December 12th

It is a busy time of year, but the students continue to work diligently.  We have been writing procedures using transition words.  Ask your child some of the procedures they have written.  We have discussed that writing procedures it a step by step process in teaching someone how to do something.  Therefore, the students should be choosing topics they are either a "practitioner" or "expert" in.  Ask your child some of the topics they have chosen.  The students are learning not only to use transition words, but to ensure they are giving enough detail.  In our reading program, we have been looking at the idea of ready through the eyes of the writer.  That is, looking at things that writers do and why we think they do this. I would read a book and the students would investigate the author's patterns in writing and then express why they think the author does this.  We have been doing a Mo Willems unit.  Some students discussed the use of punctuation marks and speech bubbles to show excitement and try to be funny.  Other students looked at how he puts other characters in his stories from his other books to keep the reader interested.  

In math, the students are learning about linear measurement.  In grade one, they use non standard units, so we have started with hands, feet, and classroom materials as our units of measure.  We will continue with this unit for the next couple of weeks.  Ask your child a few of the "rules" when measuring an object. Try writing a procedure at home on how to measure a table. In science, the students continue to learn about energy.  This week, we have discussed the use of electricity.  We will move into the idea of conservation to end our unit. 

November 28th

Hello everyone,

Last week was quite a busy week with ending a math unit and starting a new science unit.  The students have completed their Patterning unit, but will have one more review session on Thursday.  We have started our new unit on addition this week.  Last week the students started their science unit on Energy.  Scientist in the School came in to jump start the unit.  Scientist Zane discussed heat, light, solar, and wind energy.  She also discussed ways we can conserve energy in the home.  This week, the students have a small activity to complete at home.  Please check your child's agenda for the instructions.

The students also had their first formal lesson in their spelling program.  Each week, they practice their spelling words by completing different activities and then they have a spelling test on Friday.  Please ensure they are practicing their words at home as well.  The students however, will not have spelling tests on four day weeks.  The students also started a new writing unit on Procedural writing. Procedural writing can be described as "How To" writing.  The students are responsible for learning transition words and giving specific instructions that make sense.  Ask your child for a few transition words.

November 21st

Hello everyone,

My apologies for the late posting.  The students have been working diligently and I've seen so much progression in their stamina, enthusiasm to learn, reading fluency and writing. They should celebrate their success.  Since the last posting, the students have completed their Data Management unit and should have brought home their evaluation (rubric). They should have also brought home their social studies unit on Roles and Responsibilities and their science unit on Daily and Seasonal Cycles. Please let me know if you have any questions.

We are currently working on Patterning in math.  Ask your child what they have to know by the end of the unit.  Some key vocabulary words are: repeating, core, attribute, and extend.  We have also started a new writing unit on Procedural Writing this week.  We will continue to work on this writing unit over the next couple of weeks.  In science, the students are learning about Energy.  We have discussed that energy is the ability to do work and that they are different sources of energy. The students will be doing a STEM activity with their learning buddies this week.

The students have also been learning about how to assess their own progression using levels 1 to 4.  These levels are connected to the words: novice, apprentice, practitioner, and expert.  The reasoning behind the words is to create the mindset that we can improve our skills rather than being "stuck" in a particular mark/grade. Please ask your child to explain these words to you.  You can also ask them to share with you their writing goal. 

Monday, October 24th

Hello everyone,

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend.  Last week, the students continued to learn and review graphing in math.  The students are starting to survey their friends and analyze the data from their results.  The students are beginning to understand that some people may get different results.  Ask your child why this may be the case (asked different people). We are also using the number line to help with counting forwards and backwards.  We are learning the strategy where we start at a particular number and count from there rather than always starting at the number one.  This strategy will assist in adding numbers.  We have been adding and subtracting by one and two, so they understand that numbers are in relation to one another rather than isolated digits. 

The students also created artwork last week.  We have been learning about different lines and the primary colours.  They used different lines for the background of their art pieces and used the primary colours as the foreground.  Ask your child which lines they chose to use in their artwork. 

One component in our language program is letter and sound recognition (phonemic awareness).  The students have been given letter tiles to review letters and sounds. The students are learning that all words must have both vowels and consonants.  We have also been brainstorming different words for word families, such as "ing", "at", "ell" etc.  We will continue to learn and use this strategy to help the students stretch out their words.  Every week starting today, the students will be given 5 letters to make words. The bonus word is using all of the letters.  Let's see how many words they can come up with.

Happy Monday everyone!

Even though last week was a short week, it was very busy.  We had Blue Jay Day for a spirit day and we had the opportunity to dress up for Scrabble Day because we reached our Terry Fox goal of $10,000.  That is truly amazing!

The students continued with some of their routines, such as printing and the morning meeting.  We also learned a new poem about vowel pairs.  Ask your child the rule for when there are two vowels together.  The students are learning the concept of vowels and consonants.  This is a great writing strategy for the beginning of grade one.  They are learning to stretch out words they are unfamiliar with and to ensure a vowel is included in each word.

In math, the students have been surveying their classmates on different questions.  The class had a few "I wonder" questions about the data in our graphs.  For example, one "I wonder" question was "What would the data look like if we asked another grade one class?" The students were so excited that we also asked our learning buddies' class.  Ask your child for the results.  They were enthusiastic to analyze and compare the data.  We will continue to learn about graphs for the month of October.

We also had art class last week in which the students had the opportunity to experiment with the primary colours.  They figured out that putting more of one colour can change the shade of the secondary colour.  Ask your child what the primary colours are and why we describe them as the primary colours.