Recap June 8-12

Hello parents!  I hope you had a fantastic weekend with your children.

Here is a quick recap of what we were working on in our classroom last week.

This past week the students continued to work on inferring as a tool to form ideas based on context clues.  One of the books we used this week in class was called We Are All Friends Here.

In writing the students continued to work on narrative writing after a short detour so that we could write our reflections from our Safety Village trip.  I sent home a work in progress piece this past weekend so the students could work on some of their current work at home.  If your child does not have a chance to work on this no need to worry.  I will give the students more time this upcoming week to add final details to their work.

In Math we continued working on Symmetry and finished our Symmetry test.  Our next upcoming unit is on fractions. 

By the end of grade 1 students should be able to...

– divide whole objects into parts and identify and describe, through investigation, equal-sized parts of the whole, using fractional names (e.g., halves; fourths or quarters)

 The factions unit will be a quick unit as I hope to finish both measurement and fractions this week so that I can use the final week as a overall review of concepts taught in grade 1.

In Science the students began working on a structure for father's day.  The final product will be sent home this week.

In Social Studies the students began learning about community helpers.  We focused on the tools, work places, and duties of both fire fighters and teachers.

Other News:

I hope your child had a chance to enjoy the book fair, the carnival, and some of the other activities that happened this past week.

As a class we are going to try to read 500 books by the end of the school year.  This amounts to about 2-3 books a day per child.  The students are excited about this current challenge and I look forward to celebrating their accomplishment.

I have sent home your child's May Folder.  Please review it and send it back when you have a chance to review the contents inside your child's folder.


Reminders:
Please send your child with a water bottle.
Please remind the students to begin taking back classroom materials and books before the final week of school.

May 25-May 29 Recap

I hope you are enjoying your weekend! Here is a recap of what the students learned last week.

In Language, the students continued to write their narratives. They focused on adding detail to the middle portion of their stories and included speech to their stories. The students also worked on writing up their final copy of their first narrative. In Reading the students worked on improving their inferring skills as they read and responded to poetry. The students also learned more about non-fiction work and the features of non-fiction texts.

In our math classes the students learned more about probability and wrote their probability test on Friday. All the students did extremely well. Our next unit will be on symmetry. As a quick homework piece look around at different objects within your home and see if the kids can tell you if the object is symmetrical or asymmetrical.

In Science we are continuing our Structures unit. Over the next week the students will be building a garage that can store a toy car.

This week the students also had several special events including our Bounce Dance (this past Friday), being part of a Flash Mob and our monthly character assembly. Congratulations to Ryan and Morgan who won the Courage award!

Next week... We are headed to Safety Village for a field trip. The trip will happen rain or shine so please ensure that your child is dressed appropriately.

Probability Terminology

Some words we will use in our new unit. 

Recap May 19-22

In Language, this week we started our narrative writing unit.  The students had a chance to work with partners to create a story outline and afterwards they worked on creating their own stories based on the ideas that they brainstormed with their partners.  At this point the students are learning how to add dialogue and description to their writing.  In reading the students learned about different elements of non-fiction texts.  They were excited to be able to take out a non-fiction book from the library to read in class.

In Math, we continued our probability unit. The students created posters, and worked on different scenarios using key terminology for our unit (i.e. Impossible, unlikely, likely, certain).  Next week the students will be learning the words more likely, less likely, and equally likely and will be using them to explain the different chances for winning a game that they create.

In Science, we continued our structures unit. The students learned about fasteners (items which hold two different parts together). The students also had a chance to use their 5 senses to describe an apple during their apple experiment.

In Gym, the students continued to work on their introduction to soccer unit where they played 4-on-4 indoor soccer.

The following link is one that we used in class and explains the elements necessary when story writing.

Volunteer Breakfast

Hi Everyone,

I hope you are enjoying your long weekend.  I wanted to invite all volunteers in our class to our upcoming Volunteer Breakfast next Friday.  I hope you can join us.

Recap May 4-May 8

This week in our class we finished a few of our current units and began a few new ones.

In Language, we continued working on persuasive writing.  We wrote a persuasion on the best day of the week and one on the importance of brushing our teeth.  We were able to share our final product that was about the importance of brushing to one of the kindergarten classes.  We also worked on several mother's day activities.  I hope you enjoy them.

In Reading, we continued learning how to write strong retells and the importance of adding details to the middle portion of our retells.  We also learned the difference between fiction and non-fiction work.

In Media literacy, we continued learning about perspective and wrote our first comic book.  We will be using them in the future with our reading buddies.

In Math we began our unit on time.  In grade 1 the expectation is that students are able to tell time to the hour and half hour on both a digital and analog clock.  On Monday students were able to take home play clocks to practise.  I will be sending them home again next week.  This week the most challenging portion of Math was telling the difference between A.M. and P.M. please review this with your child at home by using this terminology.  For example, we have dinner at 6 o'clock P.M.

In Science we are learning how to use our senses.  We also learned that there are various descriptive words that can be used when describing different objects.

In Gym, we continued learning about appropriate kicking techniques.

Reminders:
Please send your child with a water bottle.

April folders were sent home this past week.  Please review them and return them in a timely manner.

I have sent home the monthly calendar for May and our current newsletter.  Please let me know if you have not received it.

Recap April 27-May 1

This week we wrote a persuasive letter explaining to Mrs. D'Souza what we should have for snacks if we were to have a classroom party. The choices were chips, chocolate, or a fruit and vegetable platter.

In math we finished our money unit and wrote our tests on Friday.

In Social Studies we finished our Mapping unit.

In Gym we continued our unit on kicking appropriately. We will be using these skills in a future soccer game.

Upcoming:

The school presentation of High School Musicial will be on Monday and Tuesday next week tickets are still available.