September 7-10

Hello families! 

We had a great week in grade 1! I know the transition from kindergarten to grade 1 is pretty big - there are a lot of new rules and routines to learn and we are getting there! 


Literacy

This week we started reviewing letters and sounds. We are aiming to review 2 letters every week but only did one this week. We may spend longer on vowels as they seem to be trickier for students. We started with the letter 'P' and have been using a program called Animated Literacy. I really like this program because each letter has a character, story and action. We practiced making the letter P with materials and did some printing practice with uppercase and lowercase Ps. Students were given a picture of the character, Polly Panda, to bring home to share with you. 









This week we also tried doing some "free write" where students could write about whatever they wanted. They included a coloured picture. I wanted to see what students were able to write - some wrote sentences, some wrote words they know or names of people, and some wrote the first letter of their picture. We also started talking about Daily 5 Literacy time. This is something we will do each day and provides me time to read with small groups in the classroom, while all students are engaged in a small group literacy activity. This week we learned what "Read to Self" looks and sounds like. We need a little more practice and we're working on our reading stamina. I reminded students that I am not expecting them to start grade 1 knowing how to read. So we talked about other ways to enjoy books such as looking at the pictures and making up our own stories, or looking at the writing to see if there are any words or letters that we know. 

For Daily 5 Literacy, students will participate in "Listen to Reading" - if you could please send your child with labelled headphones this week to keep at school in their cubbies, that would be appreciated! 



Math

In math, we have been working with patterns! This week, students showed what they already knew about patterns. We began talking about different patterns (using shape, size colour, movements, actions, etc) and students used a variety of materials to make patterns. We will continue with this work next week!

















Social Studies

In social studies we have been focusing on identity. Students are working on an "All About Me" backpack booklet and each day we have completed a new page. Students drew self portraits, practiced writing their name (beginning with a capital and the rest lowercase) and today we talked about eye colour. We will continue working on this next week as well. 


Science

We have began learning about our classroom pets! We have three hermit crabs in our classroom. They are pretty quiet as they are nocturnal animals. I have shared some of my limited knowledge about hermit crabs with the students and they have been very intrigued to learn more. We watched a few videos about hermit crabs and coloured and labeled a diagram of a hermit crab. We will be learning more next week and will also begin learning about colour mixing! 



Today we learned about different sketching techniques. We talked about the difference between drawing the outline of an object, and learned ways that we can add more detail to our sketches. The students enjoyed learning and practicing these different techniques in the classroom. We then went outside with Mrs. Proctor's class to do a "sit spot" activity where students chose a place to sit in the school garden and could sketch anything they could see. I was pretty impressed with their sketching! We also enjoyed playing What Time is it Mr. Wolf outside with Mrs. P's class. 







In gym, we have been enjoying playing a few different games. This week we played freeze dance as a warm-up game. Watching 22 six year olds freestyle dance might be the funniest and cutest thing I've ever seen! They really enjoyed it! We also played a version of Fruit Salad called "Pizza Party," played Snakes in the Grass and learned Four Corners. 

I also introduced a little incentive for Free Choice time of Fridays. Throughout the week, students can earn pom-poms for following classroom expectations and treating each other with kindness. If they are able to fill up the jar by the end of the week, they will earn some free choice time! 


Upcoming Dates
  • Wednesday, September 15th - Dot Day - students are invited to wear polka-dots!
  • Monday, September 20th - Beginning of the year forms due (brown envelope)
  • Tuesday, September 21st - International Day of Peace
  • September 27th-October 2nd - Truth and Reconciliation Week - students are invited to wear orange all week
  • Wednesday, September 29th - LBS Orange Shirt Day
  • Thursday, September 30th - Non-Operational Day - no school (not listed on LBS calendar)

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