Last Week of School!

 Hello Families, 

We have made it to the final week of the 2020-2021 school year! I hope everyone is looking forward to an amazing summer ahead! Despite the ups and downs of teaching and learning in a Covid year, this school year has truly been outstanding! I feel so fortunate to have such outstanding student's in my class, they continue to show up, work hard, and demonstrate tremendous care and concern for one another, we have had so many laughs together. Also thank you so much to each of the families for the support you have provided, I hope we will all be able to have more interaction with one another next year!

Student's have been working hard for the month of June to earn reward days this week! We have decided on this schedule:

Monday, June 21 - free choice time

Tuesday, June 22 - art time

Wednesday, June 23 - Wild Kratts episode

Thursday, June 24 - dress up day - you can choose a favourite jersey, PJ's, part of a costume (no face or head coverings, no weapons), a fancy outfit... anything goes!

**Please bring a reusable grocery bag this day to send all your child's items home in!! 

Friday, June 25 - celebration day - please pack a special treat for your child (no sharing due to covid rules) and we will spend some time outside having a picnic and some extra playtime!

 Report cards will be digital again this term and will be available for your access starting on June 26th!

Take care! Wishing everyone a WONDERFUL summer!!!

Ms. Brown

June 3, 2021

 Hello Families, 

We are having a great week together and have been enjoying the sunshine! 

We have been working hard preparing for our puppet shows next week by planning the elements of the show. We talked about creating a landscape as the backdrop for our puppet show and took our learning outside yesterday to do the painting work! We used acrylic paint and items from nature to add details to the landscapes though a stamping technique. Many of the students have been asking if they can take their puppet show stuff home as they are excited to recreate puppet shows for you! Each day next week we will be doing 4 puppet shows and they will be recorded and uploaded to Google Classroom so you can watch them from home, also! 

We have been continuing to play games to practice the strategies of adding and subtracting with 

8's and 9's and today we introduced fact families! Fact families always seem to be a tricky concept for kiddos, so feel free to review this concept at home if you'd like!

We are also beginning to learn about building with a variety of materials and thinking about constructing boats. Yesterday we watched a Science Max about buoyancy which the students loved and did a mini challenge to use tinfoil to construct a boat that could support a load. Today we will begin blueprinting our boats and the construction will begin next week. If you have any cardboard, popsicle sticks, or wine corks around the house could you please send them in for us to build with? We will require these items early next week, I can take care of sanitizing them at school! :)

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

Take care, 

Ms. Brown

Outdoor Learning

 Hello Families, 

With the warm weather this week, we are planning to have some outdoor learning times on Wednesday and Thursday! Please ensure your child has some sunscreen and a water bottle for these days!

Thank you!

Ms. Brown

May 27, 2021

 Hello Families, 

Return to school this week has been wonderful! It is so nice to be together as a group again. 

We have been working on the next steps for our puppet show! We talked about story mapping this week and practiced mapping the characters, setting, beginning, middle, and end. Here's a link to the very cute short film we watched: https://youtu.be/07d2dXHYb94. If you'd like you can watch it at home together and review the story elements as a family!

Then we started planning the problem that will happen in our puppet show through puppet play. When we are ready to share the puppet shows with our classmates we will also record them for posting on Google Classroom!

This week we learned strategies for adding and subtracting with 9's this week by using 10 as the anchor number an adjusting, or decomposing the numbers. We played a few games at varied ability levels to support this skill.

We started exploring buoyancy though experiments and predictions about classroom objects that sink or float. We also learned the vocabulary of prediction and observation. Next week we will use this knowledge to begin designing boats for our exploration of boats and buoyancy (grade 2 science) and building with a variety of materials (grade 1 science). 

Hope everyone is doing well!

Ms. Brown

Puppets

 Hello Families, 

As you likely already know, I have been teaching remotely for the past two weeks as I am currently on isolation due to close contact with a positive Covid case. During this time, we have been working with Ms. Whitney for our Open Minds Arts Commons experience and making puppets. 

The puppets will be taken home by all students today! They are beautiful! We will be using these puppets for ongoing writing work during home learning and using them for acting upon return to school. Puppets will need to be returned to school on May 25th after the home learning period ends. I communicated this information to all of the students today so they should be communicating this, also!

Thanks in advance for all of your help and support with the upcoming home learning period. I will have more information for you regarding scheduling etc. soon!

Take care,

Ms. Brown

April 23, 2021

 Hello Families, 

I hope everyone is doing well! This time of the year is interesting as the weeks always seem to get busy tying up all of the learning that has cumulated over the year.

 

We celebrated Earth Day yesterday (Thursday, April 22) through a school wide task about how we care for, celebrate and acknowledge the land. Here are the results of this work:

We also have started talking about how the natural world and human made objects are all constructed from composite shapes, meaning, multiple 2D and 3D shapes put together. We enjoyed the beautiful weather on Wednesday afternoon by going on a composite shape neighbourhood walk and documenting the shapes we discovered in the world on iPads. 

   

We have also started learning about standard and non standard units of measurement. We had a lot of fun exploring with measuring classroom objects this week, including body parts! Feel free to extend this learning at home by finding fun things to measure around your house!

 

Today, we had a student reward day of "Fox Friday" where we spend time learning about foxes, completing free writing about foxes, and doing some artwork. This was inspired by a secret math task we did earlier in the week. It was amazing to see how students connected learning about different types of fox species to the other animals we have learned about this year such as the beetle and rock ptarmigan, and how students considered how habitat impacts the adaptations of different kinds of foxes. We also did a multiple choice quiz at the end where all students were very successful in answering questions regarding their fox learning! I think this would be a great trend to continue on Fridays throughout the spring. 

As we continue to learn about Canada's dynamic communities, we started to talk about provincial flags, flowers, and birds. We were fortunate to have an experience to work with an Indigenous Elder this week and she shared Indigenous perspectives about plants and animals, which connected to the work we have been doing. 

Things are going amazingly well! I feel so lucky to be able to spend quality time with each of these amazing little humans every day! Take care & stay healthy!

Ms. Brown

Information

 Hello Families, 

I wanted to keep you up to date with some of our most recent happenings:

1. PAYMENT, Open Minds

My apologies for the delay in having the online payment up and running. It should be ready to go now. Please pay the $25 and return the payment form to school at your earliest convenience. 

2. COMMUNITY WALK

On Wednesday afternoon we are going on a community walk to look for composite shapes in nature. We will be looking at 3D objects in nature and architecture on this walk to build an understanding of how shapes are used in the real world. Please make sure your child is dressed appropriately for a 60 minute walk, based on the forecast, sunscreen might be needed! :)

3. SHIRT & HAT DAY

This Friday, April 23 is school T-shirt and hat day!

Take care, 

Ms. Brown

Upcoming Information

Arts Commons: 

On Monday, April 19^th, students in grade 1/2 at Lake Bonavista School will participate in an Arts Commons Virtual Arts Education Program, connecting with artist-in-residence Shirley Hill to learn about Blackfoot language and storytelling: https://artscommons.ca/learn-engage/school-programs/artist-in-residence/ This program enriches student learning within our Language Arts and Social Studies curriculum. 

 

Thank you to our Lake Bonavista School Council for generously providing the funding for this experience.

Flowers for Mother’s Day - School Council Fundraising 

The Lake Bonavista School Improvement Society would like to invite you to participate in the Mother’s Day Flower Fundraiser.  This season’s fundraiser will combine flowers and herbs for the garden and celebrate Moms.  The fundraiser STARTS TODAY - April 2, 2021 and is open for ordering until April 23, 2021.  The flowers will be available for pick up at LBS in the staff parking lot from noon – 3:00 p.m. on Friday, May 7, 2021. Thanks for supporting this fundraiser.

ORDER HERE: https://lakebonavistaschool.growingsmilesfundraising.com/home

April 9, 2021

 Hello Families, 

I hope everyone had a wonderful spring break and Easter weekend! I was able to get away to the mountains for a mini vacation which was lovely. 

We had a great return to school this week, I always love this time of the year in grades 1 and 2. The students really understand the classroom routines and expectations which allows for rich learning to happen at a faster pace as many concepts become solidified. 

We took our Daily 5 reading time outside this week!

We started the week with a mapping activity to find Easter eggs! Students were loving this activity that took place in the school yard and a green space near by. They have asked for more of these types of activities so the teachers will work together to make this happen on a monthly basis. 

In math, we have been talking a lot about place value of 1, 2, 3, and 4 digit numbers. We connected this understanding to population as we continue to learn about Canada's diverse communities. This week we learned the difference between a city and a town and looked at the population's of places like Calgary, Okotoks, Canada, etc. Student's learned the term "population density". We are also reviewing the 2D shapes and creating math monsters, where we will collect data about various aspects of the shapes used. 

The Arts Commons document was sent home to everyone yesterday about our virtual field trip experience. It appears the online payment has not yet been set up. Please hold off on your payments until early next week.Thanks for your support with this process. 

Wishing everyone well!

Take care,

Ms Brown

After Spring Break

 Hi Grade 1/2 parents/guardians

We are planning an Easter Egg Hunt on Tuesday, April 6, the first day we return from spring break. Students will be using a map to find laminated “eggs” that will be located at different locations at the green space, north of the school, and on the school grounds. The activity makes connections to the social studies curriculum: students will use familiar landmarks and places in the community to understand a map and locate the eggs; use critical thinking to solve problems; use social skills including cooperation, conflict resolution and consensus building; and they will demonstrate skills of oral, written and visual literacy. We are excited to make connections to the land and our community in this fun event.

Please make sure your child has appropriate outdoor clothing as the activity will take about 1 hour to complete. If you have any questions, please contact me.

Thanks!

 

March 25, 2021

 Hello Families, 

I hope everyone is looking forward to spring break next week! 

We have continued to work with Ms. Jenn from Arts Commons on our Open Minds experience, paperwork for this will be coming home after the break as we move into thinking about our artist experience that will be taking place in April/May! The kids continue to love our virtual time with Ms. Jenn each week!

We learned about the bossy R this week and how he changes the sounds of the vowels i, e, and u to say /rrrrr/ like a pirate! We have been looking for bossy R words and realized it is even in some of our names. We have also been learning about homonyms and homophones and creating lists and images of this work to represent the different meanings of words. 

We also continue to learn about Canada by watching a fun mini series called Canadian Crew and practicing jot notes to document and summarize the important information. So far we have learned about mountains, rivers, and Canada Day! Did you know Canada is turning 154 years old this year?

We have started to divide our groups in mathematics learning, with grade ones working on decomposition of number to build addition and subtraction fluency. Grade 2's are working on addition with 2 and 3 digit numbers. 

We also completed a STEAM challenge (as a request by the students) for creating the longest paper chain using only one piece of paper under a 20 minute time constraint. We will start talking about standard and non standard units of measurement after the break using our chains!

Happy Easter!

Ms. Brown

Yearbooks!

 LBS YEARBOOK: Order your 2020 - 2021 yearbook today and take advantage of the early bird price. This year due to covid, our teachers are taking the photographs that will be featured in the yearbook and hub students will also be featured. 

Visit ybpay.lifetouch.ca to place your order. Your yearbook ID code for this year is: 11352721 

Leprechaun Fiasco in Room 11

 Hello Families, 

We arrived at school today to complete chaos! Mysterious little leprechauns sprinkled our classroom in sparkles and green things, even putting things on the Smart Board!!! We were so shocked to see this, and decided it was time to officially get our traps ready so these little trouble makers couldn't mess up our classroom again. 

We thought about the roles of engineers and architects in the real world, and created plans for how we could use loose parts to create leprechaun traps and set them out in the classroom. I was impressed at how the students collaborated and continuously solved problems, demonstrating perseverance and flexible thinking. Here are some pictures of this work:

We also had a classroom visitor from Ireland! Ms. Brady, our school lunch supervisor and librarian, came to read us a story and spread St. Patrick's Day cheer!

Thanks again to everyone who attended and supported learning conferences. If you have additional questions about your child's learning please contact me via email. 

Take care and Happy St. Patrick's Day to all!

Ms. Brown