Visualizing

In Reading, we are learning to use "word clues" in the poem or story to help us form a picture in our head called a mental image.  Students are practicing drawing their mental images and stating the word clues that helped them form the image.  Here's one poem we used to help us visualize this week:

Draw A Rhyme Story

When making a clown, it is said,

Always start with a big round head.

Make it real messy cuz' clowns don't care.

On top of his head, give him red curly hair.

When people laugh, he wants to hear,

So on each side, give him a great big ear.

All over his suit are big coloured spots,

So give him lots of polka-dots.

Now look at that, can you believe?

He has purple stripes on each long sleeve.

At the bottom of his funny suit, 

You can see one big, black boot.

And the other foot has not a shoe,

'cuz he just painted his toenails blue.

Now if you listened and did everything right,

Your little clown is a funny sight!

December Dates

Pow wow - Friday, December 6 (afternoon) - contact school office for more information

Christmas Concert - Thursday, December 12 at 1:00 in the gym (our class will sing 2 songs with the Grade 1/2 and 2/3 classes).  There will be a bake sale  and Mom's Pantry orders may be picked up following the concert in the library.

Last Day of School - Thursday, December 19, 2013

P.A. Day - Friday, December 20, 2013 no school (unpaid day for teachers)

Holiday Train Tonight!

The Canadian Pacific Holiday Train will be passing through Thunder Bay tonight.  You can see the train lit up and listen to performers Melanie Doane and Crystal Shawanda at 8:45 p.m. at the CP Train Depot on Syndicate Ave.  Admission is a non-perishable food or cash donation.  All donations stay local.

What Time Is It?

We are learning to name the parts of the clock and tell time to the hour and half hour.  This week, students created paper clocks.  We are working on using the terms minute and hour hands, instead of big hand and small hand.  Here's a song we're enjoying this week:

Here are some sites to practice telling time:

ABCya! Learn to Tell Time

Primary Games What Time Is It?

Math Games - an assortment of games to tell time

Bullying Awareness and Prevention Week in Ontario and Respect

As part of Bullying Awareness and Prevention Week in Ontario, we are learning about respect this week.  We learned that respect means a person is cared for and feels important.  Students worked in groups to brainstorm many ways we can show respect in our classroom, school and at home.  Here are our ideas:

In the Classroom:

• Be a good listener on the carpet
• Say nice things to others
• Use your manners (e.g., please, thank you, excuse me)
• Wait your turn
• Clean-up your own messes (e.g., throw away garbage, put away blocks or pencils)
• Get started on your work right away (NO excuses)
• Follow directions (no whining)

In the School:

• Hands-off
• Walking in the halls
• No being silly in the washroom
• Hang up our belongings on our hooks
• Line-up right away when the bell rings
• Greet people in the hallway using their name (e.g., Hi Mrs. Radbourne!)
• No bullying, include everyone!

At Home:

• Use your manners
• Clean-up your own messes
• Help with chores around the house
• Listen to your parents the first time (no whining)
• Get along with your brothers and sisters

We also watched two videos from Sesame Street to help us with our discussions.  

What Is Respect?

The Big Bird Club (about inclusion and respecting yourself and others)

We are going to be reading books about respect and writing about how we can show respect to others this week.  Please encourage your child to share their thinking about respect with you.

Language Learning

We are working on retelling what we have read.  Students are working on retelling the characters, setting, problem and solution in stories read to them.  Some of the stories we are retelling are Cookie's Week, Where the Wild Things Are, The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  This week we are reading Cookie's Week.  Students will put the events/days of the week in order.  At home, talk to your child about the characters, setting, problem and solution in books you read together and television shows and movies you watch together.

In Writing, we are using our own lives and ideas to write sentences.  Students are expected to write 3 sentences using a pattern.  Last week we wrote about what we can do in each season using the pattern "In the summer I can...".  Ask your child what they like to do in the different seasons.  To help your child at home have them write notes to family members or friends and write lists such as groceries or chores.

Word Families

We are working on building words from the short "a" families.  Word families are words that have the same ending and rhyme.  The word families we have been learning about are:

• "at" - cat, hat, sat, mat, bat, that, splat
• "an" - can, man, fan, plan, Stan
• "ap" - map, tap, sap, lap, cap
• "ag" - rag, bag, lag, nag, sag, shag

Our Learning in Math

In Math, we continue to work on solving problems using objects, blocks, pictures and numbers.  We are also practising counting to 100 by 1s and 10s.   Every morning we practise reading the date on a calendar, the days of the week and the months of the year. You can help your child at home by:

• Posing real life problems such as "If we have 5 people in our family.  Each person has a pair of boots.  How many boots are by the door?"
• Read "Doing Math With Your Child" a publication by the Ontario government here
• Play card games such as Go Fish, Memory, Uno, War - all you need is a deck of cards :)
• Singing along with some of our favourite Math videos 

Counting Songs

Count to 100

Count by 10s

Count by 1s

Months of the Year

Days of the Week

Pyjama Day!

Tomorrow is Pyjama Day!  Don't forget to dress in your jammies after a long night of trick-or-treating :)

Halloween Fun!

We had a great afternoon dressing up, having a costume parade, doing activities and eating delicious treats.  Thanks to all the families that sent in treats and came to help out.  Here are a few pictures of the festivities!

Picture Orders Due Tuesday

Reminder school picture orders are due October 29th.  Picture packages were sent home with your child last week.  If you wish to order pictures, please return picture form and payment to the classroom teacher or school office by Tuesday.

Halloween Information

• Students wear regular clothing in the morning
• Put on costumes after lunch at 1:00 (please come at 1:00 if you need to help your child get dressed, they will be outside at recess until 1)
• Parade at approximately 1:10 (parents my stand in hallways to watch)
• No violent costumes
• Snacks and drinks for the class are welcome for the class party (we have 21 students in our class)
• Parents are welcome to stay and help with activities during the party
• If you are unable to attend, I will post pictures of students in their costumes on our blog.  If you do NOT want your child's picture on the blog, please contact me.

Spook-tacular Songs

Here are a few songs and dances we've been enjoying this month!  They get us moving, help with counting and reading.

The Skeleton Dance

10 Little Monsters

Pumpkins, Witches and Ghosts

The Scary Song

Sight Words

There are 25 sight words your child should be able to read coming into Grade One.  These are the words we are working on in class.  Please help your child at home to learn these words.  You can make flashcards with them and play games to help your child.

no                             so
is                              on
can                           in
me                            up
you                           am
and                           we
he                             like
at                             see
a                              I
go                            it
do                            an
the                           my
to

I am going through the list of words with each student over the next two weeks.  A list of words your child can read will be sent home soon.

Pizza Thursdays

Pizza Day is every Thursday.  Orders are due Wednesday morning to facilitate ordering.  Pink pizza slips are usually sent home on Mondays.  These small slips often get lost on the way home.  If you would like to order pizza for your child and a pink slip hasn't come home, just put their order with their name and what they are ordering in a plastic bag or envelope with the money.  Also, pizza punch cards can be purchased at the school office.  Please contact our secretary, Mrs. Bobrowski, for more information.  Thank you!

Halloween

We are going to celebrate Halloween on October 31st.  In the morning, children will wear their normal clothes to school and we will have a regular morning of learning.  At 1:00 (after lunch), children will get changed into their costumes and we will have a costume parade through the school.  Then, we will have a party in our classroom.  Parents are welcome to stay for the party and help with games and snacks.  You are welcome to send snacks for our party.

Costumes will be put on after lunch.  No violent costumes, blood or weapons.  Please call or send a note if you have any questions.  Thank you!

Spider Feelings

We wondered if we all feel the same way about spiders.  We decided to make a graph to find out.  Danica said "We should use pink paper for girls and blue paper for boys so we can see if boys and girls feel the same way about spiders."

We all have different feelings about spiders.  We noticed all the boys like spiders because they feel happy or excited.  Two girls feel excited, but most of the girls feel nervous or afraid.
The most people feel happy about spiders.

Here are some pictures and two videos we watched on National Geographic about spiders.

Spider Pictures

Jumping Spider

Scary Spiders - Are they really?

After watching this video, Keira said, "We are giants to them! We should n't be afraid of them because they should be afraid of us."

Number Problems

We are working on solving problems using numbers, pictures and words. Here is a problem we worked together on last week and how students tried to solve it:

There are 12 eggs. There are 5 kids. Each kid wants 2 eggs. Are there enough eggs? Are there any left over?

You can help your child at home with Math by posing real world problems to solve throughout the day.

•  We have 5 people for supper.  How many forks and knives combined will we need?
• There are 4 people and 17 Goldfish crackers.  How many crackers will each person get?  Will there be any leftover? 

Thanksgiving Songs

Here are two songs we are singing at school about Thanksgiving.

Spiders....Eeeek!

Xander captured a spider in his house.  We began asking lots of questions about spiders and are reading books to find the answers.  These are some of the things we wonder:

• Where do spiders live?
• What do spiders eat?
• Do all spiders look the same?
• Are there different types of spiders?
• How do spiders have babies?
• How do spiders spin webs?
• Do all spiders have 8 legs?
• Are spiders insects?

We are learning to retell what we have read.  After reading books about spiders, we write what we have learned on charts together and on our own.  This afternoon we watched a video about how spiders spin webs.  Then we designed our own spider webs!

Yum...Applesauce

Today we made applesauce together.  We used apples from Mrs. Bobrowski's apple tree.  Here's the recipe if you want to try it at home!

Crockpot Applesauce

10-12 apples (medium-large size)

125 ml water

125 ml sugar

5 ml cinnamon

Core your apples and cut into chunks.You can peel the apples first if you like, but the skins will mostly dissolve when cooked in the crockpot.

Mix your apple chunks, sugar and cinnamon together and pour into your crockpot.  Add the water and cook on low for 8-10 hours or high 4-5 hours.  You may need to mash up the apples as you go depending on how chunky you want it!

*I am unable to locate the original source for this recipe. It was passed on to me by a friend.

Do Apples Sink or Float?

We put four different apples in water.  All the apples floated.  We tried big containers with lots of water and small containers with a small amount of water.  We learned apples float because they have water inside of them.

Here's another apple song:

Picture Day

Picture Day is rescheduled for October 10th.  New sheets will be sent home for picture selections.  Please contact the school office if you have any questions.

Apple-icious

We learned that all apples do not taste the same.  We tasted five types of apples today.  We tried Red Delicious, Granny Smith, Royal Gala, Golden Delicious and McIntosh apples.  The favourite apple of our class is the Royal Gala.  We are going to be learning about apples all week!  We will write and read more about them.  Ask us what we have learned when we get home!

Here's a song we're singing this week.

Sincerely,
The Grade Ones

Math Songs

We are learning about numbers in Math.  Here are two new songs we are learning.

I Can Count to 100

Counting by Fives

Skills we are working on are:

• Counting with 1 to 1 correspondence (saying the number when pointing to a picture or object).  So children should be able to count a group accurately.  
• Count to 100 by 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s 
• Show numbers to 20 (and some children to 50 if they are ready) using blocks, pictures, words and numbers
• Read and print number words to 10

Picture Day Cancelled - will be rescheduled

Pizza Lunches and Jamie McDonald

Pizza lunches are every Thursday.  Orders are due Wednesday mornings.  Students will bring home a small pink order form at the beginning of each week.  Please complete and return with the money in a baggie or envelope marked with your child's name.  Please send exact change.  One slice of pizza is $1.50 and milk and ice cream bars are .75 each.  If your child orders pizza, but are absent on Pizza Day, their order will be transferred to the following week.  Pizza punch cards can be purchased from the office.  Please contact our secretary, Mrs. Bobrowski, for more information (622-9513).

Jamie "Flash" McDonald will be visiting our school Tuesday morning to share about his journey running across Canada to fundraise for Toronto Sick Kids Hospital.  He will also kick off our Terry Fox run.  Students will attend an assembly at 8:30 a.m. to hear Jamie speak, then they will participate in a Terry Fox "fun run" led by Jamie around the playground.  Students are welcome to dress up as their favourite superhero on Tuesday.  It is recommended that costumes go over top of their clothing for school pictures (taking place later the same day).  No face make-up please!  Students are asked to bring a small donation of a loonie or twoonie to support this worthwhile cause!  Thank you so much for your support  :)

Picture Day Reminder - Tuesday September 17th (same day as Jamie McDonald visit and the Terry Fox run)

Patterns

We are busy making patterns with at least one repeating attribute.  Students completed patterning challenges on Friday.  Here is some of their hard work:

Pattern Challenge #1:  Create a pattern using 6 red blocks and 3 yellow blocks.

Challenge #2:  Create a pattern using more blue blocks than red blocks.

Try it at home!  Use objects from your house to make patterns.  Some objects that work well for pattern making are coins, blocks, cutlery, toy cars and shoes.  Challenge your child to make patterns in different ways.  Ask them to tell you their pattern using letters or numbers.  For instance, a pattern that is red, blue, red blue could be described as ABAB or 1212.

Reading

In Reading we are learning to retell what we have read.  We can tell the characters, setting, problem and solution in a book.  We read the book Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes.  We told about the characters and setting after we read it.  Here's a picture of our work.

Ms. McCallum is sorry the picture is sideways.  She is still learning how to make a blog!  Hopefully I will find out how to fix this.

Sorting Fun

We are learning to sort things by shape, colour and size.  Today we sorted blocks into two piles.  Some of us sorted by colour and other kids sorted by corners and no corners.  Here is some of our work!

Important Dates

Picture Day will be Tuesday September 17th.  Please complete the form sent home on the first day of school and return by picture day.

The school does not have a set date for Pizza Days yet.  I will pass this information along when I receive it.

Meet the teacher barbeque is Thursday September 18th from 4-5:30.  Come and visit our class between 4-5 and then join us for a barbeque outside (weather permitting) from 5-5:30!  See you there :)

Book bags will begin later this month.  Students will bring home more information when our home reading program begins (hopefully the week of Monday September 16th).

Welcome to Grade One

Welcome to our class and blog.  This is the place for news in our classroom!  Check regularly for information about our learning and upcoming events.  Throughout the year, students will use the SMART Board to help me write our posts to share their learning with you.

Things to know:

• School begins at 8:30 and ends at 2:40, lunch is 12:20-1:00
• Students should be dropped off on the playground before school beginning at 8:15 (there will be a teacher outside to supervise students)
• Please report to the office if dropping off or picking up your child during the day
• Please let me know of any health concerns, custody issues, shared custody schedules, allergies or anything else you think I should be aware of to help your child this year

Recommended school supplies:

• pencils
• eraser
• pencil case
• children's scissors
• glue stick
• crayons, pencil crayons or Twistables (no markers allowed)

Your child also needs a pair of running shoes to wear indoors.  For safety reasons, they can't be high heels, crocs or dress shoes.  We participate in physical activity every day and footwear needs to be safe for your child.

I am looking forward to a fun-filled year of learning with your child.  If you have any questions or concerns, please send a note with your child, stop by at 2:40 or call before 8:30 or after 2:40 would be the best times to reach me.

Sincerely,

Melanie McCallum