Report Cards

Hello Families,

Report cards have been sent home today. Students were all made aware that the report cards are not to be opened until they get home, and that the information is for parents from the teacher. Please send the signed envelopes back to the school as soon as possible, everything inside the envelope is yours to keep.

Thanks!

Lindsay Brown

January 23, 2019

Hello Families,

Today we had an interesting discussion about the new Canada Food Guide! Part of our health curriculum is to talk about the different food groups and healthy eating. At the beginning of the year, we did some work around the previous food groups, so when I shared the new guide today it sparked a lot of discussion. Tomorrow we will be doing some persuasive writing about which guide we think is better and having an in class debate. Please have a discussion tonight to further develop this understanding!

Here are the guides for your reference:

Previous Food Guide

New Food Guide, 2019

Take care, 

Lindsay Brown

January 22, 2018

Hello Families,

We loved our walking field trip to Nickle School yesterday! We've been lucky with great weather for our winter walks. Our big buddies shared the stories they wrote for us. Afterwards, we had a chance to experiment with some junior high work choices. Students were given the choice of three options to work on with their big buddies: music/band, gym class, or lego building. Nickle School wanted to keep the stories for a little while longer, but as soon as we get them back we will use them for guest reader. This will give all students to share their custom made stories with the rest of the class. I will post a guest reader schedule so students can practice fluency at home before they share with the class.

Here are some pictures of the stories:

Since we were given amazing stories yesterday, today we started to look at the elements of stories, specifically the characters, setting, beginning, middle and end. Students used pictures from a familiar story (The Paperbag Princess) to try to sequence the pictures in order. After we made our predictions, we read the story with help from some friends...

Feel free to start including the story vocabulary of setting, characters, beginning, middle, and end when you're reading at home! Being able to identify the different components of stories helps build reading comprehension. 

Today we learned a new math strategy called friendly numbers! We discussed that making  numbers that are easy to work with make counting easier. One of the friendliest numbers is 10. We played a game to practice this strategy. It's an easy game to play with a deck of cards. I learned it from a YouTube video, here's the link if you'd like to play at home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BrVI3Nz_Ac

Students are loving our gymnastics unit! We have mats and some equipment out this week to practice movement and balancing skills. Please continue to ensure your children are "Head to Toe Ready to Go" (posted on a previous blog) for the next few weeks as we continue gymnastics. 

To support our learning about Japan, where our penpals live, we have a special guest coming in on Friday to teach us how to make a special Japanese treat, Mochi! I have sent an email about the Mochi ingredients. 

Take care everyone!

Lindsay Brown

Fact Fluency

Hello Families,

As I am busy gathering report card data, I thought this link may be helpful in understanding the counting strategies in math as a continuum. Here's the link for parents from CBE: http://school.cbe.ab.ca/School/Repository/SBAttachments/e28ab042-4bf6-44d8-9f6c-b7a15cf40045_Number-Fluency-Parent-Communication.pdf

In addition, here is the progression of counting strategies. Your child should be familiar with some, or all of the strategies as we have been doing a lot of work on developing these over the last few months!

I hope this helps inform your understanding! 

Take care, 

Lindsay Brown

Yoga

YOGA

We very lucky to have a parent volunteer offer to share her yoga expertise with our grade 1 and 2 teachers & students. This Thursday, January 17th, a parent who is certified in teaching children's yoga will be joining us during our PE time to share her knowledge of yoga and help teachers lead students through body awareness, stretches and coordination. This opportunity will connect to our gymnastics introduction, focusing on balances and strength, and will also connect to our social studies program of studies as each pose will be representative of nature and animals in each province/territory of Canada. 

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this yoga experience please do not hesitate to contact your classroom teacher. 

January 14, 2018

Hello Families,

We have been having fun learning a little bit about how life is different for our pen pals in Japan! We are working on our letters to respond to them to answer their questions and tell them about ourselves. Building this understanding of Japan is helping us develop an understanding of differences in the global community! Tomorrow, we are using Google Earth to take a virtual tour of some of the popular sights in Tokyo, Japan, as described by our pen pals!

Grade two friends are now beginning to edit their writing work as well to ensure accurate capitalization, punctuation, content and spelling. We have been practicing our editing with buddies first, as sometimes it is easier to identify errors in other peoples work than our own. Today, we also looked about when writing in the past tense, we can add an -ed ending to words, for example, play becomes played, pack becomes packed etc.

Grade one friends were introduced to addition since they are already experts at applying counting on strategies! They have been using the addition box to solve problems at speedy rates and are already demonstrating confidence in this newly learned skill!

Penguin First Draft

We have also been working on some penguin art as a whole class. As we continue to use feedback as a tool to make our work better, we completed a first draft (and sometimes second draft) of our penguins and then set specific goals about how we could improve our good copy work. Once everyone was happy with their good copy penguins, they traced the outlines and used pastel to shade the darker spots. The backgrounds were painted in cool watercolors such as green, blue, and purple. Last, we put everything together by cutting the penguin out and putting him on top of the watercolor background.

Penguin Second Draft

Wishing everyone well!

Dont forget:
Scholastic orders are due Friday, January 18th!
We are still looking for two more parent volunteers to join us for Clay for Kids on January 28 from 9:00-11:30am!

Thanks :)

Lindsay Brown

Gymnastics

Gymnastics

We will begin gymnastics in our regularly scheduled gym classes on Monday, January 14th.  The gymnastics unit will last approximately four weeks.  Safety routines, cooperation and good sportsmanship are taught and reviewed in each class.  

This physical activity opportunity will help students acquire individual skills through a variety of developmentally appropriate movement activities.

It is important for students to come to school prepared for being actively engaged. The following guidelines are very helpful…

HEAD TO TOE - READY TO GO!!! 

Head ....................... long hair pulled back

Ears/Throat/Wrist ............... jewellery off

Shirt.................................. one layer shirt

Waist ................................................tucked in

Pants.........................sporty pants or shorts, no belts or zippers

Ankles..........................pants rolled up if ankles are covered

Toes...............running shoes, gymnastic slippers or bare feet (no footed tights)

“Playing & moving safely is everyone’s responsibility”

Fun Lunch

Hello Families,

There will be no fun lunch tomorrow, January 10, 2019.

Thanks!
Lindsay Brown

January 8, 2019

Hello Families, 

I hope everyone had a relaxing and enjoyable break! It was great to see all of the students back at school today with smiling faces! I think they were pretty tired out by the end of the day being back in routine.

We had an exciting surprise waiting for us at school today! As we have been looking at different types of communities (our school, Nickle school, Blackfoot communities, etc.) we buddied up with some students in Japan to learn about their school community! The school we partnered with is Fuji Kindergarten, a famous school recognized for their interesting architectural design. They are learning English and want to be our pen pals. They already shared some really interesting information about life in Japan, for example, did you know that often in Japan people celebrate Christmas by eating KFC!? There are lots of similarities too, for example, they are also learning to read and write - just like us!

Here are some important dates in January:

Scholastic Order
A January flyer went home today - all orders will be due on January 18th, 2019 so they can arrive before the end of the month. Sorry for the changing due dates, I think making them due in the middle of the month works out better :). 

Nickle School Visit
We will be going on our second walking field trip to Nickle Junior High School to visit our big buddies on Monday, January 21st. We will be leaving the school just before 9:00am and returning just before lunch time (11:30am approximately). The walk is about 30 minutes, so please ensure children are dressed for the weather and have comfortable footwear on this date. We are looking for one parent volunteer to join us for this field trip to ensure safety while walking over. Please email me if you're able to accompany us!

Clay for Kids
On Monday, January 28 we have an in school field trip with Clay for Kids! We will be creating glass artwork with the help of an expert artist. We will need parent volunteers to support this work. Please let me know via email if you're available to support with these art projects on January 28th from 9:00am-11:30am. 


Best wishes to everyone in 2019! Take care,

Lindsay Brown