Happy Spring Break!

Even though it was a short week, we were able to get lots done!

Our community! We made little homes during science
to put on he streets and neighbourhoods. 

It was great to see everyone at the Student Led Conferences Monday night! They worked really hard to prepare all their projects and assignments to show you!

In Science, we build our cars! Before we got started we talked about how vehicles move, what shape works best for wheels and how axels help in vehicles to make them move. Then they put on their creative hats and started to build, build, build!! Thank you so much for all your donations for our supplies! 

Students also had the chance to show off their Daily 5 routines! They were able to choose a couple Good Fit Books and find a spot to Pick & Stick and practice their Reading to Self. They are becoming such independent workers it is amazing!
At Word Work they were able to show which are their favourite stations between magnetic letters, rainbow writing or stencils.
They were extremely proud of their writing and so am I! Their independent writing has come so far since September!

Acting silly too!

This week we played a new game that will be available to them during Word Work time! It is called Real or Silly? The students will be able to pick a word family, roll a consonant dice, and decide - is that a real word or a silly word? and then they chart it down into their word work books. They really took off with this and loved finding the silly words.

In Math we had a focus on 3D shapes this week and what they are and look like. We listened to the book "Captain Invincible and the Space Shapes" as an introduction to six 3D shapes: cones, pyramid, cylinder, cube, sphere and rectangular prism. Once we named them, students were in groups and examined the shapes and told all they could about them. On the board we made a large chart of all the attributes of these shapes. Using hoola hoops we sorted the shapes into 2 groups using one attribute rule.

Throughout the week they have gotten to opportunity to explore, describe and sort 3D shapes in partners and in groups.


On our last day before break, the whole school participated in an afternoon of thinking about our Mental Health. Students were paired from Grades K- 6 and ventured around the school to seven different sessions; Mindful eating,Self Care, Imagination Stations, Drama, Collaborative Art, Drumfit and Yoga.

Have a wonderful Spring Break! Remember, Raz-kids is a great way to practice reading reading reading over the break! Students should know how to log in as themselves, as they use this app during read to self every week.

Lucky, Little Week!

Lego Contest! 

Mrs. Hicks has announced our annual Lego contest! This year our theme is CANADA! The flyer with information about the event is below. Any questions, let me know! 

This week in Math we have begun to discuss 2D & 3D Shapes. Students have spent time observing different 2D and 3D shapes and coming up with attributes. Then we have spent some time sorting these shapes based on how they look, feel or other attributes.

At the beginning of the week, the students read out their beginning, middle and end books of Bear's Dream to the class.

In Daily 5, we are continuing to work on our 4 centers; Listening to reading, Work on Writing, Word Work and Read to Self. Next week, during our Student Led Conferences they will get the opportunity to show you what this looks like in our class!

The students are loving Author's chair during Daily 5. This is when they get to share what they worked on with the class. This week's writing topic was, "How would you make a leprechaun laugh" and there were some pretty hilarious ideas!

This week, after our spelling pretest we worked in pairs to put our spelling words into sentences. Students had to use 3 spelling words to create a sentence that told who, what, and where.


We had a visitor in our class sometime on Wednesday night and Early Thursday Morning! When we came into our class on St. Patrick's day there was footprints all over the room! Also around the room there were tiny pieces of gold! The students collected the gold and on a piece of paper we grouped the gold by 5's and counted how much gold we found by 5's! This was so exciting! BUT Leprechauns are mischievous, tricky and smart! When we came back from snack our gold had turned to dust! Turns out it was FOOL's gold!

Well our Grade 1's were not impressed! We have put out wanted signs looking for our mischevious friend! Students created a name for him (or her! We reallly don't know!) and made a plan for how they could catch him (or her!).

Important Announcements: 

Swimming forms went home this week! Our Swimming lessons will begin April 20th and run for six weeks every Wednesday. Our Lessons are first thing in the morning, so please have your child come to school with their swimsuit under their clothes! We will be leaving right at the beginning of the day. Another handy thing is to pack a granola bar or snack separate from their lunch they could bring with them (as we will be missing snack at school).

The first form that went home had last years pricings for the bus. A correction letter was sent home on Wednesday.
The final total for this years lessons is $39.15. 

Spring Break starts March 24th. There is no school Thursday March 24th. Classes resume Monday, April 4th.

In Like a Lion!

Our Daily 5 routines are getting stronger and stronger! Students have really been focusing on picking Good Fit Books using the IPICK strategy. With home reading, I am having students read their books to me once and week and now encouraging them to use the IPICK strategy to choose their own home reading books for their folders in the mornings.

This week we introduced Magnetic Letters in Word Work! We started out with our spelling pretest! In small groups students used the magnetic letters to spell their new words this week. It went really well! It is so great to see everyone doing so great on their weekly spelling tests! This will now be a new center open to them during word work.

In Writing this week, we have been focusing a lot on Story Elements. These are the 5 parts we see in most stories that include: Title, Characters, Setting, Problem and Solution. When reading books before bed, or anytime at home, encourage your child to find the 5 elements within your story! 

We started off the week reading Alaska's Three Bears. After we found the 5 story elements the students retold the story by what happened in the beginning, middle and end.

 Later in the week, we tried this again but in groups! After reading Bear's Dream, the students were in groups of three and each student had their own section to write about (beginning, middle or end). Together, they retold the story and read them aloud to their classmates.

In Math, we are wrapping up our Numbers to 100. Ask you child to practice their skip counting, counting to 100. 

Our next unit will be 2D  & 3D Shapes.

In Science, we started up our Building Things unit. Throughout this unit students will get the chance to build different objects using recycled materials.

If you have any cereal, granola, cookies and cracker boxes, egg cartons, milks jug, juice cans, etc. feel free to send them in with your child! We're starting our junk collection. 

We started the unit by brainstorming all the things in the world we could build. Then we sorted them into 4 categories, Buildings, Vehicles, Furniture and Toys.

In Social, we read about how to take care of our world. We read that as people and community members we take care of our air, trees, water, plants and animals. When we take care of these things it makes our world a happier and more beautiful place to live. 

We brainstormed different ways that ways that we can take care of each of these parts of our world and created comic strips of people taking action! 

Student Led Conferences are on March 21st this year, from 5:00pm - 7:00pm. Students and their families are invited to come to the school into their child's classroom and the students will lead you in activities to showcase their learning. 

February Went Fast!

February always seems to fly by!

We wrapped up our unit on Senses by discussing different limitations we have with our senses. We talked about different types of hearing loss and what assistive technology there is for those who have hearing impairments. Students also practiced their sign language! This was pretty interesting to watch them try and we've even implemented some common signs into our classroom! We now can ask to go to the bathroom using the proper sign!

We also discussed how we can have vision loss or different kinds of blindness. We looked at some colour blindness tests, tried completing small tasks without the use of our eyes and finally felt books made with braille. Each student created their name in braille using split peas and the braille alphabet!

In Language Arts we have introduced Listen to Reading during our Daily 5 time. This center gives students the opportunity to listen to books read on tape, CD or through Raz-kids. Students are loving it so far!

With Word Work, students are having new ways to work with words introduced every week. This week the stencils were brought out to practice their spelling and popcorn words.

 

While working on writing, we have been focusing on writing strong 5 star sentences! These are sentences that tell us who, what, where, why and have detail. We have been reading quite a few books on Polar Bears to inspire out writing - both fiction and non - fiction. We are working really hard to remember to capitalize the beginning word of a sentence only (unless its an important name or place), finger spacing and periods at the end.

In Social, we are learning how to take part in our community. As a class we brainstormed what ways we can participate in our community and give back. As good citizens it is important to take care of the community we live in to keep it beautiful and a happy place to live. Once we brainstormed ways to take part we made posters and put them up around the school.

                              

In Math, we have been talking about showing numbers to 100 in various ways. This week we focused on representing numbers using place value. The students worked in pairs to play tens and ones horse races! The higher number gets ti go onto the race track!

Our next unit in Science is Building Things! This means we're calling for recyclables! Cracker boxes, cereal boxes, granola boxes! You got them, we want them! 

Send them in with your child :)