Family Literacy day is January 27th and is celebrated during Family Literacy week. At Ethel Milliken we encourage all of our students along with their families to participate and support the joy of reading! There are many reasons why reading is so important; it makes you smarter, it improves your vocabulary and language skills and it boosts your creativity. There are ways for every family to amalgamate daily activities with learning. Here are some suggestions from the ABC Life Literacy Canada web-site:

Daily literacy activities

Learning happens in many ways, especially in our day-to-day activities. Tasks such as cooking, doing laundry, running errands and surfing the Internet all provide learning opportunities that your family can embrace.

Here are 10 fun and easy ways to make literacy part of your family's daily life.

1. When making your grocery list, have your child write out the items you need to buy.

2. At the store, ask your child to count out the money to make the purchase.

3. Make it a habit to always read a story together at bedtime.

4. When cooking dinner, involve your children in measuring the ingredients. This helps them understand fractions and measurements.

5. Driving is the perfect opportunity to practice literacy. Read signs, billboards and license plates together, and show your children the proper way to read a map.

6. While on the Internet, make time to research something new that your family is interested in. Researching skills are important and help with reading and comprehension.

7. In the car, sing along to songs on the radio. Singing encourages learning patterns of words, rhymes and rhythms, and is strongly connected to language skills.

8. When playing a board game, read the instructions aloud to each other or count how many spaces to travel around the board.

9. Involve your kids when you pay bills. This will teach them strong financial skills early on in life.

10. Children follow by example, so ensure reading is part of your daily life too!

For more family literacy tips, activity ideas and Family Literacy Day® information please visit www.abclifeliteracy.ca or www.FamilyLiteracyDay.ca.

Our school community council is also active in supporting literacy! Check out the EMSCC Book Blog to see what Milliken is reading these days. We also would like to know what you are reading and post it on our book blog. Click here to find out more.

Structural Innovation involves the implementation and actualization of new ideas regarding how to improve teaching and learning in the classroom, throughout the school, and across the system. These ideas are based on research, on evidence from both own and other school divisions, and on the experience of master teachers and skilled school administrators. These ideas, combined with similar innovative thinking at all Regina Public Schools will help enhance the learning process and the outcomes of all students.

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Information provided from the RPS web-site

For the 2011-2012 school year there are 266 students in 12 classrooms. The school staff consists of 12 home room teachers for grades Kindergarten to Grade 8. In addition, we have teachers for Learning Assistance, French, Arts Education, English as an Additional Language and a Teacher Librarian. The Support staff includes the Office Administrator, Educational Assistants and Custodial staff. Further support is provided by a Speech & Language Pathologist, School Counselor, Educational Psychologist, Community Health Nurse and School Resource Officer .