September 25 - 28

 

Throughout this week we spent part of each day learning about residential schools.  We read several books to help us build understanding of some of the things that children who attended residential school endured. In addition to reading these stories we reflected on what were the important items that would help us remember or homes.  Your child would have brought their drawings home with them on Thursday.  We have also started to complete a multi-media piece of art that uses colour to represent emotions.

Science:

In science this week, we have continued our exploration of the scientific method.  We learned more about making observations using our senses by exploring popcorn.

Literacy:

This week we learned how to spell the /n/ sound.  We continued practicing to read decodable passages.

We are working on instant recognition of several words.  When students have instant recognition, it takes away a considerable amount of mental energy when reading passages.  You can help your child with their recognition of those words by pointing them out when you come across them while reading.  

HFW: and, I, the, a, is

Another activity we did this week was to make words using playdough.  Students listened for the sounds in words and and made the letters.  This is also an easy and fun way to practice at home.  The letters we have covered so far are: a (short vowel sound), s, t, m, i (short vowel sound), f, n, p

Reminders:

Monday, October 2 - 

• Library Book Exchange

Thursday, October 5 - 

• School Picture Day

Monday, October 9 - 

• Thanksgiving, NO SCHOOL

Tuesday, October 24 - 

• Field Trip to Telus Spark, more details to follow

It was a great pleasure to welcome all of the families who were able to make it to the classroom for Thursday's open house.  I hope you all enjoyed your glimpse into your child's day at school.  There will be more formalized, individual conferences in November.  

If you were unable to come to the open house, I will be sending home a couple of handouts for your reference.  The first is the user names and passwords for the apps we will be using in class (Google Classroom, Epic Books, and How to Teach Your Monster to Read).  I would encourage families to log onto Google Classroom and have a look at the "course work" section.  Throughout the year I will be adding resources that can be used by families.  The second is a list of words that we hope that all grade one students will be able to read, by sight, by the end of the year.  The third handout shows the correct formation of letters and numbers.  Building an accurate muscle memory of how to correctly form letters will help students to be more confident and capable writers.

This week during our community walk, we stopped along the way to see how mother earth is gets ready for the fall.  We stopped by our tammarack friends who are starting to turn golden, noticed the acorns from the oak trees, and stopped to look at the pears growing in the community garden.

Math:

This week we went outside for math and used natural materials to make and represent numbers.  We also continued to build our conceptual understanding of cardinality (the last number you count, represents the  quantity you have without having to recount).  We have been exploring the idea of "one more".  Children who have a weak understanding of cardinality will often recount an entire group of objects when one more object is added.  Understanding that we don't need to recount the whole group is an important stepping stone for adding and subtracting with efficiency.  

Literacy:

This week we focused on the letters f and i for our phonics instruction.  We even began to read short, decodable passages.  These passages will be coming home in the next week or two.  Families are encouraged to practice reading these and to celebrate the growth your child has.

HFW: the, and, I, a

Reminders:

Monday, September 25 - 

• Library Book Exchange

Friday, September 29 - 

• National Day of Truth and Reconciliation (September 30), NO SCHOOL

Thursday, October 5 - 

• School Picture Day

Monday, October 9 - 

• Thanksgiving, NO SCHOOL

 

 This week we took advantage of the beautiful weather and took our learning out on the land.  We stopped at the late summer larch trees on the hill to talk about how scientists make observations.  We looked closely, gently touched, cautiously smelled, and carefully listened to the larch trees (we'll leave taste for another day!).  After everyone had a chance to explore, students were asked to record their observations through drawing.  We'll revisit these trees throughout the year and record our observations in different seasons.

Literacy:

This week learned about the letter 'p' and began sounding out VC (vowel, consonant) and CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words.

We added the high-frequency word 'and' to the words we are expected to recognize at a glance.

We have also been learning about the elements of a basic sentence (beginning capital, period at the end, a 'who', and a 'doing').  

Here are some ideas for home practice:

Math:

We have been continuing to build our fluency in counting numbers up to 30 and skip counting by 2s and 5s.  We have also started writing a "5 Pairs" book as a way for us to build our fluency with facts that add up to 5 (e.g. 5+0, 4+1, 3+2).  We our hoping to build our capacity to quickly recall this group of facts without the need of fingers or other manipulatives.

Reminders:

Thursday, September 21 - 

• Terry Fox Run - 10:00am to 10:30am
• Open House - 3:30pm to 5:00pm

Friday, September 22 - 

• Non-Instructional Day, NO SCHOOL

Friday, September 29 - 

• National Day of Truth and Reconciliation (September 30), NO SCHOOL

September 5 - 8

 

My apologies, but it seems that I have not taken very many pictures this week.  

This week we have continued to build our understanding of what makes communities (especially our classroom and school communities) thrive.  We have been exploring this theme by listening to different stories that allow students the opportunity to make connections between the characters and their own lives.  We read "Invisible Lizard" to help build empathy around including others in our play.  "Memoirs of a Goldfish" helped us to understand how belonging to a community enhances our lives and "Up the Creek" helped us to understand the value of working together.

Literacy:

We will continuing our review of the alphabet and the sounds that the letters spell over the next several weeks.  This will help lay the foundation for reading short words and eventually passages of text.  As part of our review we have been creating embedded picture mnemonic letter crafts.  These letter crafts will help your child to learn letter-sound correspondence more quickly and with less confusion.  When your child brings them home, have them share the sound associated with the letter.

Phonics: M, S, T

High Frequency Words: the, I

 

Math:

We have been looking at different ways of counting as we continue to build our understanding of counting principles (counting words represent a quantity, the last number said represents the total, you can can items in any order, etc.).  

Reminders:

Friday, September 15 - 

• Early Dismissal at 12:41pm

Thursday, September 21 - 

• Open House - More Details to follow

Friday, September 22 - 

• Non-Instructional Day, NO SCHOOL

Friday, September 29 - 

• National Day of Truth and Reconciliation (September 30), NO SCHOOL

August 31 - September 1

We had a wonderful couple of days getting to know each other and settling into some of our routines.  Everyone has been so enthusiastic and ready to get started with grade 1. 

This week we began to learn about our classroom and school community and have begun building an understanding of how we can demonstrate caring for others, our learning, the school, and ourselves.  We started this work by reading the story, "Our Class is a Family" by Shannon Olsen.  Afterwards, we as a class decided what kind of family we would like our classroom to be and we came up with these expectations (in no particular order):

• Use kind words
• Keep our hands (and body parts) to ourselves
• Raise your hand to share
• Try your best
• Use walking feet inside the school
• Share classroom materials
• Make mistakes

We also started working on making our classroom feel comfortable by creating self-portraits to hang in our library area.  Students enjoyed looking carefully at themselves in the mirror and drawing what they saw.

Literacy:

For phonics this week we have focused on the letter 'a' (short vowel sound).  Students worked on recognizing the letter and listening for the /a/ sound in the beginning and middle of words.  We also practiced printing both the lower case and capital a with proper spacing and formation.  

For the next several weeks, will be continuing to work on building our fluency with letter recognition and our phonemic awareness of the sounds that are represented by the letters of the alphabet.  We will be learning our letters in an order that will allow students to build confidence and we may even begin to work on sounding out simple words in the next couple of weeks.

Please ask your child about the 'apple' they brought home on Friday.

Math:

Over the next month we will be working on strengthening our fluency and recall of numbers within 20.  We will build a strong foundation for representing these numbers with digits, base ten blocks, ten frames, tallies, and number lines.  We will also be working on instant recall of numbers that add up to 5.

Reminders:

Monday, September 4 - 

• Labour Day, NO SCHOOL

Wednesday, September 6 - 

• School Council Taco Potluck

Time: 5:30-7:30pm

Location: Ramsay Rink (2040 Ramsay St SE)

The School Council will host a taco potluck. Bring a taco filling or topping to share along with a picnic blanket and/or chairs. Taco shells, tortillas, cookies, and drinks will be provided.