Oct. 26-29

 Hello families! 

October is coming to an end already! I can't believe it! I hope you all have a safe and happy Halloween! I did a terrible job with taking photos yesterday, so if you would like to send me a photo of your child dressed up this weekend, I can create a collage photo! I used my Little Red Riding Hood mask as inspiration this year! 



This week we had a lot of Halloween fun! Students learned about the 5 senses and participated in activities about each of their senses that were organized by Mrs. Green, Mr. Link and myself! 

We first looked at our sense of hearing and discussed how our hearing can be impacted and how this sense helps to keep us safe, such as an fire alarm or siren. Students had to guess the spooky sound, however it turns out that Mrs. Proctor, our music teacher, had used the exact same video with students. We are going to look at hearing again next week and will try to identify some new sounds.

When discussing taste, unfortunately this year we had to only focus on the snacks and lunches that students had, rather than sharing food. We learned about the 5 main types of taste: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. We worked together to categorize some of the snacks students had. 

For our sense of smell, students had to guess 5 mystery smells. We talked about closing our eyes to really focus on our sense of smell. Students did a great job with this and ended up identifying smells such as peppermint, orange, vinegar, garlic and vanilla. 

For our sense of sight, the grade 1/2 teachers organized an outdoor pumpkin hunt. Students were shown a picture clue and had to think about where they have seen this item or space in our schoolyard. They then ran to find the pumpkin and had to draw the face on the pumpkin they found. They then ran back to me for the next clue. This was such a fun activity and the students absolutely loved it! 

These are some picture clues and one of the hidden pumpkins!



Lastly, for touch, students had 5 mystery touches that were labelled with different Halloween items. They had to guess what they thought the actual item in the bin was. We made sure to emphasize hand hygiene during these shared activities and reminded students to be careful not to touch their faces during these activities. 







This week we continued with our Shape of the Day. So far, we have looked at circles, triangles, squares, rectangles and rhombuses. We read the story "The Legend of Spookly the Square Pumpkin" and on Thursday watched the animated movie on Netflix as part of our "low-key Halloween" celebration. More information about the Shape of the Day can be found on our Google Classroom under "Classwork" and then "Shapes."



Our focus on vowels got pushed aside a little bit this week because we had so many other things going on, but we will be focusing on vowels more next week! I also sent home Raz-Kids login information for students to use at home (a few students have not brought them home yet). This is a great resource to help students develop their reading and comprehension skills! You can download the app on a device or visit https://www.raz-kids.com/ and click on the "Kids Login." My username is: lmidgley0 (zero).

Since it is the end of the month, students got to use their Class Dojo points at our "Class Dojo Store." Students showed their mathematical thinking and figured out how many points they had, what they could afford, and how much they would have leftover. I am pretty impressed with how many students choose to save their points or are careful not to spend everything they have. 


Outdoor Classroom Day - Nov. 5





Upcoming Dates:
  • Tuesday, November 3rd - Photo Retakes (Please send me an email if you would like your child to have their photo retaken)
  • Thursday, November 5th - Outdoor Classroom Day
  • Wednesday, November 11th - Remembrance Day: No School
  • Friday, November 20th - PD Day (Conferences - more info to come) No School

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