First Day Fame!



Photo taken from September 5, 2013 Lethbridge Herald

Welcome back to school! What a way to start the year-our first graders are already famous! Look at those adorable faces ready to dive into learning!  Hope everyone has had a good first week and please check back for more posts over the coming weeks!

Weekend Update!

Hi Everyone! Thank you for checking in. This is just a quick blog post, as I've added a few extra details to the calendar below. The Scholastic Book orders went out today online, so should arrive very soon!

So far, I have 3 drivers for our field trip to the Helen Schuler Nature Center on Thursday April 25th.  Thank you to Christine Slomp, Lisa Pateman, and Marianne Forsyth who have signed up to drive. If you are able, or have a grandparent who is able to help us out even by just doing pick ups and drops off, that would be wonderful!  We are scheduled to leave the school by about 12:45, and then leave the nature center for about 2:45.  Send me an email if you can help out!

 Also our Grade 1 students will be performing at the Family Assembly on May 7th at 12:30.  The Grade 1 team is in the process of planning out the details of this assembly so we will keep you updated. 

Special Requests:

 We are on the lookout for plastic (see-through) egg cartons, AS WELL AS Styrofoam ones!  Think of us on your next grocery store trip!

Also, we are collecting nylon stockings!  We'll be using this for a project for our living and non living science unit.  If you have any to donate that would be great!  They can be any colour!

 Have a great weekend!

CALENDAR UPDATES FOR YOU!

Monday April 22nd- Earth Day

Wednesday April 24th- Grade 4/5 Airband competition 12:30-1:55

Thursday April 25^th- Spirit Assembly @ 8:30- Crazy Hat / Hair Day

Friday April 26th- Professional Learning Day no school

Wednesday May 1^st- Math-a-thon Test Day!

May 5th- May 11th: Education Week!

Tuesday May 7^th- Family Assembly Grade 1s perform @12:30

Wednesday May 8th- Hot Lunch

Friday May 10^th- PD Day No School

Monday May 20^th- Victoria Day no school

Thursday May 23^rd- Spirit Assembly @12:30

Tuesday June 4th- Galt Museum Field Trip-PM (TBA)

APRIL NEWSLETTER

 

IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER!

April 8 First day back

April 11 World Autism Day at MMH/Please wear blue today!/Gr. 3 host assembly in gym right after lunch.

April 12 SHARING DAY!

April 12, 19,25 Library days/Spelling test days

April 17 Math-A-Thon practise test coming home today. Will be done in class.

April 22- Earth Day

April 25 Helen Schuler Fieldtrip pm- if you can drive please email!!

April 26 Professional Learning Day/No School for students

Science
We will be finishing up our Building Unit and starting a plant/animal unit very soon! The children get to grow their very own plants and learn which parts of a plant we like to eat and what plants/animals need to survive and much more!

Language Arts
We will continue writing & editing with our Fairytale Unit after Easter and I have posted the spelling lists on Spelling City so you can preview over the break if you like. We’ll be looking at ou/ow, oi/oy,and the er sisters! The kids are always working on reading strategies and zipping along with Daily Five!

Social
We will be starting a quick little unit on caring for our environment that ties in nicely with Earth Day! After that we dive into a big unit called Moving Forward With the Past! This unit will include a fieldtrip to the Galt Museum on June 4 and bussing is provided by the museum.

Gym
Kickball is coming soon!!

Sight Words

April 8-12 our, round, how, now know

April 15-19 oil, soil, boil, coil, boy

April 22-25 over, under, after, her, yesterday

Niagra Falls Lights It Up Blue!

Math

We will soon be starting a BIG unit called Numbers to 100. This unit includes place value, using the mental math strategy of making 10 for adding and subtracting, grouping numbers to 100 by 2, 5, and 10 , comparing, representing and , describing numbers to 100 and so much more!

Spring Ahead?

In spite of the snow, we decided to spring ahead in grade one today! We teamed up Science, Math, and Art to make these pretty cool 2D/3D flowers! The kids did such an amazing job I just had to post a couple of pics for you! Have a great night!

MARCH NEWSLETTER

Fairytales!

We have so many things to do and learn this month and they all revolve around Fairytales. We are starting out with Rapunzel and the Three Billy Goats and will be meeting The Three Little Pigs plus a few more over the next few weeks. The kids will be writing some fairytales of their own and our focus is making sure we have all story elements character, setting, problem and solution! A great website with inspiring illustrations to practise on at home is www.storybird.com .

Science

We are diving into our building unit in science and the kids are starting to use terms like materials, tools, and fasteners! Each project we build is designed to help the children choose materials wisely and understand that everything they make has a purpose and a function. This unit ties together nicely with our Fairytale unit as we will test our bridges to see if they can support the weight of the 3 Billy Goats Gruff and will see if our houses from the Three Little Pigs can withstand an earthquake or windstorm! The kids are encouraged to talk about their projects afterward and decide what materials worked best and what designs they would modify and try again. A huge thank you to everyone who has collected and sent building materials! An exciting part of our building unit was the trip to Home Hardware where we actually got to use the drill press , hammers, and nails! The kids painted their pencil holders in Art the other day and they are looking very colourful! We just need to add the finishing touches and paper pads and pencils! Can’t wait to set them on our desks and actually use them!

Math

Our new Geometry Unit in Math also ties in nicely with our Science Building and LA Fairytales! One of the big ideas in the geometry unit is that 2D items are called shapes and 3D items are called objects. The kids learn to use geometrical language and to describe, sort, and compare both 2D shapes and 3D objects. And of course, we get to build by replicating a design that is given and by problem solving the best way to fit pieces together. And of course we continue to reinforce the basic skills of number operation and number sense every day during our morning calendar time.

Sight Words For The Month

March 4-7 again, say, May, birthday, ate

March 11-15 when, where, who, what, once

March 18-21 brown, brick, bring, pretty, from, fry

March 25-28 daddy, mommy, funny, any, every

Spelling Words

There are several weeks in March that are 4 day weeks so we will have spelling tests and Library Days on Thursdays instead.  Spelling lists will continue to come home on Mondays and can also be found at spellingcity.com

 

Important Dates!

March 8: PD day no school for kids

March 7,15,21,29 Library & Spelling test day

March 8:District Staff Learning Day! No school for students

March 14:Spirit Assembly @12:30 WEAR GREEN!!!!

March 15: Report Cards come home!

March 21 Celebration of Learning drop-in night 5:30-7:00PM

March 22 No classes P/T interview

March 28: Easter Sock Hop-pm in the gym

March 29: Good Friday: no classes

100th Day and Home Hardware!

Just wanted to put up a few pics of the fun we had on 100th day and on our fieldtrip to Home Hardware! Thank you SO MUCH to the parents who helped out with 100th day stations, walked with us, manned the stations at the store, AND prepared FABULOUS treats for our parties! Our grade one program just could not happen without your support! 

Thank you Miss Tsentorous for the awesome banners and balloons!











 


100th day centres galore!



Expert builders extraordinaire!
Thank you Geoffry and Jennifer Brayne
owners of our local Home Hardware!



We are 100 days smarter!!

 On another note, Teacher Convention has come to a close and was filled with many inspirational stories! You may have seen the Herald coverage of our keynote speaker, Amanda Lindhout, who was incredibly brave in sharing her story with us.  Have a great weekend and I'll see you Monday!



Sewing Project!

 

 

                

Hi all!  The Grade 1 team has been planning a very special art activity for our “3 Schools 1 Book” project based on The One and Only Ivan.  In order to pull this off, we need parents / volunteers to come into the school, to work one on one with students.  Each student will be hand stitching a mini stuffed gorilla or elephant.

We are looking for volunteers to come into the classroom anytime from January 24^th to the 30^th.  If you are able to give even just a half an hour, this would be greatly appreciated. 

If you’d like to help out, but are not able to make it during school hours, there are still lots of ways to volunteer! 

We are requiring some parents to help prep for the project, by cutting out the patterns.  This can be done at home. We will send the fabric/ instructions home on Tuesday January 21st to be completed by Thursday January 24^th. 

If anyone has spare flannel fabric, we would gladly take it off your hands!  Because this project needs to be completed by the end of the month, we need to have the material on Monday.  Please don’t feel the need to go out and purchase, we are just asking for donations if you have any to spare!

If you are able to either:

A)     Come help kids stitch! Anytime from January 24^th-30^th, at any time of the day!

B)      Cut patterns at home on Tuesday January 21^st and 22^nd

C)      Donate fabric on Monday January 20^th

 

…please email me as soon as you can!

 

THANK YOU! From the Grade 1 Team