Winter Concert

The grade 1's have been working so hard practicing for the their winter concert on Tuesday night.  If you can't make it, there is a dress rehearsal on Monday at 11:15.  Come check it out or surprise your little one. They would love to see you there!

Visitors are Welcomed

Tomorrow we are having some primary teachers from another school visit us.  They are coming to see the wonderful things we are doing during our Math Station periods.  We are very excited to show them all the wonderful things we are doing in math.  Ask your child what they did during math today!

Parents, We Need Your Help

Greetings Wonderful Parents,

We wanted to ask for your help with some of the upcoming

activities we are planning.

On Wednesday November 30th, we will be decorating gingerbread

men.

We are asking if a few parents could purchase the gingerbread

dough supplies, and create the dough patties for us to use.

1 batch makes about 10-12 ornaments depending on the size of your

cookie cutters. (We are making patties.) Therefore we are asking

for 4 batches to be made. One batch from 4 different volunteers.

Gingerbread Recipe

1 cup dry ground cinnamon

1 Tablespoon dry ground cloves

1 Tablespoon dry ground nutmeg (can omit if you don't have)

3/4 cup applesauce

2 Tablespoons elmers glue (any white glue, we have this at school

so please don’t buy any.)

Mix applesauce and elmers, then add dry ingredients.

Work in dough ball, roll out, sprinkle surface with a little cinnamon

to keep from sticking.

If original batch is too wet, add more dry cinnamon.

Can you make (gingerbread patties) maybe layer each patty on a

separate piece of wax paper - so that each child can then use the

cookie cutter?

If you are able to help us out please send us a note in your child’s

agenda or call the school.

Thanks so much!

Mrs. Wideen and Mrs. Belanger

Grade 1's Spreading Some Holiday Cheer

Our class will be making Christmas cards for other grade 1 classes around the World this week.  So far we have 10 classes to exchange with.  We will be sending them a homemade card and some information about ourselves, our school and our city.  We are even sending a couple of cards to New Zealand.  Stay tuned and we will let you know how many cards we get in return and where they are from.  How exciting!

50th Day Of School

We had a great day today! To celebrate the 50th day of school we had a sock hop, a bubble gum blowing contest, we hula hooped, went bowling and even had root beer floats!

Remembrance Day

Friday was Remembrance Day.   In class for the last couple of days, we have been talking about this day, and why it is so special and important. We learned about the Soldiers, and how we show our respect for them, and what they do and have done for our country. To get ready for our school assembly, we talked about Poppies, and why we wear them. We even made some soldiers to decorate the hallway on the way to the gym.

50th Day Of School!

Dear Grade 1 Parents,

  We want to make you aware of an upcoming special day for the grade ones.  On Tuesday November 15th, we will be celebrating the 50th day of school.  We are going ‘back in time’ to the 1950’s to help celebrate that day!  We will be

doing some fun activities  within our classrooms.  These activities will include,

using a 50’s grid to find number patterns, counting out 50 fruit loops to make a necklace, using a bar graph to record our favourite activities, a sock hop, teaching the kids some dance moves from the 50’s and enjoying music from that decade.  Afterwards, the students will get to cool-off with a float. It is

going to be a lot of fun!

  To make it feel more authentic, we are asking for your help by having the students “dress” 50’s style.  Some ideas are: bobby socks, long skirts and pony tails tied with ribbons for the girls.  For the boys: white t-shirts, jeans rolled up and slicked hair.  Have fun being creative with this, but please don’t feel like you need to buy anything new!

  We are really looking forward to this (you’ll see us in our poodle skirts too!) Let us know if you have any questions.

Centres this Week

We have many engaging and fun literacy centres this week. The children have the choice to work on monster sight words, where the words are written very small on a monster and they need to use a magnify glass to find them and highlight a sheet to keep track of which ones they have found. Our second centre is the scarecrow art centre. The third centre is a rhyming centre. The forth centre is a word search containing their high frequency words. The fifth centre is a syllable counting centre. The sixth centre is the listening centre. Phew! The children will be busy this week!

What is Courage...

The Grade 1 class has been working very hard for tomorrow's assembly.  We are celebrating our friends that have been very respectful this month.  In addition to recognizing those students this month, it is our classroom's privilege to kick off the next character trait for next month, which is courage.  We have done many activities in the past few weeks about what courage looks like and what it means.  Check out our very own classroom video on what courage means to us.

Spooky Literacy Centres

This week the children are working on sight words, writing a scary story, making jack o lanterns out of plasticine, deciding what vegetables float or sink when immersed into water, and making spider webs with paint and a marble.

Schedules

Our schedule has changed quite a bit lately but I am happy to say that I think it has been finalized.  Please scroll to the bottom of this page to check out our calendar and you will never wonder what day library is anymore!

Follow Our Learning On Twitter

http://twitter.com/MrsWideen

Meet The Teacher

I hope to see all our families tomorrow night for meet the teacher! It runs from 4:00-6:00. Come see your child's learning space and community!

What we are working on this week

Our shared reading this week is about apples, and what a perfect time of year to read about apples!  Students are doing apple prints at the art centre this week, learning how to draw an apple in 3 easy steps at the easel, making an apple book at the writing centre and making predictions about apples at the science centre.  We are continuing patterning in math this week so the children are making penne pattern necklaces at the math centre.  Students are also using apples to measure items in the classroom for an introduction to non standard measurement.  Phew, what a busy week!  Pictures are coming soon!

Centres we are working on this week

Mrs. Belanger is working on writing things with the students that begin with the letter m at the guided reading table.
At our word work centre, children pick a friends picture and use plastic letters to make their friends name. Our goal is to be able to read all of our friends names in the next couple of weeks.
At the playdough centre, students are using playdough to create the letters in the alphabet.
The art centre is free choice this week!
At the paint centre, the children are encouraged to mix primary colours to make secondary colours.
At the science centre children are mixing primary colours to make secondary colours.
Children are encouraged to share their creations or what they have learned at the end of centre time. If students want to share they need to sign up and write: I want to share.... And their name.

Mixing Colours

The children were very excited about our new science centre that opened today! We first brainstormed the steps to mix the colours. Then the children drew direction cards for the centre. Next, we set the centre up. Lastly, the centre was so popular we needed to add a sign up board! Ask your child what colours they need to mix together to make green, orange and purple.

Exploring is fun!

The grade one students are having fun at centre time!

First Week Of School

Dear Parents,

We have had a fantastic first week back at school!  We started our first math unit on sorting.  We read many great books and made many new friends.  You will be getting a finalized schedule shortly.  For now, please make sure your child has a pair of gym shoes at school everyday in case we have gym that day.