Artifacts, Art and Storytelling

Hi Parents!!

What a fun and exciting week we had.

Thank you to all of those that have brought artifacts from the past to share. We have explored old cameras and learned how film was used and how we just "couldn't see the picture" until it was developed.   We saw typewriters, phones - (did you know you used to have to turn a dial to make a phone call?) irons and even an Apple 2 computer!!!

As we continue to explore the past, we created a beautiful art project using plasticine!  We got to choose what kind of landscape we wanted to create.   They turned out beautifully!!

We were honoured to have Mr. Scout in our class this week to tell us the story of Napi and The Rock.  We learned how stories are passed on from generation to generation.  Ask me to tell you the story about how the rock in Okotoks got there!

We learned a reading strategy for when two vowels are together in a word.  "When two vowels go a walking, the first one does the talking and says its name."  Words such as  'soap', 'eat', 'ear', 'rain' ......
This strategy helps use to read these words properly because sounding each vowel out won't work!  Help me use it at home!

List #5 of my popcorn words came home last week!  Please help me practice them! 

We continue to work on subtraction in math and have been using various strategies to help support our learning.  Counting backwards, using fingers, manipulatives just to name a few.  Our math centres have helped reinforce our learning and helped us to use our strategies!

REMINDERS

We are swimming next week!  Please make sure your child has a towel, bathing suit and other items they need.  We will not have time to shower and shampoo hair so please do not send any of those items.  Your child will need to be independent in dressing themselves and be responsible for their items.  We will have some parent volunteers to support.

Fort Calgary and living in the past!

Hi Parents!

What a great week last week!!  Our trip to Fort Calgary was amazing!

We learned about how people dressed, the peoples that were Indigenous to Calgary and how the settlers and NWMP made there home here as well.  We were able to touch artifacts from the early 1900's.   What toys kids played with, what household items looked like as well as what the NWMPolice used to keep people safe.  We also learned about Sod Houses that the settlers made looked like and why they used Sod for their roofs.  As well as how the Indigenous lived in teepees and moved to follow the Buffalo.

Ask me who took care of the teepee and what did I build using team work!

In math we started working on Subtraction.  We are learning different strategies to help us understand how to make a number smaller.  We can count backwards, use counters and sometimes our fingers work too!  Subtraction can be a tricky concept, so we will continue to practice and develop ways that work for all of us to understand it!!

We have been developing our writing and working on capitals, lowercase and starting to use punctuation.  We realize that using finger spaces  really make it easier to read our work and most of us are using them consistently.    Over the next while we will be making sure that our popcorn words are spelled correctly by using our word wall and editing our work.  We are also working on explaining the 'WHY' when making a statement such as 'I like to play __________  because_____'
Help me at home by practicing printing my popcorn words as well as reading them!


Reminders

Swimming is the week of March 11-14.

Literacy night is March 7!

February is here!

Hi Parents!

First of all, my apologies for missing the last blogs!!!! 

The new year is in full swing!!  We have a lot of things happening in February and March.  Many forms have gone home, please ensure that you send them all back in ASAP if you haven't already!

Over the last week we have been working on how to describe a character in a story.   What features do they have, what do they look like and how to they act and feel inside.  We read the Paper Bag Princess and worked on describing the Princess and the Dragon in our writing journal as well as Moira from the book Moira's birthday.   We are getting much better at understanding how we need many ideas to describe a character and put that to work, by beginning to create our own!  We have started the planning stages and made sure we add all the features we need to so that our words match our drawings!  Next week we will put all our ideas together to write about our created character!

Tech day was a huge success!  We got to use our dash and dot robots as well as code with the ipads.  We had fun working with Ms Redwoods class.

In gym we started hockey!!  We have learned how to use sticks safely and pass the puck to a partner.  Friday we got to play small games!  It was a lot of fun.

We had a great time celebrating CHINESE NEW YEAR!!  It is the year of the PIG!  We made Dragon masks, talked about the Zodiac, had rice and made Chinese lanterns.

Much of January and February we have focused on WINTER.  Reading lots of good books,  coming up with ideas about "I know it's winter when" and writing them down.  This week we started a winter tree project using paper. 

Reminders

Fort Calgary is Feb 20!!

100's day and Valentines exchange will be on Feb 13

Please hand in forms for Swimming and Fort Calgary ASAP

Swimming is March 11-14

STAY WARM!!!!

January 14-18

Hi Parents!

It was as great learning week.  The weather was a bit colder brrrrrrr but we got through it.  Reminders that students go out at lunch and for recess even in temperatures that are a bit chillier than they have been.  Please make sure to come with mitts and hats!!

Our literacy centres are in full swing and we've been practicing our writing and listening skills! In math we continue to work on different strategies to support our addition skills, using counting on, counting the dots on dominos,  and adding manipulatives. 


As we continue to talk about community, we brainstormed what things were important to us about our home and our school.  We wrote about the things we do there and what things make it important to them.


Looking forward to a great week!!

Happy New Year and Welcome Back!

Hi Parents!!

What a great week back.  It was so nice to see so many fresh and rested faces after the break.  We were all ready and raring to go!!!

Our new year saw us introduce new Literacy and Math centres this week.   We are working on developing our writing and learning about word families and how they help us spell.  In math we are working on addition and reinforcing numeracy to 20.

We started working on Community and the different places we can consider a community where we belong.   Our highlight of the week was learning all the places that are in our Cranston Community and how we all have 2 things in common in our class.  We all live and go to school in the same community.  We used Google Earth to help us understand how our big our community is and we even used it to find our houses!  It was fun to see how close we all are to each other!

Swimming

This week we got our swimming dates.  We will be swimming at Canyon Meadows pool sometime in March.  We will send out our times to parents in an email.  We are looking for parents to help in the dressing rooms, in particular we will need DAD's!!  Please make a note and look for an email shortly.


Reminders

Home reading is still being switched daily.  We have all made so much progress.

We also sent out list 3 of our Popcorn words.  Please continue practicing!  Putting stickies around the house with the words on them and asking your child to find them is a fun way to learn!

Our Residency for Gymnastics is starting this week.  Reminders to have girls hair tied back, no frilly or flowing tops or dresses as well as small studs in the ears so they don't catch on clothes.

Christmas Time!!!

Hi Parent's!!

What a great week to start off the fun and excitement of the holidays!! 

Our Christamas concert was a HUGE success.  The students worked hard learning their songs and actions and were amazing!

Thank you to all the families who brought items in for our Christmas bags.  We spent the week decorating the bags and filling the with items for students in Grade 1 that may not be getting much.

We know that animals adapt to colder weather, but how do we adapt in Calgary?  We came up with a lot of different ways!!

Our math and literacy centres are always part of our day!  We started our special project to share with you in the Assembly we are hosting on DEC 21!!!

Rainbow day was a big success!  We had so many colours on and used our math skills to find out which colour was the most popular.  BLUE was the winner!

Reminders

Report cards go home Wednesday December 19th

Assembly will be Friday Dec 21 at 9:15.  Parents are welcome to come watch. We will be sharing our learning as well as students from around the school.

Club Friday is also on the same Friday and school will go until 11:45 as usual.

Week of December 7!

Hi Mom and Dad!

The month of December is in full swing and as always is a busy one!!!

This week we had the opportunity to see the Kinders perform their Christmas concert and we have been working hard practicing our own songs!

We did a fun writing activity with the book "I Don't Want to be a Frog!".  The frog wanted to be every animal but the one he was.   We were able to choose what animals we wanted to be and reasons or characteristics about why would couldn't be that animal.   There was a lot of great animals we came up with!

We have been working on how animals get ready for the winter and the changes they make.  Whether they Hibernate, Migrate or Adapt, animals all do something!  We've done a good job brainstorming animals and researching what animals do what!

On Thursday we worked with our Buddy Class and created our "Christmas Sweaters" out of paper.  In honour of Christmas sweater day on Monday, they are hanging on the bulletin board in the HUB!

Reminders

Items for our Christmas bags are due tomorrrow!!  We're hoping as many people as possible can help support some students who may not receive gifts this season.

Christmas concert is Thursday December 13 at 6:30pm.    Our afternoon dress rehearsal will be at 1pm on Thursday.  No tickets are required for that.

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!!