Friday Jan 26

Hello parents, 

Thank you very much for taking the time to attend our conferences this week. Our students have been working really hard and are proud to show off their progress.

Our "Making Words" lesson this week had us using the letters:

                                     a  e  p  r  n  s  t  t

The children were asked to use these letters to make 2-5 letter words, then to use all the letters to make the mystery word.  The letters were sent home, so that you can do this activity together

In math we focused on 2 D and 3 D shapes this week. Ask you child to show you how to turn a square into a cube or a circle into a sphere. We learned how to make our shapes “3D” in our visual journals. We will continue to explore other 3D shapes next week and continue our work with math problems.

 

FIELD TRIP INFO

BRRR .. It is expected to turn chilly next week. There have been questions about whether we will cancel. We would love to be able to go if possible however if the weather is too chilly, look for an email as we will decide and let you know.

Our new words of the week for Jan 29-Feb 2:

see      was     here    very   us

Story telling in Literacy

Our vice principal, Chris Scout, was in our class as a guest speaker to share the tale of  Napi and the Rock. It is a story that has been told and retold over many generations of the Blackfoot  people to offer an explanation about how the big rock in Okotoks came to be. We talked about how tales were often used as entertainment to explain interesting wonders in nature before modern science came along. We look forward to re-telling this story next week and watching a video about the big rock as well. 

In Social Studies, we are looking at changes that happen over time and how Calgary came to be. Visiting Ann and Sandy Cross gives us a peek at what Cranston looked like 200 years ago. As we learn more about Indigenous people and new settlements, we will be asking the students to inquire about their family roots and heritage as well. Where does your family or relations come from originally? 

Children in the class are building a book! They all created a page to contribute as we learn about homophones such as "see/sea" and "pear/pair". 

January 19, 2018

Dear Parents,

In Math, we have been focusing on higher level thinking with multi-step word problems.  Children are given a problem to solve that requires several steps.  Some problems can be solved using pictures while others can be solved using blocks or other manipulatives.  Some problems have only one answer while others have several solutions.  Ask your child to try solving a word problem that is similar to one of the following:



In Literacy this week we added 5 new words to our no excuse list of words that all the children need to be able to read and spell.  Please practice these words from time to time.  The new words for next week will be:

• in
• me
• good
• but 
• have

We are now up to 30 words! We used some of these to complete a "guess the missing word" activity.

This week we began to learn about homophones, words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings.  Check out our pairs of pears!

We also did a "Making Words" lesson using the letters  a  e  e  h  l  l  s  s.  The children were asked to use these letters to make 2-5 letter words, then to use all the letters to make a mystery word.  The letters were sent home, so that you can do this activity together.

We have begun talking about our upcoming field trip to the Cross Conservation Area on February 1.  We have looked at photos of the area in all four seasons and have begun learning about some of the animals that live there.  Ask your child what he/she has learned about Meadow Voles, Deer and Hares.  We will be comparing the way the land looked before and after people settled in and around Calgary.

We still need a few more volunteers.  If you are able to join us on the field trip, please sign up on the Blog.

Have a great weekend!

Ms. Cvach

Mrs. Kenna

January 12, 2018

Dear Parents,

Welcome back to you and your children!  We hope you had a restful winter holiday :-)

In Literacy this week, we wrote in our journals and practiced adding detail to our work by writing more supporting sentences.  Students should be writing several ideas to support their topic sentence.  We continue to emphasize the importance of leaving spaces between words and using end punctuation.  Students should be beginning to use upper and lower case letters in the appropriate places.



Students continue to learn 5 new sight words each week.  We now have 20 "no excuse" words on our word wall!  We use the words we have learned to guess the missing word in a passage, or to make new words by making words that rhyme.

big

little

all

fun

get

The following photo is a picture of our Making Words lesson.  Ask your child to make some 2-5 letter words, culminating with the final mystery word that uses all of the letters.




Our story of the week is called The Mitten by Jan Brett.  Ask your child to retell the story.



In Math, we are reviewing the basic 2D shapes and adding more complex shapes (quadrilaterals, pentagons, hexagons and octagons) into the mix.  We read The Greedy Triangle and watched how the triangle changed every time a new side was added.



In Science, we continue to work on Seasonal Changes combined with The Five Senses as we study the changes that have occurred since the beginning of the winter season.  We will continue to discuss our observations of living and non-living things during this time of the year.  On February 1, we will be going on a field trip to the Cross Conservation Area for a program called Winter Walkabout.  8 volunteers will be required.  We will open extra spaces on the volunteer sign up shortly if you are interested in helping us on that day.

Also in Science, we are learning about how guide dogs help people who have lost their sense of sight.  Each child will bring home a guide dog stuffy with a few activities to complete at one point in the next few weeks.




Here are a few more pictures of things we did this week:



Have a wonderful weekend everyone! 

Ms. Cvach
Mrs. Kenna