I am so excited to welcome back our class on Monday, Jan. 10!

This week we have been working on creating a safer school environment and preparing for various scenarios that may arise.

Our new classroom layout

I have tried to create more space between students especially for eating times.  The 3 large rectangular tables will be for the K students only and the Grade 1 students will be assigned to separate desks and other tables in the room. Every one will have an assigned spot.  The Grade 1s will use their own supplies and Ks will share with only one other student. In order to create this layout, I was sad to remove some of our play spaces but I know it was necessary to keep our students healthy.

New Daily Health Check

Before you arrive at school each day, please check your child for the following symptoms. I will ask each of them about these symptoms before entering the school.  Please note that your child will be sent home if any of these symptoms are apparent. As we have learned, the best way to prevent the spread of COVID19 in our school is to stop it from entering the building in the first place.

Extra masks

Please ensure that you child has an extra mask (or 2) in a ziploc bag stored in their backpack.  I highly recommend having your child use a landyard to clip their mask onto. When they remove their mask to eat, the chances of it falling on the floor are reduced.

Washing hands

Please review thorough hand washing with your child.  I like to remind them to sing TWINKLE LITTLE STAR 2x so they know how long to scrub their hands.

Please remember to send your child back to school with their ziploc bag of extra clothing, inside shoes, and report card envelope.

Looking forward to seeing everyone on Monday!!!!

Last day of school before the holidays:

Today we had some special “last day of school” activities. Here are the students reading Christmas books. They did so well “reading the pictures”, sharing the books, and taking care of the books. We also watched “Stickman” and enjoyed popcorn provided by the PAC!

After the holidays, please return your child’s report card envelope.

Thank you for all of your well wishes! My heart feels so full! I absolutely LOVE coming to school everyday because your children bring so much joy to my days!

I hope you all have a lovely break! Stay safe! Stay healthy! See you in 2022 (Tues. Jan.4)! xo Ms. C.

Hello families!

Students are welcome to wear pajamas and bring a stuffie tomorrow!  We will be watching a short movie tomorrow and the PAC will be providing popcorn.

Everyone has brought home their report card today.  They have all grown so much this term! They should all be so proud of themselves! You can keep the paper from the envelope but PLEASE RETURN THE SIGNED ENVELOPE ASAP.

Please send a re-usable grocery style bag tomorrow so they can carry their belongings home.  I will be sending home their “extra clothing” and inside shoes.  Please replenish the ziploc bag with extra pants, shirt, socks, and underwear. Please also check to make sure their inside shoes still fit. Then resend these items after the holidays.

Note about gifts/cards to each other:  Please do not feel that you need to send cards and/or gifts for classmates.  This is not an expectation.  I know the kids are so excited to hand out things to their classmates but it is not expected.

If you choose to send something tomorrow please hand it out after school because it takes so much class time for me to organize the handing out of these items.

Thank you!

One more day!

Snow, Gingerbread and Concert Songs

How lucky were we to have a beautiful day of snow!!! Fortunately, we were able to get outside for some extra snowy playtime!

Concert Filming

Thank you to Ms. Loo who organized a beautiful holiday concert. The link will be sent to families later next week so you can view the concert in its’ entirety at home.

Thank you to everyone for sending your child prepared for filming. They looked fabulous!

The Gingerbread Man Escaped!

When we baked our gingerbread man, he popped out of the oven!!!  He left clues all over the school so that we could find him! Fortunately, we found him in our classroom waiting with gingerbread friends for all of us!

Today we worked together to build a gingerbread home for the Gingerbread man.

Dates to Remember:

Tuesday Dec. 14 – “Look Alike” day – our class is welcome to wear red, gree, white and black so we can all look alike!

Friday Dec. 17 – Pajama and stuffie day – Our class is welcome to wear pajamas and bring a stuffie to cuddle with.  We will be having “cozy reading time” and watch a short movie in the afternoon. Last day of school before holidays!

Tues. Jan. 4 – School re-opens after the holidays

Have a lovely weekend!!!!

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.