December 13, 2019

One week left before Christmas holidays. We have a very busy gingerbread theme week planned with many activities that should be fun but also linked to curriculum. We will be doing a buddy activity with the grade 3 class next week, fixing Santa's sleigh. Our big activity is building gingerbread houses. Thank you for all of your support with this project. There will be no home reading sent next week after Wednesday. Enjoy your Christmas break and I look forward to working with you in the new year.

November 25, 2019

This month has been busy in grade 1. We have focussed on the short vowel sounds and are sounding out simple words. Students have been reading stories with repeating sentences and focussing on learning important sight words. In math we have explored numbers in the teens. We are using different math manipulatives to represent the numbers. We are going to continue to play with numbers in the teens and then focus on making ten. Students have spent time focussing on rights and responsibilities in social studies. In science we have a week filled with different science experiments to conclude our unit on colours. Our next science unit will be on building things. Please continue to practice the sight words at home. Also if you are able to volunteer on a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday we would love to have someone come and do home reading with us.

October 25, 2019

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend and are ready for the excitement of Halloween. We will celebrate Halloween on Wednesday, October 30th since there is no school on October 31st. Students are allowed to wear their costumes to school but please keep in mind we will be learning that day so they should be comfortable, able to sit both at their table and on the floor, be able to take it off to go to the washroom independently, no masks, and no weapons. We are very close to finishing our focus on the individual letters and sounds. Please continue to practice this at home as knowing this is essential to reading. In math we have been focussing on comparing numbers and discussing not only which numbers are greater than or less than but also putting numbers in order from least to greatest. Next week we will change our focus to 2D shapes. Today we celebrated belonging day. Thank you for helping your child to bring something to school to show that they belonged to a group. Everyone created a belonging page that will be used in our class We Belong book. We are starting to apply our knowledge of colour and shades in our most recent art project. Today students mixed paint colours together and painted paper in different shades for the first step of our Autumn art project. Please remember that next week is a very short week. There will be an important letter that goes home next week introducing our Star Student activities that will begin in November and carry through the entire year. If you would like to volunteer please sign up through the volunteer tab. The students love having loved ones come in to volunteer and I always have many activities that need volunteer support. Enjoy your weekend!

October 9, 2019

This week students have continued to explore different letters, the sounds they make, and we even started blending sounds together to start reading words. Our new letters this week were e, k, b, and tomorrow we will introduce L. In math we have started to compare numbers and are using the language greater than, less than, and equal to. We will continue to compare numbers are we explore numbers to 20. In social studies we continue to explore the idea of belonging and discussed how clothes can sometimes tell us that someone belongs to a group. In science we continue to review primary and secondary colours and this week we have started to talk about shades of colours and how we can make different shades through mixing white or black with a colour. In religion we have been discussing prayer and how we pray. We also have read the story about the children coming to Jesus. Tomorrow is our Thanksgiving liturgy, all are welcome. Please remember that there is no school on Friday or Monday.

October 1, 2019

Thank you to all of the families that took time to come to parent teacher conferences, it was wonderful to meet everyone. Our classroom and school have been very busy the last two weeks. We have participated in our school opening Mass, the Terry Fox run, and Orange shirt day. The students have been learning more about letters and letter sounds and we have started working on sight words. Every morning we practice reading and spelling our sight words as well as reviewing letter sounds and names. In math we continue to work on number sense to 10. We are starting to compare numbers and soon we will begin to use mathematical language like greater than and less than. Our online math program called Zorbits was introduced to the students this week. This program uses games to reinforce mathematical concepts. We will use this program in class but you can also use it at home. The website and login information was taped onto the front page of your child's agenda (please do not remove). In science we have been looking at secondary colours. Our next step is to discuss how we can make a colour darker or lighter. In social studies we continue to discuss the different groups that we belong to. Today we discussed the groups in our school community that we belong to. If you would like to volunteer please remember to sign up using the volunteer tab on this blog. If you are having troubles please send me an email of when you would like to come in and we can arrange a time for you to volunteer.

September 12, 2019

We have had a busy but fun week in grade one. This week we have started our classroom helpers. Students have learned about how they will help out in the classroom each week. Letterland was introduced to the children. Letterland is an imaginary land where the letters of the alphabet come alive. This week we met Annie Apple (A) and Clever Cat (C). There are stories and songs that and introduced to the class with each letter. We also began focussed printing lessons on the letter a and c. When your child is printing at home please always remind them to always start from the top and then go down when forming their letters. In math we have continued to subitize and are now spending time learning about the expectations when working during guided math time (math stations/centers). Our first unit will be numbers from 1-10. This week we began our first science unit on colours. We have focussed on the colours red and blue. Remember next week in parent teacher conferences. Please use the online link that will be sent out in the weekly to register for a conference time. I look forward to meeting everyone next week.

September 6, 2019

The first week of grade 1 has come to an end. This week we have focussed on learning classroom routines and getting to know each other. We have read stories, played games, and learned about expected grade 1 behaviours. We learned about subitizing in math, started writing in our journals, and have done a variety of activities around our names. Next week we will begin direct instruction on printing, the alphabet, and begin to develop basic number sense (1-5). If you would like to volunteer in the classroom please read the parent weekly (emailed to families from the school) for volunteer orientation dates.