In Word Work we continue to focus on words with r-controlled vowels. This week we learned many words that contain "ur". Our daily Shared Reading words were: curl, turn, hurt, and fur.

On Tuesday, we celebrated our 100th Day of School! The students enjoyed rotating through all six of the Grade 1 classrooms to participate in different activities focused on this milestone day. Please ask your child to share some of the activities they did during this day.

One of our student's (Reese) mom is a firefighter in Chestermere. She came to speak to us about working in this profession, what a day at the station can look like, the equipment that she wears and uses, how we can prevent fires, and what we need to do in the case of a fire. The students were interested to learn how much protective gear she has to wear and how much it weighs. She carries approximately 75 pounds when attending to a fire! We have been fortunate to have both her and Constable Kruger in to speak and represent community helpers. She encouraged the children to find out what their family plan is in the case of a fire - how to leave the house and where to meet (Muster point).

If you work as a community helper in any capacity and would be willing to speak to the students, I would love to hear from you. Please send me an email at jllarmer@cbe.ab.ca. Thanks in advance! :)

In Math, we continue to work at developing our strategies for solving addition and subtraction problems as well as practicing how to determine when a word problem is asking us to add and/or subtract. Next week, we will turn our focus to learning about 3D objects.

As a tie-in to our focus on Shapes we worked with our Buddies today to create square and colour art inspired by the work of the late German artist Joseph Albers. We are very fortunate to be Buddies with Mrs. Miller's class as Mrs. Miller has a great passion and talent for Art and generously shares her knowledge and excitement with us. I did not take pictures today but here are some examples of Joseph Alber's squares and a screenshot of a children's book about this great artist.

A friendly reminder that Library day is Thursday. Please help your child remember to bring back their book(s) each week. Thank you.

Next Wednesday, Feb. 26 is Pink Shirt Day. This is a day focused on showing respect, tolerance, and kindness toward one another.

There is no school next Friday as it is a Professional Development Day.

I hope you all can get outside and enjoy these warmer temps this weekend. Have fun! :)

This week we focused on r-controlled vowels. Our focus words for daily shared reading were: dirt, shark, turn, and never.

We will continue to work with r-controlled vowels for the next couple of weeks. This week we did some word work specifically with words containing "ar'. We brainstormed a big list of words we already know that have this sound and then began looking for these words around our room and in books we have been reading. The students also played a roll and read game with a partner to practice reading many "ar" words. You may want to ask your child if they can tell you some of these words. You can ask them to tell you words that rhyme with jar, car, etc. We also call this letter combo the pirate letters since they say "Arrrrr!" :)

Here is a screenshot of the game should you want to print it/copy it onto another paper and play over the weekend.

As we continued to learn about what makes up urban, suburban, and rural communities, the students were challenged to sort pictures into each category. We learned, amongst other facts, that cities have more people and cars compared to suburban communities and that rural communities are surrounded by a lot of natural or farmed spaces and the homes are widely spread apart.

We enjoyed a visit by our school-appointed police constable, Constable Kruger - or Constable Mike, as the students called him. His wife, Mrs. Kruger, is one of our Grade 3 teachers! He spoke to the students about his role as a police officer and community helper. He talked to them about his uniform and the tools on his "just in case" tool belt. He also brought a fantastic activity for the kids to do to show how they can be great citizens and "fill other people's buckets" with kind acts. We hope to have him visit our class again before the end of the year.

We started to learn about length in Science this week as related to Properties of Matter. We did a lot of hunting in the room to find things that were shorter and longer than our arm and we began using these terms to compare classroom items. Next week, we will begin to focus on how different objects move. All of this work lends itself well to our writing and word work. We are beginning to build vocabulary!

In Math, we continued to practice identifying missing numbers in Fact Families as well as create equations with the 3 numbers of many different fact families. We also played a shapes Bingo game to review the names of all the 2D shapes.

Since we will not be at school on Thursday for our library time, we will go on Tuesday instead. Please ensure your child returns their book by that day. Thank you.

I put this blurb in last week's blog regarding Valentine's Day. In case you didn't see it, here it is again:

A note about Valentines Day 

Although we are still two weeks away from Valentines Day, I know many parents are purchasing cards for their child to give to friends at this time. As Teacher's Convention is on Feb.13 and 14th, we will pass out cards on Wednesday, Feb. 12th.

If your child would like to bring Valentines cards for their classmates, please have them sign the cards with their name only so that they can be handed out in an efficient manner. Please have your child bring a card for all their classmates as we do not want anyone to feel left out. We have 21 students (including your child) in the classroom. Please do not include any sweet treats to the cards. This is a CBE policy. Thank you for your cooperation. :)

Upcoming dates:

February 12                         Red Day - To Celebrate Valentine's Day

February 13 & 14                Teacher Convention - NO SCHOOL

February 17                         Family Day - NO SCHOOL

My apologies for this late blog post.

This week we continued to focus on letter blends. The words we worked with daily during Shared Reading were: clap, glad, black, and slip.

We read the Ukrainian folktale, The Mitten adapted by Jan Brett, this week. In the story, many animals find a cozy place to find refuge from the winter weather in a boy's lost mitten. The children were asked to pay careful attention to the sequencing of events so they could complete a retelling activity afterwards. We are beginning to focus on story structure and will continue to practice identifying beginning, middle, and end as well as characters and setting in future stories. This is all in preparation to write our own stories! 

In Math, we were learning about fact families. Fact Families can be a bit of a tricky concept for some students to grasp so we will continue to work with them using visuals and moving pieces next week. Here is an example of a fact family:

We have started to learn about communities in Social Studies. We brainstormed different communities we belong to such as, family, school, classroom, sports teams, and neighbourhood. We also started to learn about urban, suburban, and rural communities. We will delve deeper into this topic next week.

In Science, we continue to learn about the properties of matter and are learning many descriptive words to use to identify and explain objects both man-made and found in nature. Next week, we will be doing many hands-on activities to learn about length, area, and weight.

On Wednesday, we celebrated Chinese New Year with stories, art, and learning some facts about this holiday from one of our classmates. 

A note about Valentines Day 

Although, we are still two weeks away from Valentines Day, I know many parents are purchasing cards for their child to give to friends at this time. As Teacher's Convention is on Feb.13 and 14th, we will pass out cards on Wednesday, Feb. 12th.

If your child would like to bring Valentines cards for their classmates, please have them sign the cards with their name only so that they can be handed out in an efficient manner. Please have your child bring a card for all their classmates as we do not want anyone to feel left out. We have 21 students (including your child) in the classroom. Please do not include any sweet treats to the cards. This is a CBE policy. Thank you for your cooperation. :)

Upcoming dates:

February 12                         Red Day - To Celebrate Valentine's Day

February 13 & 14                Teacher Convention - NO SCHOOL

February 17                         Family Day - NO SCHOOL

 

 

This week, we continued to focus on consonant blends with r. Our words were: crib, bring, friend, and drum.

We also worked with compound words. We learned that a compound word is made up of two words that have been glued together to form a new word. The students practiced identifying compound words and their root words and wrote sentences using these words.

As we continued to learn about the Grandfather Teaching of Honesty, we learned about the being that represents this Indigenous teaching. He is named Sabe (pronounced Saw-bay). Sabe is a giant (Bigfoot) because when one lives with integrity, is true to themselves, and honest with others, they walk tall.

The students coloured a Sabe designed by a Gitxsan artist from northern British Columbia named Michelle Stoney. We looked at some of her art for inspiration when choosing which colours to use. The students' Sabes are all beautiful and unique. I will post some for you to see next week but here is the design we worked with:

In Math, we continue to review and practice using the strategies of counting back, using a number line, using a drawing, and/or using fingers to solve subtraction problems. Next week, we will begin to learn about and practice using Fact Families such as 3+2=5 / 5-2=3.

In Science, we started to learn about the properties of matter and used these properties to describe toys. The properties include: colour, size, texture, weight. We will continue this work next week and will begin to incorporate this vocabulary into our writing as well.

At the end of each day, I have started to read a chapter book to the students. We are just finishing up the first book in the Magic Treehouse book series by Mary Pope Osborne titled Dinosaurs Before Dark. If you haven't heard of these books before, they are favourites with elementary school-aged children. They weave fiction with non-fiction and are always filled with exciting adventures! :)

Today, we joined our Grade 4 buddies and learned about the use of lines in art. Mrs. Miller introduced the students to many different line designs and the students created a new hairstyle for themselves using a variety of line designs. If your child did not bring their artwork home, you will see it on Monday as a few of them left their work at school! Here is an example:

Our Grade 1 Curriculum Newsletter:

As it does not come through clearly, please email me if you would like a printed copy - jllarmer@cbe.ab.ca

Please see the message below regarding our school's yearbook:

​​​​​​​McKenzie Towne School 2024/25 Yearbook ordering is now live!

To order go to: https://ybpay.lifetouch.ca/
Use Yearbook ID code: 10614125
Early Bird Pricing: $29 (Now until Feb 28, 2025)
Regular Pricing: $34 (March 1 - May 24, 2025)

Last day to order:  May 24, 2025

We would like to invite parents to submit photos of their child for the yearbook by emailing them to yearbook@mtsparents.com. Submissions can include pictures from the first day of school, Terry Fox Run, Halloween Dance, Tropical Beach Day etc.

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Our focus words this week all began with the "gr" blend - grab, grin, green, and grey. We will continue to focus on other letter blends with r next week - cr, fr, br, etc.

The students continued to develop their writing skills this week by writing a variety of sentences using a picture prompt and a word bank. The examples I am sharing below show both a well-developed entry and one that relies more on patterned sentences. Just as with reading, these skills will develop at different times for different students.

In Science, we continue to work at completing our Winter booklet. This week, we completed a page about activities people do in Winter and another one about the clothing we wear throughout the season.

The students also listened to a reading of the book, Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner and completed an art piece depicting the animals that hibernate or adapt during the winter months.

In Math, we have been developing our subtraction skills with numbers up to 20. The students have been practicing using simple drawings and number lines to solve equations as well as oral word problems.

I introduced a third Grandfather Teaching this week. It was the teaching of Honesty. We listened to a story called, Betty Bunny Didn't Do It by Michael Kaplan. We followed this up by sharing about a time when we hadn't been honest. We talked about how it felt not to tell the truth and the consequences of being dishonest.

I hope you all enjoy your weekend and the return of Winter! Stay warm. :)

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all enjoyed your holidays. 

Our focus words this week all began with "qu". They were: quiet, question, queen, and quick.

We began working on a Winter booklet this week in Science. We have started to learn more about animals and living things such as reptiles and insects that hibernate. We have been checking on the two Grizzly bears at the Hibernation Station on Grouse Mountain in North Vancouver. Here is the link for the web cam should you be interested in taking a look. https://www.grousemountain.com/web-cams/bear-den-cam

A writing task this week was for the students to write two New Year's Resolutions - one for something they want to learn this year and the other for something they want to get better at doing. Please ask your child to share what they chose to write. This work was based on a book we listened to called Squirrel's New Year's Resolutions by Pat Miller.

We did an oil pastel art piece of fireworks to accompany this writing. This work is on display in the hallway outside our classroom.

In Math, the students are being challenged to reach target numbers from 5-15 by creating addition equations. Some students have also been using subtraction to reach the target numbers. For example, if the target number is 11 the students might write 5+6, 2+2+7, etc. or 12-1, 13-2, etc. 

We have also been learning about balanced sums. The students are given two addition equations to solve and then must determine whether they are equal or not equal. We will begin to focus on subtraction next week.

Here's wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and all the very best for a happy and healthy New Year!

I look forward to seeing everyone back at school on Monday, January 6th. 

Take care,

Jennifer Larmer