February 22-26

Hello everyone!

Last week was Kindness Week! We talked about kindness but we didn't just start this conversation last week. We started it last September when we met. Kindness is fundamental no matter how old you are! Kindness matters all the time and if your child has been paying attention to our conversations over the last 5 months then they will be able to tell you how to be kind and why it's important to be kind to people at school, at home, in our community and to people around the world!

Last Thursday all the Grade 1 students participated in our Catholic Values assembly and sang their religion song, "Growing in Faith, Growing in Christ" and they did an AMAZING job!! They should be very proud of themselves.

The children had a lot of fun during our outdoor play day Friday morning! They showed a lot of team spirit during all the activities they did.

Here are the new word wall words for this week.

1. put
2. make
3. did
4. their
5. who
6. why

In Language, we will write a recount each Monday in our journals.

Earlier this year I posted a blog entry about what we as teachers look for when your child is writing. I showed you different examples of levels 1-4 (1 being the lowest and 4 being the highest). Starting this month we are going to put a really big focus on bumping up our work to see how far we can go!  

We will begin with learning to write a simple sentence and answer the 5 W’s (who, what, why, where, when) in order to “Bump It Up” and make the sentence more detailed and more interesting.

An example of a sentence: I went to my friend’s house.

They could bumped it up and add detail by answering the following:

Who did I see? my friend’s name was Janice

What did we do? we watched a movie together

Why did I go? we got together because I haven’t seen her in a

long time

Where did I go? I went to Janice’s house

When did I go? on Saturday

This could be the resulting sentence:

On Saturday, I went to my friend Janice’s house to watch a movie together. I went to see Janice because I haven’t seen her in a long time.

You can support your child’s writing at home by spending some time and going through the steps above.

We will also spend time each week studying strategies to decode and write new words. For example, knowing the three sounds of “ed” (“d”, “ed” and “t”) will help children decode words that end in “ed” as well as write words that end in “ed”. Also, knowing the sound “tion” is spelled t-i-o-n will help them read and write words such as addition, subtraction and presentation, etc. We will study various blends (e.g. bl, st, gr, br etc.) that will help them read and write as well. With your child learning all these strategies, we should notice a difference in the quality of their writing in the next couple of weeks.

In Math, will continue finish up our study of 2D shapes and then proceed to study 3D solids. Students are learning how to describe and compare these shapes and solids using math language (e.g. 2D shapes: sides, vertices and 3D solids: vertices, edges, faces). They will also be asked to sort and classify 2D shapes according to an attribute (e.g. number of sides, number of vertices, quadrilaterals). Students will also continue to work on solving math problems using pictures, numbers and words.

In Science, we are working on our unit on Materials, Objects and Everyday Structures.

WASTE-FREE WEDNESDAYS

Just a reminder that Wednesdays are Waste-Free! Let's try to be especially eco-friendly that day! Thanks

Important Dates:

• Waste-Free Lunch - Wed. Feb. 24th

• Library Book Exchange -  Wed. Feb. 24th
• Skating at Minto - Wed. Feb. 24th 1:00-2:00pm (Fingers crossed it is not a snow day!!)

I hope you all have a great week!

Tiffany Lawless