Halloween Plan

Thursday October 31 – Our Halloween Plan:

We are looking forward to Halloween at school on the afternoon of Thursday October 31st. Students can bring their costumes to school in the morning and change into them after lunch. AM Kindergarten students can arrive at school in their costumes.

Please have costumes that are school appropriate themes à no weapons, no masks, no gore, costume of reasonable size.

Students will parade their costumes in the gym starting at 1:00pm.

(AM Kindergarten students will parade their costumes in the gym at 9:00am).

Parents are invited to come to the gym and find a seat on our curvy parade route.

Classroom activities may include a Halloween theme and would continue to align with curriculum outcomes.

Participation in these events is optional.  If you would like your child not to participate, please contact their classroom teacher.

Halloween Spooktacular

Hello Families,

On Thurday, October 31 we are planning a Halloween Buddy Spooktcular Celebration in our classroom. I am asking for your help with a couple of things:

1. Can someone (or a few people) make some colored play-doh for our buddy activity? Any color is fine, we are going to make monsters :)

2. Are there any volunteers (must have valid police clearance) that are able to join us on Thursday morning from 9:00-10:00am to run a spooky station?

3. On Thursday, can you send a flashlight with the child name attached if you have one we can borrow for the day?

4. If you can send healthy snacks for our afternoon celebration that would be helpful! We will also require small paper plates and napkins. We have 22 students in our classroom.

Let me know via email if you're able to help with jobs 1 or 2! Thanks so much!!

There will be a school messanger sent out regarding the Halloween parade and costume guidelines.

Enjoy your weekend,
Lindsay Brown

October 23, 2019

Hello Families,

You may have already heard the exciting news, last week the whole class worked together to earn over 300 Class Dojo points! This means they earn a reward for this week. We used this as an opportunity to collect data on what kinds of rewards the students would like to have and then they surveyed one another and created a graph! This was a very similar task to the "favorite color" task many students worked on last week. It is great to re-visit familiar tasks to see the improvement within student work, and an increase in their independence. As you can see from the results, this Friday, October 25 will be a PJ DAY!! :) Some students have already shared they do not want to wear their pajamas to school, of course it is optional!

This week, we are learning about the final quadrant of the Circle of Courage, Independence. We talked about how independence and generosity must work together to be a whole being. We also did some writing by finishing these sentences:

I can be responsible...

I can solve problems...

I can show control...

Please remember, our assembly about the circle of courage is happening next week on October 30th at 1:10PM! :) All family members are welcome to attend!

We are continuing to revise and improve our artwork supported by our big buddies! Last Friday, they visited our classroom to give us feedback on our realistic leaf artwork. Today, we helped them with their antler art. They even taught us about some different sketching techniques they are learning. 

Here is an example of the various drafts from a student in our class, the peer feedback is on the yellow sticky notes and the buddy feedback is on the blue sticky notes. 

final draft

Our letter blend of the week is SH! We are playing word detective with all SH words, hopefully you can identify some at home! :)

Take care, 

Lindsay Brown

October 17, 2019

Hello Families,

I am really excited about SeeSaw and so are the students! Right now, we have about half of our parents connected which is great! Students are loving SeeSawing their work and sharing it with all the people at home. Also, they love seeing your comments and feedback.

Currently, we have been doing lots of small group work in math. Our work has focused on graphing and data collection, learning how to represent numbers through tallying, even and odd numbers, and a more formal math assessment for the grade 2's. I will be sending home two odd and even games to be added to your home math games folders. The "Heading Home" game is the beginner game, and the "Off The Board" game is more advanced as it targets counting forwards and backwards working with numbers up to 100. Your child should know the version that is "just right" for them.

We also continue to work towards self assessment in our drawing. We are still working towards using feedback to improve our work. Earlier in the week we used our peers and sticky notes to give feedback to one another. Since receiving this feedback, we have been attempting another draft of our leaf artwork. Tomorrow, we will visit our big buddies in grades 3/4 for a second round of peer feedback. I am excited to see the final product as the work continues to improve!

We are finished all of our letter and sounds! It is always a great idea to review these sounds and letters at home for the grade 1 students! :) This week, we introduced the blend "th" and talked about how the sign is that we are th, th, th, thirsty. Students have been acting as word detectives to identify words that contain th sounds and adding them to a classroom chart. We will be working with one blend sound each week and I will keep them posted on my blog. Here's the word detective words from this week. If you'd like to practice reading, spelling, or finding these or other th words in books (based on where your child is at) to extend your learning this would connect nicely to our work in class! Please remember that spelling is not included in the grade 1 curriculum, and we are encouraging all grade 1's at school to work on writing the sounds they hear, even if they are incorrect. 

We have also learned about generous people in our world, specifically Maria Montessori, Anne Frank, Terry Fox, and Mother Theresa as they connect to our Circle of Courage work for Generosity!

Take care,
Lindsay Brown

SeeSaw

Hello Families,

Today I sent home SeeSaw QR codes! There are steps included on the sheet sent home for how to download the app on your phone or tablet. Please make sure you are downloading the parent app.

SeeSaw is an awesome resource for sharing student work and they can send images and voice recordings to all of the people at home.  As an adult, you can also like and comment on student work, which is a great opportunity to provide feedback to your child. Please note, the learning curve launching this program may be a bit tricky, so please give us some time to get this up and running before artifacts of learning are being sent home. This will help you understand where your child is at and bridge the gap between school and home learning. You can also turn on notifications to stay up to date! :)

I am very excited about using this new learning technology!! :) I hope you are too!

Take care,
Lindsay Brown

Assembly!

Hello Families,

Our school will be hosting a whole school assembly on Wednesday, October 30! It will be starting at 1:10PM and will be about half an hour in length. When you arrive please come through the main doors and there will be students to greet you and take you to your seats.

All parents, families, and siblings are welcome to attend! Our topic is Circle of Courage!

Hope you can make it! :)

Take care,
Lindsay Brown

October 10, 2019

Hello Families,

We are finishing up our letter studies this week and reviewing V (Monday), Q (today), Y (Wednesday) and Z (Thursday). Once the letters have been finished we will be moving into letter blends, two letters that go together to make the same sound, for example, cl, br, etc. This is an essential skill for early literacy and decoding as recognizing familiar blends builds success in reading!

Our home reading packages will be coming home this week or next week, depending on when I have read with your child! Your child will be bringing 3 books home. Please keep all three books at home for about one week, and return the texts after your child has had the opportunity to read each text several times. Here's a link to the benefits of reading the same text: https://www.readbrightly.com/why-reading-the-same-book-repeatedly-is-good-for-kids/

This week we introduced the concept of even and odd numbers. Today, we completed a task of using our name (first, first and last, or first, middle, and last) and determined if the amount of letters were even or odd. The next step will be to identify the vowels and consonants and determine even and odds with those letters. We have also been working on hundreds board puzzles using clues to find mystery numbers and identify even and odd patterns on the hundreds boards.

We also added a third criteria to our drawing rubrics. This section is called accuracy. We have a discussion that accurate drawings are realistic. We then took a class trip to our school garden and selected one piece of plant or leaf where they could practice drawing with accuracy. We talked about how looking through the eyes of an artist means noticing all the small. lines and details within the plant to ensure our drawings are as realistic as possible. This week, we will be using Austins Butterfly  (https://vimeo.com/38247060) and the power of peer feedback to revise and improve our art based on our three criteria: color, detail, and accuracy. Here are some of the selected plants/leaves:

Here are some photos of students enjoying various "morning work" activities from this week that are focused on self-regulation!

Scholastic
This month Scholastic orders will be due on October 10, 2019! Please place your online order by this date to receive your books on time.

Library
Our library time will be on Wednesday afternoons for the remainder of the month. Thank you for your patience and understanding with the changes.

Take care!
Lindsay Brown

Stuffed Animal or Toy Day!

Hello Families, 

Last week all of the students in Room 11 worked hard and achieved over 300 Class Dojo Points!!! This means they earn a special reward for this week. Students voted to have a "bring a toy to school day" this Friday, October 4th!

They can bring any toy, stuffed animal, or doll (only one please) and it can join them in the classroom. Also, please note tomorrow is wear blue or white day to show LBS pride!

Take care, 
Lindsay Brown

October 2, 2019

Hello Families,

Today all students took home a math games folder! This folder contains math games you can play at home that only require dice or a deck of cards. This folder if yours to keep at home and contains information regarding math strategy development to support your understanding! As we learn more games, I will send them home through communication folders and you can add them into the folders! There are currently three games in the folders with varying levels of complexity. Ask your child to teach you a game that is at their "just right" level.

Tomorrow we have library! Sorry for the lack of consistency in library schedules, currently we have temporary librarians, thus, the schedule is shifting based on their availability. All students should return their library books tomorrow so they can bring new books home! :)

Our letters of the week have been L (Monday), E (Tuesday), and N (today). Tomorrow will be letter I and Friday will be W.

Please note that card club takes place every Thursday at lunch. Please ensure that cards are coming to school contained (elastic, box, etc) and labeled with your child's name as we would not want any cards to get lost!

Also, the ADmazing fundraiser is almost over, if you have books at home please return them or pay for them at your earliest convenience!

Take care!

Lindsay Brown

We're Collecting...

Hello Families!

I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend enjoying the September snow... :)

To help with some upcoming work, we are collecting a few things in Room 11:

1. Milk Jugs
- I am still collecting clean 4L milk jugs for an art project - we need about 5 more so if you can continue sending them this week that would be wonderful!

2. Home Reading Book Bags
- This year I am hoping to transition to book bags for home reading books as they are more durable than the envelopes we have used in the past. I am working towards having home reading packages ready to send home early next week (October 7th-ish) to support your daily reading practice! If you have any extra drawstring bags around the house that you would be willing to donate to our classroom to be used as home reading bags that would be greatly appreciated! I am seeking bags that serve a similar function to this one with the strings that allow for the bag to be pulled closed:

Thanks so much for your ongoing support!

Don't forget, tomorrow is Orange Shirt Day! :)

Ms. Brown

Important Events

Hello Families, 

I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend, here are some important dates to keep in mind:

- Orange Shirt Day: Monday, September 30th.
- Picture Day: Tuesday, October 1st.
- PD Day: Friday, October 11th.
- Thanksgiving (No School): Monday, October 14th.

• Monday, September 30th is Orange Shirt Day. Within our school community, we come together to learn about our collective history through conversations on the history and impact of Residential Schools in Canada. Our classrooms discussions will be focused on belonging, and what happens when you are made to feel like you don't belong, connecting to our ongoing Circle of Courage. We will also be exploring the story of Phyllis Webstad. We encourage children to wear orange on Monday to acknowledge the day of education and remembrance.

Take care, 

Lindsay Brown

September 25, 2019

Hello Families,

Today we introduced a new way of reading in our Daily 5 reading practice. We learned how to "read to someone". We talked about the rules that would help us with this work and decided that to effectively read to someone, we needed to be knee to knee and elbow to elbow so we can look at the words together and help one another. We also discussed how even if we are learning to read, we can look at the pictures, and read the words we recognize! If you want to use these same strategies when reading at home feel free!

This week, we added new criteria to our drawing rubric. We talked about adding detail to our work. To guide this work, we looked at exemplars and discussed how the details in pictures give us more information about what is happening. Today we completed a guided drawing of a road, and students were given freedom over which details they wanted to add. We had lots of creative ideas including golf courses, cityscapes, desert roads, and secret gardens. Here is the criteria students will be assessing themselves based on:

We have also started to add some elements of self reflection into our math tasks this week. This week students were tasked at choosing a number to work with that was "just right" for them. They used a stoplight rubric to determine if they were working in the "just right" zone.  Just right work feels like we are challenged, and may need help from a friend or teacher, but can mostly work independently. We talk a lot about just right choices, which promotes students actively seeking these choices during responsible work choice times. 

Last week we discussed the value of belonging and its connection to the Circle of Courage. This week, we are using books and personal experiences to talk about mastery. We have read The Dot and Ada Twist, Scientist which have taught us lessons of perseverance and how mastery takes consistent and considerable time and effort!

Here are some photos from this week:

I look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow at Open House!!

September 23, 2019

Hello Families,

We had an unanticipated trip to the Lake Bonavista School learning commons (library) today! The substitute librarian, Ms. Herman, was kind enough to allow students to take out another book today, even if they did not return their book from last week. This is because we were not expecting to have library today, in future students will only be bringing home one book each week. If you have two books at home, please ensure both are returned later in the week or next week.

Moving forward our library day will be on Monday's, thus, please ensure library books are returned on each Monday for new book selection! If our library day changes, I'll be sure to post that information in the blog!

Please remember that our Terry Fox Run, Open House, and BBQ events are all set to take place this Thursday, September 26. The Terry Fox Run will begin at 2:00PM if you'd like to join us for the event, and if not we will see you at the Open House beginning at 4:00PM! Please note that the Terry Fox Run will still be taking place if there is rain, so please ensure appropriate clothing is worn on Thursday.

Our Animated Literacy letters this week are K (today), F (Tuesday), B (Wednesday),  G (Thursday) and C (Friday). I will post more about our weekly learning soon once I have some pictures to add to the text!

Also, September Scholastic orders are due on Thursday, September 26.

Take care,

Lindsay Brown