February 12-14

 

It was a short this week but we were still busy in Grade 1!  Take a look to see what we have been working on this week!

Social Studies

Students worked hard to write thoughtful thank you notes to our special guests from our school community who visited last week to share their roles and responsibilities around our school. Students had the opportunity to work in partners or by themselves to compose a thank you note that expressed thank you to our guest, a statement of what they learned from our guest, and then each guest is an important part of our school community.  

Puppet Residency and Wellness

We were so grateful to have another visit with Miss Wendy to continue our work on our Owl and Woodpecker puppets.  Students continued to add details like feathers wings and bodies to their puppets.   Thank you to those parents who were able to join us and support this work.  Along with this hands-on creative work we have been discussing and role-playing different problems that our students experience in their lives everyday and possible peaceful solutions.  Just like in the story of the Owl and the Woodpecker, students have been working on their problem-solving skills. This work around wellness will continue to develop and be the focus of our puppetry presentations.  Stay tuned for more information on our presentation to parents on February 28.  

Here are some other ways you can review these ideas at home as well for the tricky sound of ‘ng’ and long a with silent e.  

Math

This is a summary of the concepts we have been working on the last few weeks. You can use this summary as background to understand and support your child’s work.  

Representing Numbers to 100

Many materials can be used to represent numbers to 100. Each material has pros and cons.

A 100-chart shows the sequence of numbers, even though it doesn’t really show size.

10-frames show numbers up to 100, but it takes a lot of counters to show larger numbers.

Trains, or stacks, of 10 linking cubes can be used with loose cubes to show numbers.

Number words are also valid ways to represent numbers, although they do not indicate either sequence or quantity.

Tally marks work well, especially for numbers that are not very big.

Base ten blocks also work. Rods (or sticks) represent tens, and small cubes represent ones. The risk here is that students may not easily equate a solid item, such as the 10-rod, as representing a multiple (i.e., 10).

  

February 5- 9

 February 5 - 9

Social

This week we were excited to invite other important people in our school community to learn more about their roles and responsibilities at school.  One of our guests was Mrs. Scarrow.  She told us what some of her important jobs are at school.  We learned that she helps to keep our school safe.  She also helps teachers learn too!  

Learning Intentions:

I can understand ways that people help one another in our school community, to ensure the strength and positive energy of our school.  

I can appreciate the experiences of other members in our school community.  

I can appreciate how the actions of others can affect us.  

We learned that:

She uses her computer and her phone  

She organizes and makes schedules for the teachers and special activities, like Inline Skating and our Puppets 

Mrs. Dupius also came to talk to us about her important role and responsibilities.  She is a very important helper in our school and she does lots of different things to help us and our school.  

Here are some things that we learned

When kids get really hurt or break their arm she calls moms and dads and then an ambulance - Jovee

If they run out of stuff, she gets more by ordering more and she is in charge of keeping track of the budget - Eamon

If school is done and i get with my mom and my mom is not soon, Mrs. Dupuis will call my mom - Marat 

World Read Aloud Day - Wednesday, February 7

Wednesday was a special day as it was World Read Aloud day.  This is a day that has been marked as recognizing the importance and power of reading aloud.  We often enjoy many stories read aloud throughout each day and during the week in our classroom.  We use these to guide us in our writing to help us improve as writers.  We also often enjoy a story read during snack time.  Ask your child about some of the books we have shared together.  We also have them posted on our wall, to remind us of some of our favorite books read recently.  Ms. Gardner also read one of her favorite books this week - Sometimes You Barf!  It was a hoot.

We enjoyed the virtual session with David Robertson, who shared about himself as a writer and his inspiration for writing On the Trapline.  

Learning Intentions: 

I can listen to a variety of texts that are read aloud.  

Here are some of our comments after to listen to him speak about being a author:

That he learned what his trapline looked like after he visited it with his dad - Presley

How the trapline looked and I noticed that he was very happy to be home in his place again - Liesel

It was interesting that the illustrator drew what his dad looked like and then it matched what he really looked like in real life 

We also had the privilege of beginning our Puppet Residency with Ms. Wendy.  Together we read the story The Owl and the Woodpecker.  Then children had the opportunity to begin making a stick puppet of one of the two main characters.  Students enjoyed this experience of meeting with an expert and beginning a hands on project.  Thank you to the parents that were able to join us and volunteer to help out.

January 29 -February 2

 January 29 - February 2

Math

In math this week, we moved back into thinking about numbers and how to represent them.  We worked with groups of ten trains and made connections to numbers with 0 - 20, 30, 40, 50 to 100.  We are now trying to extend our thinking and understanding of numbers beyond 20.  With a group, we also reviewed numbers from 1 - 20 and worked together to see if we could organize the numbers on an open number line in a way that made sense.  Some students were also ready to try with greater numbers to 50.

Learning Intention:

I can represent numbers to 100 using words, numerals, objects or pictures.

 

Social Studies

This week in Social Studies, we continued to talk about our school as an important group and community to belong to.  We discussed and brainstormed different roles and responsibilities that students have at school.  We worked together in our table groups to think of all the important roles and responsibilities we have as students.  We then shared all the GREAT ideas that all the groups came up with.  Students then reflected and chose 4 that they think are most important to them, and recorded them visually in their visual journals.  We look forward to learning about other people in our school community and the different responsibilities that they have compared to students.

Learning Intentions:  

I can understand and identify my rights and responsibilities at school.  

Art

Even with the snow rapidly melting this week, we took time to create our own snowmen.  We then wrote a set of clues about our snowman and what they looked like.  We then play the Snowman Guessing Game as a class, to see if we could listen and then identify which snowman belonged to which person.  We enjoyed this very much and look forward to continuing to play our guessing game next week.  

Learning Intentions:

I can create messages that are for a specific purpose.

I can write sentences that contain a complete thought and make sense. 

I can share information with an appropriate volume, tone and pace.

I can present my writing and ideas individually to an audience.  

Kosior’s Secret Snowmen 

Maker Space

We wrapped up the week with time in Maker Space.  Mrs. Harris gave us specific parts of a winter story and were challenged to solve the problem of being in the forest and our dog Pickles.  With our group, we focused on different things to build.  We worked together as a group, focusing on making sure we were compromising with our group members if we each had different ideas about what to build.  We were very focused and used our communication skills well. 

January 22-26

 January 22-26

The last two weeks in Social Studies students have been focusing on our school as a community that we all belong to.  Students took a tour of our school, collecting information on our school logo and other important symbols, flags, and special places around our school. We also have been practicing geographical thinking by learning about different types of map, the information they represent, and began to create a simple map of a familiar place…our classroom!

Success criteria:

I can identify a different community or group that I belong to

I can recognize this group that I belong to (by symbols or logos)

I can create and use a simple map to locate places

Math

In math we have continued our look at geometry.  Students looked closer at 3D shapes and the faces that make up each cube, rectangular prism, cone, and cylinder.  They did this by tracing each shape and its faces then describing what they noticed about each shape.

Special Guest

On Wednesday`we had a visit by a special guest Hal Eagletail.  Hal is a Knowledge Keeper and member of the Northern Dene TsuuT'ina Nation located in the Treaty 7 area of southern Alberta.  He shared many pieces of wisdom, sang songs, and shared about his culture.  Ask your child what they enjoyed about Hal’s visit. 

January 16-19

 January 16-19

We had a great week in grade one despite the cold weather!  We have been fortunate to take part in Alien Inline Skating these past two weeks.  It's been a great opportunity for students to burn off some extra energy while we are indoors.  During this experience, students worked on:

• Putting on and taking off  equipment independently

• Falling safely

• Avoiding obstacles

• Steering around corners

• Slowing down 

• Stopping

Ask your child what they enjoyed most about this experience.

Math

In math we have continued to work on composing and decomposing 2D shapes.  Students created designs using a variety of shapes. Students were asked to look at the shapes in each design and recreate some of their own in their journals.  

Literacy

During our whole group literacy lessons and word work students focussed on learning diagraphs.  Diagraphs are sounds that are created when two letters-each with their own sound- come together to make one sound.  For example: c k makes the <k> should and s h makes the <sh> sound.  As well we have been exploring some online literacy resources such as Epic and Lalilo.  Both of these resources help students to focus on phonetic sounds and have a huge online library or good-quality reading materials.

Social Studies

This week we returned to our look at communities, focusing on our school community.  Students were able to take a tour of our school being observers and collecting data about our school logo, special places in our school, and other symbols we might see that identify that we belong to the Andrew Sibbald Community.

Janurary 8-12

 January 8 - 12

Welcome back and Happy New Year.

It has been a busy week right back into the swing of things and learning in our classroom.  Ms. Gardner’s class got started right away with Inline Skating this week and had a blast.  Mrs. Kosior’s class is looking forward to their time in the gym for Inline next week!  

Home Literacy - As our students get back into their school routines, I would just like to remind everyone of our decodable texts.  Your child should be bringing home 1 decodable text 2 different texts a week, to read at home with you.  Our exchange days are Monday and Thursday.  Many of our kiddos know the routine and got right back into it. We have seen so much improvement in the last few months, and at this time of the year in Grade 1, things really start to take off and reading skills move along quickly.  We have made our way through all of the initial 26 alphabet sounds and will be starting into letter combinations which make other sounds when together (ex. sh, th, ch etc.). More details will be coming with our Scope and Sequence for the second term at the beginning of February as well.  If you have any questions, please be sure to reach out.   

Science - Shapeshifters 

With coming back, we got right back into our Science topic on Matter, and wrapped up this unit, which we didn’t have time to do before the Winter Break.  All students were given the same materials - pipe cleaners, googly eyes, popsicle sticks and some plasticine and needed to build their own “creature.”  They then recorded some properties of this first creation.  They then took this Shapeshifter apart, and needed to create a completely different creature, using the same materials.  They recorded the properties for this creature and then documented how their creature had changed.  The students had lots of fun building and creating with their hands and showing their understanding of their science.  They also brought home their shapeshifter and materials.  We encourage you to ask them about this and ask them to build their shapeshifter.  They could also build their first creature for you as well.  Or something completely different.  You can then ask them what are some of the properties of their creation.  

Examples of properties are:  big, small, tall, long, short, heavy, light, shiny, bumpy, rough.  

Learning Intentions:

I can identify measurable properties of objects. 

I can explore actions that physically change properties of various objects.

I can describe physical changes that result from various actions.  

I can discuss why physical changes do not change what an object is made of.  

Math

This week in math, we have moved on to geometry and learning about 2D shapes.  

What Does Sorting Shapes Involve?

You sort shapes when you put them into categories based on a particular characteristic, or attribute.

For example, you could sort the shapes below into two categories: those with straight sides and those without straight sides.

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What Attributes Can Be Used for Sorting?

There are many attributes you can use to sort shapes that have nothing to do with geometry, for example, the shape’s colour or the letter the shape’s name starts with.

But, in terms of geometry, students might sort shapes by these attributes:

•	whether all the sides are straight
•	how many sides there are
•	how many corners there are
•	whether there is a dent in the shape
•	the kinds of angles at the corners
•	whether there are equal sides, and so on

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Sorting in Different Ways

The same group of shapes can be sorted in different ways.

For example, the shapes below can be sorted by whether they have three sides.

Or they can be sorted by whether they have straight sides.

December 11-15

 December 11-15

In addition to our writing prompt last week and this week, where we asked our students to share and write about one of their family traditions during this time of the year, students have shared additionally through bringing in artifacts or pictures to share more about a family tradition.  During our morning meetings, we have enjoyed hearing more details about what families do to celebrate and connect with their families.  From traditions connected to Hannukah, to Christmas pajamas, special ornaments, visiting special places, to decorating trees, as well as reading a favourite story every year, we have learned more about each other through this additional sharing time.   

We look forward to hearing and learning more about our students and our families and continue to welcome others to bring in something to share.  Emails with pictures are also great.

Learning Intentions:

I can appreciate multiple cultures and experiences within my community and groups

I can appreciate how the traditions and celebrations of their families, contribute to their sense of identity and belonging 

cakosior@cbe.ab.ca