On Easter, the Alleluia returns and life is renewed, as it was for Jesus through His resurrection. The children will be hearing the story of the Passion throughout the week in class. Ask your child to retell the story to you.
Grade 3 EQAO Preparation Homework:
***EQAO Practice booklet #2 will be sent home this week and will be due back to school on Tuesday, April 7th since there is no school on Monday, April 6th (Easter Monday). Please ensure your child brings the booklet back for our consolidation even if they have not finished all of the pages. We will be taking up each question and it is easier if your child has the booklet to follow along with.
School Lenten Project - SchoolBOX
Get Ready for Our Lenten Raffle!
As we continue our journey of giving this Lenten season, we are thrilled to announce our next exciting fundraising initiative! We have some incredible prizes lined up. All proceeds go toward SchoolBOX, a local organization with big dreams to support education and learning in Indigenous communities in Northern Ontario. SchoolBOX’s mission is to ensure Indigenous children in Northern Ontario have the same access to quality books as our students at St. Gabriel. Through this fundraiser, we will be helping to purchase books and support the building of libraries in the Grassy Narrows First Nation community. Ask your child what they know about Grassy Narrows.
Starting Monday, March 23, we revealed one exciting raffle basket prize each day of the week.
Ticket Sales & The Big Draw
Sales Start: Friday, March 27th (cash sales), and Monday, March 30th through School Cash Online (see letter sent home last week).
The Draw: Thursday, April 2
Pricing & How to Buy
How to Pay - School Cash Online:
For your convenience, tickets are available for purchase through School Cash Online (link sent out on Monday, March 23).
Our Learning
Language:
In Writing, we have been exploring the elements of persuasive texts and we will soon learn how to write a persuasive letter.
Our next UFLI phonics lesson will be about the ending - y (making the long /ē/ sound), as in the words puppy, mommy, sunny.
This week's new heart word: forty
Please have your child practise the heart words we have learned so far in class: the, I, a, said, to, do, of, see, he, be, me, from, you, what, have, look, book, are, was, your, want, go, no, so, goes, says, they, their, were, talk, walk, could, should, would, or, for, who, by, my, one, once, use, two, does, many, any, been, into, friend, because, woman, women, move, both, four, fourth, *forty.
We will continue to work on developing reading comprehension skills. In class, we have been working on strategies such as making predictions while reading, identifying the important ideas and supporting details in a text, making inferences by using stated and implied ideas as evidence, making connections to our own ideas and experiences, visualizing, asking questions, and using text features to find information in a text.
In both Grade 2 and Grade 3, the Ontario Language curriculum, and your child's evaluation and report mark, includes his/her ability to demonstrate, both orally and through written responses, comprehension of a text. Reading comprehension includes being able to reflect on and understand the deeper meanings in a text and answering comprehension questions about that content, even when the "answer" is not written explicitly in the text. This ability to infer meaning is extremely important.
In the next week, the Grade 3 students will bring home a reading comprehension assignment, titled "Snowshoe Adventure", in their Assessment Folder. Please take some time to have your child show it to you, then sign the work and return it as soon as possible as we will refer to it when trying to improve on further tasks. Before completing this task, we reviewed the criteria for answering comprehension questions. We use this APE visual anchor chart to help remember the criteria for a good written answer to a reading comprehension question:
Math:
The Grade 3s are coming to the end of their measurement unit. We will have an assessment of learning about linear measurement, perimeter, and area at the beginning of this week. Our next unit will be about measuring time.
The Grade 2s will continue their learning about 2-digit addition and subtraction. We have been working on using a variety of strategies to subtract two-digit numbers, including subtracting in parts, using addition to subtract, and using place-value (including the standard algorithm).
Looking Ahead:
Monday - Wednesday: Basket raffle tickets for sale (School Cash Online) to support SchoolBOX Lenten Initiative
Thursday, April 2nd: Basket raffle
Thursday, April 2nd: Wear Blue for Autism Awareness
Friday, April 3rd: Good Friday (No School)
Monday, April 6th: Easter Monday (No School)
Tuesday, April 7th: EQAO prep booklet #2 due
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