Tens and Ones

In Math we've been working a lot with numbers to 100 - counting by twos, fives, tens, counting forwards and backwards, finding missing numbers on a 100 chart and showing more and less, before and after.  Today, we started working with ten rods and unit cubes (tens and ones).  Students showed how to represent numbers on a chart (see pictures below).
   

48 is 4 tens and 8 ones

We have been talking about Seasonal Changes in Science - the arrival of Spring!  (Even though the weather outdoors doesn't show it!)  

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Easter holiday!  Maybe it will actually seem like Spring when we return to school on April 8.

St. Patrick's Day and Other Things

First of all, allow me to apologize for the lack of posts lately! Things have been very busy with assessments, report card preparation and getting ready for Student Led Conferences (which are this Tuesday and Wednesday from 4-6:30)!

This is what we've been up to:

• In ELA we have been learning all about the "Bossy R" sounds (ar, or, ir, er, ur).  We practice reading and spelling words, tell stories to help us remember what the sounds are, go on word hunts and make word houses.
• We are beginning to learn another reading comprehension strategy called Inferring.  Good readers use clues from the text (the words and pictures) plus their own knowledge (new word:  "schema"!) and try to figure out what the author is trying to show us.  This week we will be doing a special "investigation" to practice our inferring skills.
• We worked on our retelling skills when we were reading St. Patrick's Day stories this past week.  A good retelling includes telling the title of the story, describing what happens at the beginning, middle and end, using the character's names during the retelling and making a connection.
• We wrote St. Patrick day poems using the poem "March 17th" by Vera Trembach as a model.
• Practicing different counting patterns have been keeping us busy in Math.  We are working on counting by 2s (to 20), 5s and 10s (to 100).  We have also been learning about different subtraction strategies that will help us to be quick and accurate (Subtracting zero, Number Minus Itself, Counting Back and Counting Up).
• Students have learned a lot about our brain, lungs and heart.  The children are working in pairs to design a poster that represents their learning about things we can do to keep our heart, lungs and brain healthy.
• In Art we made pepper print shamrocks.

St. Patrick's Day poem:  "March 17th"

Be sure to take a look at all the poems when you come for Student Led Conferences.

Working on Health posters

Get Lots of Exercise!

Here are the final products of our Geometric Houses we started a few weeks ago.

Using green peppers to make prints.

Colouring in the white spaces.

Geometric Towers and Word Hunt

Last week we completed a few lessons from our Geometry unit.  Students used their knowledge of geometric objects (cones, spheres, cubes, rectangular prisms, and cylinders) to build different structures.  One of the math outcomes for Grade One is to replicate structures.  Students worked in small groups to build and copy each others towers.

We have been learning about words that have the ow and ou sound.  Today, students went on a "Word Hunt" to find words with these sounds.  They used clipboards to help them record the words they found on their Word House sheets.

Just a reminder that Progress Reports will be sent home on Thursday, March 14.  Student-Led Conferences will be held March 19 and 20 from 4-6:30.