MARCH NEWS 2016

 Important Dates!
March 1: Conference Manager Opens today!

March 7: Report Cards come home!

March 10 Celebration of Learning night  5:30-7:00PM/ conference manager closes today

March 10-Hot Lunch Orders due-please use ONLY school cash online

March 11 No classes P/T interviews

March 21 Fieldtrip to Galt Museum @10:50

March 22: Hot Lunch day 

March 24: Fancy Dress Up day!

March 25: Good Friday: no classes 

Pink Shirt Day sparkles!

Words  Of The Week
Feb 29-Mar 4 fly from going give had
                   
March 7-10 has her him his

March 14-18  how just let know live   

March 21-25 once may old of

Our class has been all about Magic Tricks and Riddles lately! I think they must KNOW that fairy tales are coming soon and that every fairy tale has a magical element! This little guy started it all! 

Report Cards
Report cards will be coming home on Monday March 7.  We are  having a Celebration of Learning on Thursday March 10 from 5:30-7:00pm. This will be a drop in evening where your child can show what they know and update you on their latest projects and progress!  Hope to see you there! Sign up using   
conference manager. 

Conference Mangager How To!
Step 1 – You can Pre-Register at https://mikemountain.schoolsoft.ca (DO NOT include “www” in the url) You can set up a Parent Account by following the link below. Click the REGISTER NOW button and complete the registration form. Your login credentials (email and password) will remain in the system to make it easy to access the Conference Manager in the future. If you pre-registered in November 2015, you do not need to do so again. Please note that in order to enhance functionality and security, the Conference Manager requires you to use Internet Explorer 7 (or above), Firefox 3 (or above) or Safari 4 (or above). If you are using an older browser, the Conference Manager will automatically prompt you to update your browser and provide you with a link. This is a one-time process and only takes a couple of minutes. In order to ensure that your email program does not block emails sent from the Conference Manager, we suggest adding appointments@schoolsoft.ca to your address book. 

Step 2 – Conference Manager Opens to Parents – Tuesday, March 1 at 6:00 am. You can access the Parent Login Page using the link in the Confirmation Email. If you do not receive a Confirmation Email, you can login by going directly to https://mikemoutain.schoolsoft.ca.

Step 3 – Book your Time at the “Celebration of Learning/Parent Teacher Interview” Select the teachers of the classrooms you want to visit. You will see each teacher’s schedule. After booking your appointments you can print off your schedule. You will also receive an email containing the teacher name, time and location of the visit. You can log into the system at any time to view your bookings, print, cancel or re-schedule your “Celebration of Learning” time. You have the option of submitting comments or questions to the teacher as part of the booking process. If you do not have Internet access, you are welcome to contact the office and we will schedule your conferences on your behalf. If you have any questions or need assistance, please feel free to contact the school at 403-381-2211. 

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! 

Bought this book last summer in Montana! Can't wait to read it to the kids!

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 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!     

Math
Once we finish Doubles Facts, our new unit in Math is Geometry which 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.

Fieldtrips!
We will be heading to the Galt Museum on Monday March 21 for the Blackfoot Peoples Voices Program which starts at 10:50. Busses are provided so parent drivers will not be requested, however if you would like to meet us their or ride on the bus with us to help supervise and join your child for the presentation please send me a quick email. :) 

That's all folks! Thanks for reading all the way to the end! Hard copies coming home tomorrow!  Also, a big thank you to all our reading volunteers, snack moms, and special day helpers! You are so appreciated!

February Newsletter 2016

It’s hard to believe that it’s already February! We had a lot of fun learning about penguins and had some amazing research reports to conclude our unit. Our next big theme will be snowmen, including writing the directions to build one and what might happen if they come to life at night!  Our phonics focus continues to be long vowels and we are buzzing along with sight words. Thanks for your continued support with the home reading program! The kids are jumping up levels and it is exciting to see the light come on!  Report cards will be coming up soon in March and we will be looking closely at reading behaviours and practising, practising, practising the newly acquired strategy of Chunky Monkey (looking for small chunks that we already know in words to help us decode) and introducing Flippy Dolphin (trying the short vowel sound and if it doesn’t make sense flipping to the long vowel sound).  

We have started our Science building unit with some fun building centres and will continue our learning by making cabins, towers, bridges, and so much more! If you have any small styro foam plates, tin pie plates, plastic containers, or cardboard tubes, please send them to school up until Friday Feb. 5th.  

This month we have two  big days to celebrate: The 100th day of school and Valentines on Friday Feb. 12th.  We will be having  a combined party on the afternoon of Feb. 11th which is the day to send valentines. We have 24 students and I’ve enclosed a class list.  Thanks once again to our generous party snack moms! 

Our focus in Math is our big numbers to 100 unit!  The kids have really got the idea of counting on and counting back and our next strategy will be doubles facts coming soon. We also started a new schedule of stations called CAMPP where C=computers, A=alone, M=Manipulatives, P=partners, and P=problem solving. The kids are doing really well working within this framework to practise number skills to 100. They’re working on maintenance of counting skills by 1,2, 5, and 10 to 20+ , ordering numbers to 100, filling in missing numbers to 100, 1 more/1 less , addition & subtraction!


DATES TO REMEMBER!
Feb. 2 Happy Groundhog Day!
Feb. 3 Library day is every Wednesday
Feb. 3 Winter Walk 2:05pm
Feb. 5 Show and tell day is every Friday
Feb. 11 8:30 Spirit Assembly WEAR RED!
Classroom Valentines party pm/Valentine exchange
Feb. 12 100th Day Celebration in the gym at 8:45-11:15
Feb. 8-12th Random Acts of Kindness Week
Feb. 15 NO SCHOOL : FAMILY DAY
Feb. 16& 17 NO SCHOOL: FALL BREAK
Feb. 18 &19 NO SCHOOL: TEACHER CONVENTION
Feb. 23 Hot  Lunch Day Gr. 1-3

February Sight Words 

Feb1-5

what

white

who

will

with

Feb 8-12

yes

after

again

an

any

Feb 15-19

No school

Feb 22-26

ask

as

by

could

every

Valentines Day Class List

Addie*

Addy*

Ako*

Ava*

Calum

Carter

Colbie*

Cindy*

Ethan

Gavin

Isabelle*

Lincoln

Mackenzie*

Madoc

Amelia*

Owen

Patience*

Ronin

Shauna*

Taylor*

Thomas

Treyton

Zander

Zoe*

11 boys + 13 girls* =24total

Sight Word Mastery List 

(have your child read this list to you and practise words he/she find challenging-remember these words are to be recognized by sight and not sounded out)

and away         a                      say

big blue can         soon

come         down         find she

for funny         go so

help here         in that

it jump         little there

Look         make         me they

My not went         this

One         play red to

Run said see well

The three         to under

Two we up want

Where yellow you was

All I is

but did eat

Came         do four

Get good         have

He into like

Must        new no

Now        on out

Our please pretty

Ran ride saw

Doubles are a great mental math strategy to help children quickly recall addition facts. Once they learn doubles, it’s an easy jump to doubles plus one or doubles minus one. Here’s a little poem to help them remember! We will be starting these near the end of the month, so if you want a jump start, here they are!

1+1=2  Two balloons 1 pink, 1 blue

2+2=4  Four seashells on the seashore

3+3=6  Six houses made of bricks

4+4=8  Four wheels on each roller skate

5+5=10 Ten fingers digging in the garden

6+6=12 Six plus six equals a dozen, painting easter eggs with my cousin!

7+7=14 Fourteen jewels for the queen

8+8=16 The legs on 2 spiders for Halloween!

9+9=18 9 blue and 9 green jellybeans!

10+10=20 The double of 10 will give you plenty!

My name is ____________________and yes! I can come on the Winter Walk on Feb. 3rd at 2:05.

My name is __________________________and yes! I can help supervise 100th day stations on Feb. 12 from 8:45-11:15 in the gym.  Our stations are Lego Building 100/ and 100 Day Crowns.  We need 2 supervisors for this day, more are welcome if you’d like to share the time with another parent. 

Christmas miracle!

Welcome back and hope you had a relaxing break! We had an AMAZING day making our New Years Resolutions and testing out some new word work activities during daily five. Here at school we often talk about the "Christmas miracle" that happens after the break. The kids come back ready to learn, able to listen longer, with greater reading and writing stamina! I'm happy to say ( dare I jinx it!!!) that the Christmas miracle happened in our classroom! These kids caught on so quickly to the new ideas, I just had to Post some pics of them hard at work!  Enjoy! 

 Stamp your sight words!            Match upper/lowercase letter Popsicles!

                                   

                     

Unscramble and glue sight words!               Stencil the ABC's and sight words.

Read to self!

Work on Sight Words with ABCya.com

Read to someone!

Park n write CVC words!

Read to self.

Here's a couple pics from before the break too! Look at all the Grinch costumes and faces!

 

LAST NEWS OF 2015!

Hi everyone! Thanks for checking in! 

Well time is flying as we approach our last 3 days of school before the Christmas holidays!Thank you to all the families that were able to come to our Christmas Concert last Thursday!  It was super busy but a lot of fun! Thank you for your support in making it a special event!  

This is just a post to let you know about all the happenings for the next few days! 

Because of the busy week, there will be NO more agendas coming home and they will remain at the school over the break as well. 

Monday and Wednesday in the morning, we will be carolling in the gym at 8:30am.  If you’re around MMH from 8:30-9:00(ish), feel free to join us! On Tuesday and Thursday we will be carolling at 12:30!

 On Thursday we’re having Grinch Day!  The Grade 1s will be moving around to different themed centers in the morning.  Students are invited to dress in green, or as a “Who” from “Who-Ville”.   

On Friday the entire school is going to “Dress Like Christmas”.

We’re also having our Class Party Friday morning!  Thanks to those parents who’ve signed up to bring treats that day!  

So there you have it! Our last week for 2015:

Monday December 14^th- Carolling @ 8:30

Tuesday December 15^th- Carolling @ 12:30

Wednesday December 16^th- Carolling @8:30

Thursday December 17^th Carolling @ 12:30-Grinch Day! Wear Green!

Friday December 18^st-Carolling @ 8:30- Last Day for 2015! "Dress Like Christmas!"

Monday January 4^th- Classes Resume

In case I don’t see you before the holidays…

Thank you for such a fantastic first four months of Grade 1! I have so enjoyed getting to know all of you and your amazing children!  Have a wonderful and Merry Christmas! Enjoy your time with your families!!

December News 2015

Tree of Hope at LRH

Our class helped to decorate this beautiful tree of hope that is on display at the Lethbridge Regional Hospital in the main entrance. Each envelope contains a drawing that is part of a bigger class book that we created in our room modelled after a National Geographic book called A Little Peace. The kids did a beautiful job and I wish they could see the joy on the faces of the patients as they open each precious letter handmade by our little guys! I kept a black and white copy of the book in our room on the class book shelf if you ever want to take a look.

Christmas Concert
 December 10  2015  6 :30 pm. 

at

College Drive Community Church 

(children arrive at 6:05pm) 

Tickets will be coming home soon!

Dress rehearsal will be held the day of the concert in the gym at 12:30

Important Dates to Remember!

1         9:45 University of Lethbridge Theatre Presentation 

           Hot Lunch Day

8          12:30 Dress rehearsal/ Christmas Concert (grades 2, 4) 6:30pm          

2,9,16 Library Days

10        12:30 Dress rehearsal/Christmas Concert (grades 1, 2/3, 3, 5)6:30pm 

17        Grinch Day-dress up like the grinch and get ready for fun centers           

14-18    Christmas carols in the gym at 8:30am  MWF this week

            Christmas carols in the gym at 12:30 Tues/Thurs. this week

DEC 18 Last day of classes for 2015 & class party! Dismiss at 11:35

Jan.4 First day back!   

Please check the lost and found for any missing items before holidays!

Language arts

We have been learning about Bears, real bears and fictional bears for the last week or two and the kids have had fun researching bear facts and will soon be making clay bears and have just finished their 3D habitats! 

In celebration of December we will be having a fun Grinch Day on Dec. 17th where grade one students will rotate through all of the grade one teacher’s classrooms for a literacy or math activity that is related to the Grinch.  We encourage the kids to dress up on this day, wear green for sure, and maybe even try out some Cindy Loo-Who hair!

The children have been doing a wonderful job on their sight words and word families each week! Keep up the awesome home reading! This month we will be focusing on writing letters (to guess who?) and tracking down the adventures of our Elf on the Shelf!

Sight Words for December! 

Week One : four, get, good, have, he, L blends

Week Two: into, like, must, new, no, Digraph (sh)

Week Three: now, on, our, out, please, Digraph (th)               

                 

            

              

      Math

We have started learning to count by 5’s all the way to 100. A couple fun songs you can check out on you tube are Scratch Gardens TheCounting by 5’s song and Mr. R’s Count by 5’s song. We are just finishing up our numbers to 20 unit and will be moving into subtraction and our second mental math strategy counting back.  Similar to counting on, except that we are going down the number line in the opposite direction!  The key points for kids about this strategy are:

1.  I can use counting back when I subtract 1,2,3,4 from a larger number.  For example with the equation 8-3, the student begins with the “8” in their head and then counts back “7,6,5”

2.  I should only use counting back when I subtract 1,2,3,4 because any higher and I might get mixed up with my counting.

     Science

We are kicking off our Science unit about the 5 senses with a popcorn lesson, where we use all our senses to see, hear, smell, touch,  and yes! finally taste the salty, buttery popcorn! Yum! In this unit we learn that each of our senses provides information about particular aspects of our environment; and that, together, the senses enable us to know things and do things that we would not otherwise be able to do, or at least not as easily. We will also learn about the function of our senses, how they are cared for, how they could be damaged and how one’s own ability to sense things may differ from those of other people and other living things. Throughout the unit, we will have a chance to sharpen the use of our senses and discover “juicy” words to describe the information that our senses provide.

Social

In Social we are starting Looking At Our Community which includes distinguishing geographic features in our own community from other communities.  By the end of the unit the kids should be able to identify some familiar landmarks and places in our community, and know why these landmarks and places important to Lethbridge (ie. High level bridge, Old Man River, Nikka-Yuko Japanese Gardens, Nicholas Sheran Lake).  They also get to learn the differences between rural, urban, and suburban communities and will be able to find Lethbridge and Canada on a map! And if that were not enough, they also learn to use a simple map to locate specific areas within the school and community,  ask for directions, and understand that globes and maps are visual representations of the world! Very soon  we will be taking a peek at Google Earth and trying to find  Mike Mountain Horse from both a bird’s eye view and a street view. The kids usually get pretty excited and will likely be asking you to find their own address!  We also focus on creating  maps of familiar places and learning to show how a map legend works and to start thinking geographically.  This unit will most likely spill over into January as well.    

Resources For Your Child!

Thanks so much for signing up for Parent Teacher Interviews! In preparation for our goal setting time together, I've created this page of links that are free for you to access with your child for some extra practice that will feel more like fun and less like "homework"!  

Math Number Sense & Number Words
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzfFzJGwwZQ
http://www.starfall.com/
http://www.abcya.com/
http://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/3-5-years/counting
http://www.adaptedmind.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0dJWfQHF8Y
http://www.fuelthebrain.com

Easy to Read Books & Vocabulary Support! 
http://tarheelreader.org/

Sight Words
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rmYfo84hyg
http://www.starfall.com/
http://www.abcya.com
http://netrover.com/~kingskid/sightword/dolchgames.htm

Letter Sounds

Jolly Phonics and more!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djz82FBYiug
http://www.starfall.com/
abcya.com

Blending Words 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3uQSIrbDp0
http://www.starfall.com/

Science Colour Mixing and more!
http://peepandthebigwideworld.com/en/kids/games/10/paint-splat/
http://pbskids.org/curiousgeorge/games/mix_and_paint/mix_and_paint.html

Parent Teacher Interviews

Parent Teacher Interviews

Hello Parents/Guardians!

 Thanks so much to all of you who have already signed up for Parent Teacher interviews!

The monthly Newsletter and Calendar is posted to our website each month.  

To see the Monthly Newsletter and Calendar on our Website:  mmh.lethsd.ab.ca

Mike Mountain Horse School

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Mike Mountain Horse School

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