Our focus words this week were: be, give, any, like, look.

This week in Science, we continued to learn about animals that hibernate, migrate, and adapt. We learned that animals can migrate on land, in the air, and in water. We also learned that animals who adapt to survive the cold months eat a lot of food in preparation for winter to increase their body fat. They often hide food in the fall to have food throughout the winter.

We read a book titled, Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner that taught us about many animals that stay under the snow in the winter and about the animals that continue to be active above the snow. Did you know that Wood Frogs' hearts and lungs shut down completely as they sleep in the mud in frozen ponds and lakes? Seventy percent of their body freezes and then thaws out again in the Spring!

We have started an art piece based on this book that shows where each animal stays during the Winter. I will post pictures of the completed work next Friday. 

In Math, we continue to practice strategies to help us with addition. This week, we focused primarily on counting on and using a number line to help us reach the sum of an equation.

Valentines Day Information

Your child is welcome to bring in Valentines' Day cards for each of their classmates, if they choose but CBE policy is that no candy can be attached to these cards. Also, please have your child sign only their name to the cards and simply leave the To:____________ section blank or write To: My friend. This makes the passing out of cards much quicker and easier. There are 24 children in our class.

Important Dates

No school Feb 15 and 16 - Teachers' Convention or Feb 19 - Family Day.

Report Cards

Report Cards will be released at the end of January to be viewed online. 

Please see the Grade 1 Curriculum Letter below for a synopsis of what has been covered in the different curricular areas this past term.

               Math:

My apologies for this late entry. I had to leave school right after our afternoon meeting yesterday and completely forgot to post this.

The sight words we focused on this week were: went, have, her, off. Please remember to look in your child's backpack for a word list each Monday.

The students completed a page in their winter booklet about activities people enjoy doing in the colder months. We also learned about hibernation, migration, and adaptation and the students worked in small groups to sort animal pictures into these three groups. We watched a short video about Arctic Foxes that showed how the fox uses its sharp sense of hearing to track where rodents are hiding under the snow. Once they determine where the rodents are, the fox does a big dive/pounce to catch their prey. We loved watching the fox in action!  Here is the link to view the video, if you wish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdTvYMlRO9g

In Math, we continue to develop our number skills and estimation skills by doing an Esti-Mystery each week. Here is a photo of this week's mystery. The answer is 37.

We also looked at the following photograph to determine and discuss which sign does not belong. There are many possible answers.  You may want to ask your child which one they would choose and can share your thinking with them as well. It is always interesting to hear the different perspectives. The students are becoming keen observers and can articulate their reasoning well. We have just started to learn how to effectively use a number line to help us reach the sum of an addition question.

The students did a lot of writing in their notebooks this week. They enjoy the opportunity to share their work during Author's Chair where a few students are randomly chosen to read their writing. This week they wrote about 4 or 5 things they did on the weekend and wrote sentences to describe a picture they were given of a boy and a girl in their backyard.

We have a new Music teacher named Mrs. Darr. The children had Music twice with her this week. 

Please return Home Reading books on Monday and library books by Tuesday.

I hope you all can find time to get outside and enjoy the warm(er) weather this weekend. Have fun! :)

Happy New Year everyone! It's hard to believe we've only been back 5 days. It's been a long but good week back. :)

This week's focus words were: has, want, said, from, are. 

You may have noticed that your child came home on Monday with a list of these words in their backpack. Please watch for a list each Monday. You may wish to copy these words onto slips of paper to use as flashcards for practice and review throughout the week. Looking for these words in the Home Reading and library books your child brings home, practicing reading and spelling them, and having your child put them into sentences goes a long way in making these sight words readily identifiable. 

This week we worked on writing a variety of sentences - both telling sentences and questioning sentences. Our focus remains on ensuring the sentence begins with an uppercase letter, ends with a period, question mark or exclamation mark, and that spaces are left between words. As the students build their sight word vocabulary and their ability to identify letter blends such as; th, sh, and ch, their ability to express their ideas through writing increases.

In Science, we have been learning about matter. This week we learned how matter can be manipulated through stretching, tearing, cutting, breaking, and twisting. By using a ball of playdough, the children experimented with these different forms of manipulation. Using the playdough, a pipe cleaner, googly eyes, and popsicle sticks, they were challenged to create a creature. After they sketched their creation into their journals, they had to manipulate the materials to create a second creature. We learned that although the structure could be changed, the base materials remained the same.

We watched a story on Youtube called Squirrel's New Year's Resolutions. We discussed that a resolution often means making a promise to ourselves and/or setting a goal for ourselves. The students each wrote about one thing they'd like to get better at this year and one thing they would like to learn. You may wish to ask your child to share their goals with you.

We had less than half the class in attendance today. For those who were here, we enjoyed getting together with our Grade 4 buddies to make beautiful snowflakes out of Q-tips. We watched a short video that explained how snow crystals are formed and we looked at some snowflakes that had been magnified to observe their beautiful and unique structures.

Please return Home Reading books on Monday and library books on Tuesday.

Please remember that Monday is a Professional Development Day for teachers and there will be no school for students. See you on Tuesday!

Have a wonderful weekend and stay warm!