Week 8

 

What a wonderful week!  The weather has been great and we have been so lucky to be able to bring our learning outside and enjoy the lessons that the land is giving to us.  

Just a reminder to continue to help your student dress for the weather so they are comfortable any time we go outside.

Literacy

This week we added the letters W and Z.  

We have also been working on decoding (or sounding out) words.  The skill of taking letter sounds we know and blending them together to read words is very complex and takes a lot of mental effort and attention.  An important habit to instil in beginning readers is to look at all of the letters in the simple words they are sounding out.  It can be overwhelming to string all letters together at once, even in short CVC (eg. cat) words.  Once strategy to build up skill and confidence is to blend sound-by-sound.  Students blend the first two letters together (c-a), then say the final letter sound (t) and then go back and blend all three sounds together (ca - t).  

I Can Develop Skills for Geographic Thinking / I Can Interpret Explain How Seasons Change Living Things / I Can Use a Variety of Forms of Text to Share Information

We had prepared for our community walk by reading the book, "Into the Woods: Who's Been Here?" as a reminder to be mindful in using our senses to explore the world around us.  In the story, two siblings go on a short walk and find all sorts of evidence of the animals who live in the woods.  

We set off on our walk to look for evidence of animals that also make the community of Ramsay home.  We didn't make it very far (only to the top lookout) and we were able to find quite a bit of evidence!  We were so lucky to have been able to observe what we think is a great-horned owl.  He quite unexpectedly let his presence be known by swooping down from the arena rafters right in front of us.  We were also able to find where he had been perching and found an owl pellet! This experience gave us a really rich opportunity to discuss the animals that call Ramsay home and to talk about what adaptations they might have to survive a Calgary winter.

Once back in the classroom we were able to create some sketches of the owl in our visual journal.  We also worked on creating a map our community walk where we identified the key landmarks of the area around the school and added details of the creatures we have seen or the evidence they have left behind.

Reminders:

Monday, October 25 - Library Day

Friday, October 29 - Halloween Activities (students can wear their costumes)

Monday, November 1 - Virtual Meeting with our Fence Project Artist

Veteran's Food Bank

Hello Ramsay Families:

In honour of Remembrance Day, we will be collecting items for the Veteran’s Food Bank. If you are able to contribute, please begin sending items to school on Monday, October 25^th. We will continue to collect donations until Wednesday, November 10^th. 

 

Here is a list of their most desired contributions:

Collection list: (new items only please) 

• Gluten free non-perishable food
• Canned corn, mushrooms, beef, chilli or stew
• Canned ham or luncheon meat
• Juice
• Flour
• Unscented fabric softener and laundry detergent
• Unscented lotion
• Dishwasher pods
• Bandages

 

Thank you in advance for supporting this worthy cause. 

Week 7

 

This week we've had the chance to go out and explore the loose parts as a class and with Ms. Rowland's class.  Loose parts gives us a wonderful opportunity to practice being good friends and classmates as we navigate sharing the materials and making sure everyone feels welcome.  We also took advantage of the beautiful weather and went to visit the tamarack trees on the hill.  We used our senses to explore and notice how they were changing in response to the change in season.

Literacy:

This week we added the letters: F, B, and J.  We also added the words: you, your, said.

You have probably noticed all of the alphabet crafts that have been coming home.  We complete these crafts after learning the letter to help students remember the letter and sound.  They are called 'embedded picture mnemonics'.  Several research studies have shown that they help students learn letter sounds with fewer repetitions, less confusion, and that they aid students as they become readers and writers (spelling).  

I Can Interpret and Explain How the Seasons Change Living Things / I Can Model and Describe Numbers Up to 20/100 Concretely, Pictorially, and Symbolically 

This week were gifted some of nature's harvest from a school neighbour.  Students were given the opportunity to look at beets, navy beans, squash, onions, potatoes, carrots, corn, sunflowers, a pumpkin, and barley that were grown in a nearby garden.  We used our senses to explore them and drew what we observed in our visual journals.  

Students were also tasked with measuring the the corn stalk and sunflower with non-standard units.  This was quite tricky for a number of students and we had to talk about lining things up, choosing the right measurement unit, and where to start and end.  We even had some students experimenting with how to make their measurements more efficient by using multiple non-standard units!

Reminders:

Monday, October 18 - No School (PD Day)

Thursday, October 21 - Alternative Library Day, bring back books (normally on Mondays)

Monday, October 25 - Family Roots discussion homework is due

Week 6

 

This week we took the opportunity to go outside to the top of the hill and to the community garden to look for signs of fall.  We carefully collected different artifacts and pushed them into some air drying clay.  After we were finished we practiced really looking carefully, drawing what we see, and labeling our artifacts in our drawings.  

While we were at the top of the hill we read the story, "This Is How I Know" by Brittany Luby.  Within, a grandmother explains to a child how you can recognize the changes in the seasons.  As we sat in our sharing circle listening to it, the north wind was blowing, teaching us an important lesson from Na a.  We were quite chilly and we learned how important it is to come to school prepared for the weather - this is the time of year when many of us will welcome having a pair of gloves or mittens (and a warm hat?) when we go outside for our learning time.  Please help your child to prepare by having them pack a pair in their backpacks.

Literacy:

This week we added the letters G, O, U, and L.  We have also added three "red words" for kids to work on recognizing instantly.  Red words are words that don't follow learned spelling / sound patterns and are not possible for children in grades 1 and 2 to sound out.  These words become part of our sight word vocabulary through repeated exposure and by mapping out irregular letter/sound relationships.  We will be adding new red words on a regular basis.  The words for this week are: I, the, my

I Can Estimate Quantities Up to 20 / I Can Apply Mental Math Strategies for Addition and Subtraction within 20

One of our math tasks this week was to work on a 3 Act Task.  First we watched a short video and generated a list of observations and wonderings.  In the second act, we worked on finding a solution to one of the questions that was raised using hands on manipulatives.  In the third act, we discussed the solution as a group and had a final reveal to see if we were correct.

3 Act Tasks allow us as a class to observe the math in the world around us, have a chance to discuss what we already know, sparks our curiosity, and allows us time to stumble through solving a math problem with our classmates helping us by giving different perspectives.  Our math language vocabulary is also enriched when we are able to talk about the solution and what worked and didn't work in finding it.

In our task, students were asked to make an estimation of the length of an earth worm using a non-standard unit of measure (a block).

If you'd like to see our 3 Act Task, click here: https://gfletchy.com/shark-bait/

Week 5

You should all be very proud of the grade 1 and 2 students in both classes who worked so hard learning about Residential Schools, Orange Shirt Day, and Reconciliation and then sharing their learning with the rest of the school via a virtual assembly.  

Literacy:

We have added the letters 'M' and 'D' this week.  Throughout our letter work, grade 1 students have been focusing on letter names, letter sounds, correct letter formation while printing, and beginning to sound out simple cvc (consonant, vowel, consonant) words.  In grade 2, students have been focusing on mastery of letter formation, blending/segmenting of cvc words, and writing grammatically correct, simple sentences.  

I Can Tell About the Changes in the Seasons / I Can Find Out and Think About How I Am Connected to My World

We had so many great opportunities to get outside and learn on the land.  It has given us a wonderful opportunity to watch the seasonal changes that come with fall and to also observe first hand some community helpers (volunteers cleaning up the river and people cutting trees from around power lines).

We have been viewing seasonal changes by carefully observing the natural world around us as a guide to understanding how we and those who have come before us are affected by the change in season.  Students are noticing animals and plants as they prepare for the long, cold months of winter and making connections to how these preparations impact survival.  

Students have made some very astute observations in the differences in the Elbow River during spring and winter.  It was noted that the river was a lot lower than other times they've seen it and that sometimes it was clear enough to see the bottom but at others, it was too 'muddy'.  

We also spent some time collecting 'fall nature artifacts'.  Once we brought them back to the classroom we created some art with watercolours and sketched in in our visual journals.  Students were also challenged to create labels and captions for their sketches.  

Reminders:

October 4 - Library Day - bring books back to get new ones

October 7 - Picture Day

October 8 - PD Day - no school