Wrapping up April!

I can't believe its almost May! This year has flown by!

With our Fundrasing efforts, we are planning to have a snack sale in the halls the week of May 17-19th. If you would like to contribute snacks or baked goods please let me know as soon as possible. 

Every Tuesday and Thursday we do our 5 minute quick write - this is where I ask the students a question and they have 5 minutes to tell me as much as they can! They are becoming such budding writers! 

This week we have introduced a Daily 5 Station during Science! We discussed Read to Someone, the expectations and what it looks like. We talked about EEKK and read a little poem. This is what Read to Someone looks like. 

Together, students read their Seasons story. We are still focusing on Spring and what we can find in this season. This week we focused on Spring Weather! It can be unpredictable at times, but we usually see some of the same things. 

Students made a web of the weather they would see in Spring and dressed "Tony" in some spring clothing.

In Social, we are talking about Landmarks! Our friend, Barnaby the Bear, is travelling all around Alberta and sent us post cards from various places. We can see on the post cards the landmarks that are unique to those communities. Afterwards, we brainstormed which landmarks are unique or important to Leduc and made our own post cards! Keep your eyes open for them in your mail!

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We also are still swimming every Wednesday! Our students are making me so proud with how well they are listening to their instructors! 

Thank you for packing extra snacks, it really helps them, as when we get back they are starving! 

Just a Few notes from EEPA: 

May 2 – FREE hot lunch for all staff and students provided by a community donation and EEPA. Each student will receive one (1) hot dog, small bag of chips and a juice box at lunch. If you have any food allergies, please contact eastparentcouncil@gmail.com ASAP.

May 6 – Family Spring Dance!! 6:00-8:30pm in the school gym, doors open at 6:00. $5/family at the door. Prizes available! Please watch your agendas and emails from the office for more information. If you can volunteer for the dance, please email Kristie at t.k.m.henderson@hotmail.com

June 9 – 6:30-8:30pm Paint Nite Fundraiser in the school gym. Help support our school programs and have fun with your friends! Advance tickets available at:

http://paintnite.com/pages/events/view/edmonton/1073218http://paintnite.com/pages/events/view/edmonton/1073218 .

More information will follow in the newsletter and by email. If you have any questions, please email: eastparentcouncil@gmail.com

First Grade Fundraisers!

Wow! I am so impressed with all the students and staff at East! First off, two students from our class decided to have an ice tea stand over the weekend and decided to donate all their profits to our Fundraiser for the Stollery! This just melts my heart!

With our Guess Jar this week we had a very popular treat, Warheads! Students from every Grade were very excited to make a guess! With each guess being only 25 cents, this week we raised 48.75 for the Stollery!!!






In Language Arts, we are continuing to work with Fairy Tales. This week we focused on different versions of the story of the Three Little Pigs! We started off with reading The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark. Once we read this story we talked about the characters and their feelings, the fish are scared and homes are ruined, but the shark is just looking for something to eat! Then the students made a choice on who to support; Shark or Three Little Fish? They had to explain why they made their choice.

Later in the week, we read The Three Little Robots and the Big Bad Robot and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. We looked at the similarities and differences in all the versions of this story.
After reading, students made WANTED posters for the villain of their choice!

In Math, we wrapped up 2D & 3D shapes and are moving onto Adding and Subtracting to 20! Students started this unit by looking at a picture and practicing creating their own number sentence from what they see. They did awesome!

Next week we will start working on Adding and Subtracting to 20 with Tens frames and reviewing our Mental Math Strategies.

In Science, we have started talking about Spring! We went on a nature walk in the outdoor classroom and searched for all different signs of springs; buds, green grass, birds, bugs, etc.

In Social, we are talking about where we are in our world. We discussed the parts of a map, types of maps (globes count too) and where Canada is on the globe.

Swimming went great! They were really focused during their lessons and listened to their instructors!
 


Swimming will continue every Wednesday, 930-10.

Spring is here!!!!

Spring is here and it is warming up!

This week we have started a big focus on Fairy Tales in Language Arts. We have read 3 different versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears and compared their Story Elements (Titles, Character, Setting, Problem and Solution). We started off with Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs. 
Once we read the story we discussed the story elements. Each student was given a sticky and a story element to illustrate. Afterwards we practiced how to retell a story, including the beginning, middle and end.


Then we read Goldie and the Three Bears, and practiced our letter writing skills. Each student wrote their own apology note to the bears for eating their food, breaking their chairs and sleeping in their beds. They did great!


In Daily 5, during Work on Writing they are learning how to retell a fairy tales using, Once upon a time, describing what happens first in the beginning, next in the middle and finally at the end.

In Math, we worked on sorting 3D shapes based on one attribute in pairs. Students would create their own rule and sort their shapes.
We also spent some time on 10Monkeys Math World. Right now our school is in a competition and we have a free membership on the site. Students can practice number skills, patterns, shapes and time on this site.

In Science, we brought in our Goldilocks stories and read the original tale. In the original Goldilocks breaks baby bears chair! This was a great opportunity to talk about purpose of things we build. Students were directed to build a Chair for our Bear! They were shown a teddy and given lego to build a chair that would hold the bear, fit his bottom and not fall over. Then they drew and labelled their chair and its parts.

 
                               

Then we looked at 10 of the tallest buildings in the world! When we looked at them we noted their shape and the materials they were made of. Afterwards, the students went to centers to see what materials would make the best towers out of, recycled materials, blocks, 3D Shapes, and small shape blocks.

       











In Social, we are moving into  Me in My World! We read a short story about looking out windows and talked about all the different landscapes you could see. If we lived in India, what would we see out our window? Antarctica? Is it similar or different to ours? Students then worked in pairs and went to a window in the school to draw - what do you see?

Our first week of fundraising is going great! There are lots of quarters in our donation tin and some guesses have come pretty close!

Remember it is only 25c a guess and all proceeds go to the Stollery!

Duffle Bag Theatre & Pj Pancake Day!

Friday started off great with our PJ and Pancake day! Lots of students were here and ready for 8 am! The pancakes were fluffy, covered in syrup and delicious. Thank you to all of our support staff for putting this on for us! 

Also, in the afternoon we were so lucky to have the Duffle Bag theatre here! This a a threatre troupe who performs around Canada and they were absolutely hilarious! 

They performed the Three Musketeers with a little help from the audience. 

As part of our Social Studies curriculum, we are taking part in our world and community. We have decided as a class to start a fundraising campaign. The students were shown three different charities in and around our community, which then as a class we voted which to fundraise for. The results were: The Stollery Children’s Hospital! We will be starting fundraising from April to June 24th and our target goal is $200.

To fundraise, we have decided to have the following events:

Guess How Many? (April - May)

A jar in the office will hold a variety of different objects. Students and staff  donate 25 cents to “Guess How Many!” At the end of each week the winner will be announced and given a prize.  

Possible Parent Donations: Items to put in the jar (pretzels, candies, erasers, pencils, etc.)

Snack Sale (May; date TBD)

Our take on a bake sale! We will be selling baked goods and healthy snacks at snack break to students for 50 cents. We like to promote the importance of healthy foods to keep our minds and bodies healthy. We are hoping to have homemade snacks. If you are interested in baking goods, creating healthy snacks, or volunteering time please let me know!!

Possible Parent Donations: Veggies, Fruits, Baked goods.

       Volunteer time.

Book Sale (June 21)

Do you have a lot of unused children’s books at home? This is a great way to switch up some of the books you have at home before summer break! Bring in any used or old children’s books your family or friends would like to donate. Any reading level will be accepted, as long as it is child appropriate. The book sale will be held the week of June 21st. Books may be sent to school after May 1st.

Possible Parent Donations: Books,

             Volunteer time.

If you have any interest in volunteering or donating items please let me know as soon as possible!