November 24, 2017

Hello everyone!

We had a fun week at Cranston school. In gym we learned how to curl! We learned about sweeping and sliding the stones to the target. All the kids loved to cheer each other on. Here are some pictures from curling:


Friday was an especially fun (and busy!) day. In the morning, all the classes gathered in the gym to watch  a performance called Bach To Beatles - a musician came in and played his various saxophones, leading the kids through different composers in history. He talked about where saxophones come from and how they work, and showed us how the same songs in different styles of music sound. It was so interesting!
After the performance all the kids went to Club Friday. When the kids returned to class they were so excited to share what they had done with us and with each other. We love Club Fridays!

Here are some photos from the photography club:


Looking for good angles, light, shadows, and perspectives! We talked about how to pick your favourite photos, and what made them the best. It was a beautiful day to be outside.

We also had two of our kids go off to cartooning and they learnt how to draw elves! Looks great you two!



Our story for this week is Snowman at Night - an exciting story about what snowman might do at night to explain why they look different in the morning. We've been practicing our snowman drawings, and next week we will be painting some snowman at night.



In math this week we have been looking at place value - what does each number in a two digit number mean? You can talk with your child about how to find place value! For our 52nd day of school, we explored how the 5 actually stands for fifty, and the 2 stands for 2 ones! When we break it down this way it's easy to make equations like 50+2=52. Knowing our place value helps us to identify numbers so that we can add and subtract them. We love to see the light bulbs going off around the class when kids click into new math ideas - math just makes sense!

Our class is full of architects - this week we saw a number of incredible and thoughtful buildings come to life during centre time, including this bridge that is both functional and decorative. The kids used great teamwork and communication to build the bridge together.




A quick reminder: we have library every Friday morning. Please help your child to remember to bring their book back each week so they may sign out a new one.

Have a great weekend everybody! We will see you on Monday. :)

November 17, 2017

Hello everyone!

Thank you to all those who filled out the name questionnaires for their child - we loved hearing how the kids were given their names. They were all so interesting and fun to read! The kids have been sharing the stories of their names with each other and they were all so excited.

On the topic of learning more about who we are, the kids have also been working with our story of the week, Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox by Danielle Daniel. With this book we have been learning about the Anishinaabe tradition of totem animals and what each animal totem stands for. After having the kids come up with characteristic words for each totem animal, they chose two words they would use to best describe themselves. There were lots of great choices among the kids - they picked words such as playful, kind, wise, leader, and curious. Next week we will talk more about what belonging to an animal clan means for the Anishinaabe people.

 
Girls show off their visual journals - they picked words like playful, peaceful, and curious to describe themselves. We couldn't agree more!

We love puzzles in grade 1! They are great for our brains and excellent for learning about collaborative work. Here are some of the puzzles the kids were proud to show off:





The children are also getting ready for our upcoming building things science unit. Although we won't be exploring this unit in depth until the new year, lots of the kids love to use our building materials during center time. We especially love when they are so proud of their work they ask for a picture - that's when we know it's something really special.



On a final note, we have been working hard at our reading comprehension. Everybody loves to listen to stories, and now to further our learning we have been working on how we can retell stories we have heard. The children have been learning to make storyboards of stories. This week we read an African-American tale called Why Rabbit Has Long Ears and a Short Tail. The kids drew the most important parts of the book while they listened, and they finished with visual reminders they could use to retell the story.



A beautiful storyboard made by one of the kids of Why Rabbit Has Long Ears and a Short Tail. Ask your kids if they can remember the story and retell it to you! Hint: the rabbit started out with short ears and a long tail, there was a tricky fox, and a helpful owl.

We hope you have a lovely weekend. See you Monday!

November 10, 2017

Dear Parents,
You have homework this weekend! Please look in your child's folder for a questionnaire about how your child received their name. We would like to have them back on Monday as we will be doing a project with the information.

This week in math we have been working on adding doubles. We have looked into adding doubles up to 10: 1+1, 2+2, 3+3, etc. We have also been talking about near doubles (1+2, 2+3, 3+4, etc). Feel free to ask your child about adding doubles. Next week we are going to begin working on subtraction.

We had a conversation with all the kids about items that are good to bring to school for sharing. Although we know that all children have toys and items that are very special to them, we would like the kids to bring items that are meaningful and related to our learning. We love to see kids practicing their learning at home! When they share this with us at school it is enriching for all students.

During art this week we worked with tints and shades of red to make poppies for Remembrance Day. We made small poppies for our wreaths, and big poppies to make a poppy field with. We used chalk pastels to make beautiful skies and grass. All of them turned out beautiful!

We read an Indigenous story from the Papago Nation this week titled "How Butterflies Came to Be". Ask your child what they remember about the story - we read it many times and made our own story boards with pictures and words to retell the story.

Reminder: there is no school on Friday, November 13th. It is a PD day.

November 3, 2017

Hello parents!

This week was a very exciting week with book fair, interviews, Halloween and snow! We missed Ms. Cvach this week but were thankful for Ms. Peters helping out.

On Halloween day we explored learning centers and listened to stories. It was great to see everyone dressed up and Ms. Tuff and Mr. Scout came by to take pictures as well.


Mrs. Kenna, Ms. Pipo and Ms.Peters were characters from the Piggy and Gerald books!




One of our centers was observing our class pumpkin and writing descriptive sentences about it. Children also created a simile describing how slimy the pulp was. Students explored the seeds and had fun counting.


MATH CHALLENGE: HOW MANY SEEDS DO YOU THINK ARE IN THIS PILE?
Record your thinking in the comments below.




We talked about names and how they are important to us. Next week we will explore more about names and how the children's names came to be.

Enjoy your weekend and play in the snow :)

Mrs. Kenna