Seniors' Appreciate Program

     This afternoon our school invited all seniors from the community to a special program!  The Grade Ones performed two numbers:  a poem called "Grandma's Spectacles" and a song entitled "Let's Go See Our Grandparents".  I've printed the words below the picture just in case your child wants to recite and sing for you!

Let's Go See Our Grandparents (to the tune of Take Me Out to the Ballgame)
Let's go see our grandparents
Take us there for a while
Mommy and Daddy both need a break
We'll play games and we'll stay up real late

Oh we want to thank our Grandparents
For all the things that they do
So  it's ...  time...  to...  say
"You're the Best! And that WE LOVE YOU!"

Grandma's Spectacles
These are grandma's spectacles,
This is grandma's hat.
This is the way she folds her hands,
And puts them in her lap.
These are Grandpa's spectacles
This is Grandpa's hat
And this is the way he folds his arms
And THAT IS THAT!

     Just a reminder to listen to your child read the sentences on the green sheet they are bringing home ("heart word" sentences) as well as the new poem in their Poem Duotang.
     We will be starting our Home Reading Program on Monday.  Look in your child's ziploc bag for their "Home Reading Duotang" and a little book that they can read to you!
Have a great weekend!

Terry Fox walk and other exciting things!

     We had a very busy and tiring day!  When students arrived at school this morning, they discovered that Zero the Hero had come during the night and left us a special treat to celebrate the 20th day of school.  Everyone got 20 fruit loops.  Zero the Hero also left us extra ten frames so we could organize our fruit loops into two groups of ten! Look at the pictures below to see students at work counting
     The other pictures are from the Tery Fox walk that was held this afternoon.  It was a beautiful sunny (although very windy) day!  Needless to say, students were quite tired when we returned.

Counting the fruit loops onto the ten frames.

We practiced counting backwards from 20 as we removed (ate) the fruit loops.

On the bridge!



This is the "after" picture.  The Credit Union supplied the popsicles - a great treat after the long walk!



We Can Write!

This week we have begun Work on Writing (one of the Daily 5 components of our Language Arts program). First we think of a topic. Then we draw a picture with as much detail as we can. We think about what we want to say and practice saying the sentence out loud. We use a highlighter to draw lines on the paper - one line for each word. Then we take our pencils and print as many letters as we can hear in each word. The pictures below show some of the students from our class at work. Notice one student is looking at the Word Wall to find one of our "heart words" to spell!

Make a collage

Line Pictures

In Art we discovered that pictures are made up of different kinds of lines.  We looked at many famous pieces of art on the Smart board by Picasso, Miro and Mondrian.  We experimented by making all different kinds of lines:  straight, curved, wavy, dotted, zigzag, thick, thin, etc.  Take a look at our final products below.

We Can Read!

     This morning in ELA we started to blend sounds to read and spell words!  Some of the boys and girls were quite surprised when they could actually read the words by "sliding" the sounds together.  It was  exciting to see the looks on their faces!
      We have learned the sounds, correct formation and name of these letters:  m, s, f, b, t, c, and the vowel a (when it says /a/ like in cat).  We learned that we can make words that belong to the at word family by changing the first letter (mat, sat, fat, cat).  We used a "sound slide" to slide the letters down while making their sounds to make words! You can practice doing this at home too! 
     In Grade One we focus on several different ways of learning how to read.  We do phonics (letter sounds, word families - as described above), sight words (we call them "heart words" at school because we need to learn them by heart) and comprehension strategies.  Throughout the year, we learn that we can make connections, visualize, ask questions, infer plus many other important strategies.  All of these things help us to understand and remember what we are reading.
     Throughout the year, I will be sending home information sheets to inform you about what we have been learning, so you can reinforce these concepts as you read with your child at home.

A Special Visitor and Math Information

Today we were very fortunate to have a world musician visit our school and do a wonderful presentation.  Boris Sichon is from the Ukraine and has travelled to many countries, accumulating a large collection of instruments.  He has drums, wind instruments, xylophones, percussion and many more.  Go to his website (http://www.sichon.com/) to view his instrument collection, watch a video of him playing "bones" and lots of other interesting stuff!
     In Math we are working on a pattern unit and reviewing how to form numerals correctly.  We have also been practicing counting forwards and backwards from 10.  By the end of Grade One, students need to be able to count to 100 in various ways (2s, 5s, 10s) and count backwards from 20 by ones.  Here is a good website that we use a lot in Grade One in Math:  http://jmathpage.com/.  Once you get there, click on Number, then Counting Activities.  Activities 3, 4, 9, 10 and 11 in this section are appropriate practice for what we are learning right now at school.

What's New this Week?

We are nearly finished the second week of school.  Things continue to be very busy in Grade One!  So far, we have learned the sounds and how to print the letters M, S and F.  We have also begun our spelling program by listening and printing the beginning and ending sounds of words.
In Health, we are learning about healthy behaviours such as eating healthy foods, brushing our teeth, getting lots of sleep, drinking water and getting exercise.
Next week we will begin our Sharing routine.  Each day three or four students will have a turn to show or tell about something that is important to them.  Be sure to read the note for more information about when your child's sharing day is.
Here is a great website that your child can go to at home to practice the letters of the alphabet.  Listen to the sounds that the letters make and view pictures of things that begin with the letters we've learned at school.

http://www.starfall.com/