Let’s enjoy these beautiful sunny days while they last! Snow is in the weather forecast so perhaps we will have some snowy adventures this weekend!

Gingerbread Man Activities

So many of our activities this week have been inspired by the classic story “Gingerbread Man”. So far we have read 4 versions of the story and compared them (see the chart for the similarities and differences).

We have been creating more challenging patterns using christmas and gingerbread shapes.

We love puzzles, especially Gimgerbread Man puzzles.

and check out our Gingerbread Bakery!

Jingle Bell Walk

Thank you to all the parents who joined our class for the Jingle Bell Walk on Monday. What an amazing response from our community! Here is a photo of our class with donations that arrived just today! All the other donations are bring sorted by older students. A final donation amount has not been announced but I feel that this year’s Jingle Bell Walk may have resulted in the most donations ever at Brantford!

Recording our song

On Thursday Dec. 9, Ms. Loo will be recording our class singing a special song. She has requested that our class wear WHITE/RED TOPS and DARK BOTTOMS for the recording.  We will also make special headbands to wear for our song.  Please do not buy these items if you do not have items of these colours; I will bring some extra pieces of clothing for those who need to borrow an item.

Have a lovely weekend!

Special note:

Gr. 1s-please please send your Home reading book bags to school on Fridays to get new books!!!

Hello families!

This week flew by so quickly!

We have been learning about the ways that animals prepare for winter.

We have also started to learn about owls.

We hope you enjoy this video of our class performing “Goodnight Owl” for you.  We had the opportunity to perform this for many classes in our school.

I hope this link works. Fingers crossed!

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AlZv0i7K16zylUzvnHoYarvDURg8?e=HOcYhS

Reminders:

There is no school for students on Friday Nov. 25.

Jingle Bell walk will be on Monday.

I will be away on Monday. Ms. Tataren will be the TOC for our class. She taught at Brantford in the past so she is very familiar with our school and the Jingle Bell walk.

Have a lovely weekend!

Colours All Around!

This week we explored colours through literacy activities, art projects, and math activities.

The following stories were a springboard for many of our activities this week: Pete the Cat, Mouse Paint, Freight Train, and Mix it Up.

Pete the Cat

Mixing Primary Colours to make Secondary Colours 

“Orange is a Carrot” song

Ask your child to sing this song to you!

Dice Games

We also played dice games this week. The Kindergarten students practiced their number printing while rolling special 0-5 dice!

Colour Collages

Our colour collages are coming along. We will continue to add to them next week so if you have any small paper scraps or wrappers please send them to school for our collages.

Grade One “fast words” for the past 2 weeks are WE, IN, IS, AT, LOOK, COME, MY, HERE, ON, and AND.

The Kindergarten students learned all about the letters P and L this week. At home, you can ask your child to think of things that start with these sounds. They have some very creative ideas!!!

Reminder:

Next Friday (Nov. 26) is a Pro-D day. School will be closed for students.

Have a lovely weekend!

Gardening and Games

During one of the brief “rain free” moments that we had this week, we went to our garden plot to plant some bulbs. Each student had the opportunity to dig a hole and plant a bulb on their own!

This week, we have started to play games during our free play time. I highly encourage you to play games at home if you have the chance. They learn turn taking, counting, patience and so many other skills. Here we are learning how to play “Chutes and ladders”.

A few pictues from our “morning choice” time:

Colour Collages

Next week, we will begin to learn about colours. We will be making colour collages like these ones that are currently displayed in the classroom. If you have any small scraps of paper or wrappers in any of these colours, please send them to school next week to add to our colour collages.

Have a lovely weekend!

This week we have focused on lessons in preparation for Remembrance Day, counting collections, and number bonds in Math.

Pocket Chart Literacy/Math

Every morning we have a “morning meeting” when we come together at the carpet to do our calendar, read a message and recite/sing our poem in the pocket chart. This week we learned “1,2 Buckle my shoe”. Using this poem the students learned about rhyme and number sequencing,

Remembrance Day

We learned about the significance of the poppy in preparation for Remembrance Day and learned how to draw a poppy to add to our wreath for the assembly next week.

Counting Collections

In math, all students are using “counting collections” to further develop their understanding of patterning, sorting, and counting. Have a look at some of the ways they have used their collection.

Number Bonds

In order to further the understanding of addition/subtraction for Grade 1 students, we are working with number bonds. Breaking a number into 2 parts (for example, 8 breaks into 6 and 2) provides a better understanding of the relationships between numbers.

Our Letter Exchange Project

Perhaps your child has shared that our class is a part of a very cool project. 26 schools all over B.C. are assigned one letter of the alphabet. Then we send our letter to each of those schools through the mail. Each school will in turn receive every single letter of the alphabet. Our class just finished making Zig Zag Z’s to send to the other schools.

Gr. 1 Fast words

The Gr. 1 students brought home 5 fast words this week. At first, the words will be quite easy for the Gr. 1s to read but they will get more challenging as the weeks progress. I encourage you to ask your child to use these words in a sentence and write the sentences down. These are the most common words that students need to know when reading and writing. We call them “fast words” because they should be able to read and write them “fast” by the end of Gr. 1. They will continue to bring home 5 words each week.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Happy Halloween!

Wow-what a busy week we have had! Lots of learning through fun activities! Here is a peek into our classroom from the past week:

Pumpkin Math

How many seeds do you think are in our pumpkin (estimating)?

We cut open our pumpkin and organized the seeds in groups of 10s. We discovered 471 seeds inside!

Spider math

“If we have 10 (or 20) spiders all together but only 8 are on the web, how many are hiding in the egg sac?”

Haunted House Visit in the library

Building our Haunted Houses

Have a wonderful weekend!

Reminder:

Photo retakes are on Monday for students wanting a new photo or if they missed the photographer last month.

Hello families,

Halloween is in the air! We have been learning about the pumpkin life cycle this week. Your child brought home a little book about the pumpkin life cycle that they can practice reading at home.

We ended the week by making “Spooky Pumpkin” art. They made their own shade of orange by mixing red and yellow! We had lots of scissor practice by cutting out the pumpkins, eyes, mouths, moons and teeth! Lots of fun!

Letter of the week

We learned about the letter Tt this week. You may want to review the following letters and sounds at home: M,S,F,B and T. The Grade 1s can also practice listening for the beginning end end sound of words. For example, “mast”. They should be able to tell you that “m” is at the beginning and “t” is the end sound.

Halloween Fun at school

On Friday Oct. 29, students are welcome to wear a costume to school. I suggest wearing some comfortable clothing under the costume or bringing a change of clothing for later in the day. I find that the children like to change out of their costume for the afternoon. Please also send a bag to carry their costume home.

I will ensure that we have lots of fun Halloween activities throughout the day but we will not be serving treats or goodie bags that day.

Please refrain from sending food to share or goodie bags on this day.

Pumpkin Carving Contest

Some of the older students in the school are hosting a Pumpkin Carving Contest. If you choose to particiapte, you can carve a pumpkin at home and bring it to school on the morning of Oct. 28. There will be three categories for awards: scariest, most creative, and silliest. Pumpkins can be picked up after school on Oct. 29.

Reminders:

No school for students on Oct. 22.

Have a lovely weekend!

Happy “half way through” October!

This week we have continued to learn about signs of Fall and patterning.

We have explored various patterns including AB, AAB, ABC, AABB, ABBC, and many more.

We began “literacy centres” which is a time when we explore letters, sounds, words, and many other literacy based activities.

We made beautiful leaves for our classroom tree while practcicing our fine motor skills. We needed to use our hand muscles to squeeze the paint and release it onto the paper. It was cool to watch the colours blend into one another.

Hand washing: I have noticed that many students are not very serious about hand washing. So today we covered our hands in germs (glitter) and we needed to wash as long as it took to wash away all the glitter germs. I hope this made an impact so they remember that thorough hand washing is not just a quick rinse.

Grade One Book Bags

The Gr. 1 students brought home their book bags today. You will find 3 books in the bag. Please practice these books many times throughout the week. The bags can be returned every Friday in order to receive new books. Next week, I will exchange them on Thursday since Friday is a Pro-D Day.

Reminders:

Friday Oct. 22 is a Pro-D Day so there will be no school for students.

Please remember to send your child with rain boots and rain gear on rainy days. We go outside EVERY day!

Library books can be returned every Wednesday or sooner.

Have a lovely weekend!

Hello families!

Every Wednesday our class will visit our school library with Mrs. Dias.  Last week, your child brought home a library bag with 2 books from our school library.  We hope you enjoy reading these books together. Please return the books by Wednesday every week so your child can take out new books. I have shown them where to place their books in our classroom when they return them.

Please also note that we have gym (physical education) class every Monday and Tuesday.

I also want to mention that apparently a coyote has been seen close to the school grounds. I have shown the class a picture of a coyote and spoke about what we should do if we see one. I know many of you play on the school grounds in the evenings and weekends so please be aware.

Have a great week!

All about apples this week!

Apple Activities

Many of the activities this week were inspired by these two stories: Ten Apples up on top and Ten Red Apples.

Ten Apples up on top is a silly story about balancing apples on characters’ heads! Of course, we all wanted to try too!

We learned the song “One little, two little, three little apples”.

When we read Ten Red Apples, we matched the number of apples on the tree in the story to the number of cubes on our ten frames.

Letter Sounds

Every week we learn about one or two new letters and their sounds. This week we learned about Ss. The Grade 1s do whiteboard spelling and printing books while the Kindergarten students learn the letter sound and practice printing the letter on their whiteboard.

Thanksgiving / Being Grateful

The students will be bringing home “I am thankful..” activity today. They did an amazing job at listing countless things that they are grateful for in their lives.  I hope you and your family have the time to discuss all of the things that you are grateful for too.

Happy Thanksgiving!