Thank you for helping your child count out and bring in 100 items for our 100th Day celebration this past Wednesday. We have the following display up in the classroom to show many different object representations of 100.

The students enjoyed rotating through four of the Grade 1 classrooms on Wednesday afternoon to take part in different learning activities focused on 100. Our classroom's activity was a workout that included 10 sets of 10 different active exercises and 10 sets of 10 stretches and yoga poses.

Our weekly words were: ill, spill, all, fall, small. The students had daily practice reading these words in a variety of sentences and created their own written sentences using these words. The students' writing is constantly improving. I am really impressed with their willingness to sound out words by applying many of the phonics skills taught so far this year. 

We started to work on a class research page on Polar bears today. We have been learning many interesting facts about these mammals and are learning how to organize our learning into the following categories; Food, Habitat, Life Cycle, Appearance, and Fun Facts.

In Math, we have shifted our focus from addition to subtraction. The students have been practicing using a number line and a hundred chart to solve subtraction problems. Next week, we will be learning about fact families and will see how addition and subtraction are related.

Today, we met up with our Grade 4 buddies. Mrs. Miller talked to the students about Black History Month and read them a book about an artist named Alma Thomas who lived in the United States. The students made bookmarks inspired by Alma's art. Mrs. Miller also spoke briefly about Viola Desmond and showed the students Viola's picture on our $10 bill.

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

Next Wednesday is Pink Shirt Day. Please encourage your child to wear a pink shirt to school as a reminder to be kind to others.

Next week, Mrs. Burch and I hope to take the students on a community walk to look at some of the landmarks in our community as well as to make observations of nighbourhood elements such as; community mailboxes, bus stops, pedestrian crosswalks, fire hydrants, light standards, etc. Our walk will be weather-dependent but will most likely occur later in the week.

Unfortunately, I was away sick for most of the three days this week, aside from Monday morning, so this week's blog will be short and sweet.

Our focus words were: lost, must, just, best, and fast.

The students listened to stories about love and kindness and wrote ways in which they can demonstrate both this emotion and virtue towards family, friends, and strangers.

We continued to learn about polar bears by reading books and watching video clips and we recorded interesting facts about their appearance, their adaptations, and how they hunt.

In Math, we continued to work at adding 3 addends, practicing different addition strategies, solving oral word problems involving 3 addends, and playing a game to practice identifying odd and even numbers.

The students did a Valentine's heart line-art project which involved using many different types of lines and colours. They also decorated a Valentine's Day card bag.

I will be sending home new books on Tuesday for those who are doing Home Reading. I apologize that I was unable to send new materials home this week.

Please remember that there will not be school on Monday, Feb.19th due to Family Day.

*** Important 100th Day of School Information***

Next Wednesday, February 21, we will be celebrating our 100th day of school. We will be celebrating this day with different learning activities all focused on the number 100. The students will be rotating through 4 stations on Wednesday afternoon to participate in the different activities. We have been learning how to represent 100 through tallies, ten frames, and base ten blocks and we'd love to see other representations of 100 from the students.

* If possible, please have your child bring in 100 small items in a small ziploc bag with their name on it to show to their classmates. The items could be things such as Lego pieces, buttons, macaroni noodles, cereal pieces, beads, dried beans, etc. Please have your child count these with you to ensure you have 100. You may wish to have your child sort the items into groups of 5s or 10s for quicker counting. The items will be returned the following week. We will be making a temporary display of the items in the classroom for the students to see all the different "looks" of 100. Thanks for your support!

I hope you all enjoy a wonderful Family Day long weekend! :)

Our focus words this week were all from the "ick" word family: pick, quick, thick, chick, and kick. We practiced reading, spelling, and writing these words in sentences throughout the week.

We have started to learn about polar bears as part of our Science curriculum. We've read non-fiction books and watched videos to learn facts about these incredible animals. The students have especially enjoyed watching videos of young cubs as they emerge from their snow den for the first time in their lives. Here's a link for a BBC two-minute video, if you're interested. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwZH_aT0FGI

Two facts about the polar bears we learned this week and found to be very interesting were about the colours of polar bears' fur and skin. You may want to ask your child to share this information with you.

We did a polar bear art piece using chalk and oil pastels yesterday. I forgot to take pictures but will try to remember to post some next week. In the meantime here's an example:

In Math, we practiced adding the numbers 0 - 10 to 10 and continued to review and practice adding doubles up to a sum of 20. I will be sending home two games with the students next week that we have been playing in class to strengthen our skills.

The students have really enjoyed being introduced to the game of curling in Gym over the past two weeks. They have learned the correct form to use when throwing a curling rock and have learned how to score. Please see Mr. van Sluys's blog post for more information and photos.

Today we met with our Grade 4 Buddies. The students listened to a story read by Mrs. Miller called Nian, The Chinese New Year Dragon. Afterward, they made a paper dragon puppet to celebrate this holiday that begins today. 

Upcoming dates:

Wed. Feb 14th - Your child is invited to wear red or pink or both to celebrate the day. We will be doing learning activities in class related to kindness, caring, love, and friendship next week.

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.

There is no school Thurs. Feb. 15 or Fri. Feb. 16 due to Teachers' Convention and no school Mon. Feb. 19 for Family Day.

Mrs. McLean will be away next week so we will not be doing a book exchange at the library. Your child is welcome to keep their book until Feb. 27.

Please return Home Reading books on Monday if you have not yet done so.

Our focus words this week were: do, bring, back, of, ate. We also focused on the letter blends "pl" and "gl".

This week in Math we continued to practice the effective use of a number line for addition and focused on learning and/or reviewing the double facts - 2+2, 3, 3+3, etc.

In Science we completed our Winter Booklet, focusing on what different animals do in winter as well as significant natural signs of the season. The students also completed their Under and Over the Snow art. I meant to include some photos of their art in this week's blog for you to see but forgot to take pictures - my apologies. I will make sure they are included next week!

We have been using picture prompts to inspire writing recently. This week, the students were given a drawing of two children playing in a snowy park and were asked to describe what they saw with as much detail as possible. We are beginning to add colour, size, and texture words to our writing as well as more details to answer questions such as, Who?, What?, Where?, When?, and Why?.

Today, we watched short clips of Groundhog Day celebrations in Ontario, Nova Scotia, and here at home. The groundhogs in Ontario and Nova Scotia predicted that spring is on its way while our Balzac Billy told of more weeks of winter. We shall see! 

Please refer to last week's blog post for important information regarding Valentine's Day and upcoming dates.

I hope you all enjoy a relaxing weekend and perhaps the chance to play in fresh snow! Enjoy. :) 

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!