We have been reading a few stories the last few days to help us understand recounts and personal narratives.  We have been reading each story and trying to figure out why it is a good example of a recount and personal narrative.  The students have chosen one "moment" that they will be writing about tomorrow.  They had to brainstorm different ideas about their moment, such as what they saw, how they felt, and even what they might have heard.  Talk at home with your child about the moment they chose to give them some ideas to write about.  We also had the opportunity to measure different objects in the classroom using different units of measure.  Ask your child what they have to remember when measuring different objects.

It was the 100th day of school today!  The students had a great time counting to 100 by making 100th day hats and playing the math game race to 100.  They also made pictures using the number 100.  Ask your child what they made out of the number 100.  Even for our bell work today, the students had to write 100 words! A favourite activity for the 100th day of school is the Fruit Loop Necklace.  Yes, they made those as well!  We had a exciting day.  We will continue with our regular program tomorrow.  We will start linear measurement in Math (measuring length) and write recounts for our writers' workshop.  We have been writing recounts every Monday with On the weekend I... however, we will look at the different criteria for recounts.  We will also being our guided reading groups next week.  In Social Studies, the grade one students are learning about different community helpers and the grade two students are learning about Lunar New Year.

Valentine's Day is this Friday, so the students may bring Valentine's Day cards to hand out to the students.  If your child does decide to hand out cards, please ensure he/she gives a card to each student in the class.

The students have been working on their Flat Stanley letters this week.  Most students have completed their final copies.  We will be addressing the envelopes soon and then mailing them off! YAY!  We have also started our new Math unit this week on Measurement.  We have started with measuring the temperature.  The students have been able to identify different temperatures and the appropriate clothing to wear at these specific temperatures.  During learning buddies, the grade five students helped our class create a paper thermometer.  The grade one students had Social Studies today and learned about different community helpers. Ask your child some of the helpers we discussed in class today.

We have started our Flat Stanley Project.  Last week we read the story and coloured our Flat Stanleys.  Today, we started the rough draft of our letters.  Ask your child some of the ideas they have to include in the body of their letters.  In Math, we are just wrapping up our unit on two dimensional and three dimensional shapes and figures.  We will start our new unit this week on Measurement.  Make sure your child knows the number of vertices, faces, edges/sides for each shape and figure.  This afternoon, the students were working in groups to perform skits.  They are learning to stay in character.

The students finished writing their letters to either Chester or David today.  Ask your child who Chester and David are.  We also worked on two dimensional shapes in Math.  The grade one students went on a shape hunt around the classroom looking for rectangles, squares, triangles, pentagons, hexagons, and octagons. You can do this at home as well.  The grade two students worked on word problems.  They had to come up with different combinations of two dimensional shapes based on the number of vertices.  Ask your child what their combination was.

The grade one students started a new Science unit on objects and materials.  Today, they "investigated" five different materials.  Ask your child what they did and what they learned.