January 6-10

Hello families, 

Happy New Year! 🎉

We had a great first week back! 

We took some time this week to review expectations at school. We read the story "Whole Body Listening Larry At School" which teaches students how they can listen with their whole body (8 body parts!) If you want to follow up with Whole Body Listening at Home I will have it below for you! 

It's hard to find a good video of Whole Body Listening Larry at Home! It's also extremely expensive on Amazon!


In literacy we have been reviewing short vowel sounds. This week we covered the short 'a' and short 'i' sounds. Students enjoyed learning a poem called "Me and Dad" which they brought home to share. We also did a short vowel 'i' hunt in the classroom. Grade 1 students had to sound out the CVC words and grade 2s had to use three of the CVC words in a sentence - grade 1s were also able to challenge themselves with sentence writing! We had fun playing the Roll & Reads from UFLI. You can also use the "homework" activities from UFLI which includes Word Work Chains that can be practiced on the UFLI Blending Board. The students are familiar with these and should be able to help explain! We've also started working through the literacy government assessment which are completed 1:1 with each student.


 
For our weekly word practice, we started doing a little quiz at the end of the week to see if student are able to spell these words. This is not meant to be stressful or worrisome for students and we've talked about this quite a lot. It's just for me (and for you!) to see if they are able to sound out/remember these high-frequency words. This also gives them some low-risk experience with taking a short quiz which will hopefully reduce test anxiety in the future. You are welcome to practice the words at home as well - that is why I always share the following week's words on the blog every Friday. The quiz will be sent home to share with families! 

Grade 1s are able to choose which list is best for them! Here are next week's words: 

A reminder that all of these words come from the "First High-Frequency" word lists. 



In math, we started learning about addition! We read some addition stories and practiced some basic addition skills using the math racks (Rekenreks) and had fun completing a puzzle together on the smart board. Students were also able to just a just-right level of addition questions to practice. Grade 2 students were working on improving their fact fluency when adding smaller numbers. We will be learning more about addition strategies!





 


In science, we've been exploring different types of energy and are specifically investigating sound energy. We learned about the difference between natural and artificial sounds. 

 

 



 

 

In wellness, we started learning about our amazing brains! We're exploring the question: How does your brain control your emotions? This is all connected to our health & wellness curriculum through the Mind Up program. We learned about three main parts of our brains: the prefrontal cortex, the amygdala and the hippocampus. We also learned what happens when we are afraid or frustrated and "flip our lids." This will lead is into learning more about self-regulation and how we can be more in control of our emotions. 








In PE, we had fun playing some scrimmage games of floor hockey! We are looking forward to a lacrosse residency at the end of the month - more info to come! 

Upcoming Dates
  • Thursday, January 23rd - The Lunch Lady Fun Lunch
  • Monday, January 27th -  Report cards available online
  • Thursday, January 30th - Montessori Open House (for prospective families!)
  • Friday, January 31st - PD Day 
  • February 13-14 - Teacher's Convention - No school for students
  • Monday, February 17th - Family Day - No School
  • February 19-21 - Ms. Midgley away at a conference 
  • Friday, February 28th - PD Day - No School
  • Thursday, March 6th - SAVE THE DATE - SAM Centre Field Trip - PLEASE DO NOT ORDER FUN LUNCH FOR THIS DAY!!

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