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- Library Book Exchange
- National Day of Truth and Reconciliation (September 30), NO SCHOOL
- School Picture Day
- Thanksgiving, NO SCHOOL
