Science- Daily and Seasonal Change

      In Science we are covering the outcome "Daily and Seasonal Change". In this unit we will be learning about the days of the week, months of the year, seasons, and more! We have just started to learn about the days of the week and months of the year. We have been learning some songs and dances to go help us remember them. We also do calendar every day which helps us with the days, months and seasons so this outcome will be ongoing throughout the year. Check us out! 

     Today we had a pretty fun day. We got to go to the Atrium (this was the old staff room and has now turned into a work area). The kids thought it was pretty neat and it allows them to work in a different space which also gets them more excited to work/learn and feel at home! 

Everyone was working hard despite their poses! 

     We also had our Grade 8 buddies come and help us work a "word hunt". Students listened to their buddy and watched the words to see if they could find any of our sight words we have worked on. If they found them, they wrote them down on a sticky note (this is what was in their agenda today). This is an activity you can do at home with a sticky note or you could find some hi-lighter tape! The sticky notes that were sent home students can use to practice their sight words.

Our new sight words this week are:

see

is

go

so

am

We have also been talking about vowels and short vowel sounds. 

ChatterPix

   I posted about the app we used called "ChatterPix" last week but I only posted the two that we had finished. We have now finished all of them and they are begging me to post theirs to the blog. So here they are!

 

Math- Numbers to 20

In math we have been learning about numbers. I sent home a note last week that explains all of our goals with this unit. Some goals include: reading and printing numbers to 20, counting backwards from 0-20, matching the number with the number word, etc. Here are some activities we have been doing to learn and reinforce these concepts!

- matching numbers to objects

- Puzzels- recognizing groups of objects and matching with the number

- matching number with number word

- using the chart to double check what the number word is.
 

- writing our numbers

- practicing matching the number to the number word

- matching numbers with number word

Happy Monday!

     It was great to come back to the classroom after missing a couple days due to in-services I couldn't miss! One of my days away was dealing with technology. We will be getting 5 mini Ipads for our classroom which I am very excited about. Older grades will be getting Chrome books which are also quite neat. At the in-service we talked about many things and became familiar with a few new websites/apps. The one app is called "ChatterPix". This app allows you to take a picture of whatever you wold like, make a mouth and then record a voice. Here are a couple examples from our work today. In the future we will use this app to create stories or use it as a creative way to share their knowledge. 

     We also had Grade 8 Buddies today. In order to get to know them we had an activity where we got to eat and talk to our buddy! We had mini starbursts and for each colour there were two questions we had to ask. We asked them their favourite colour, favourite sport they liked to play or watch, and who is all in their family. I made those questions and then I asked what they wanted to know about their buddy. Some offered questions like: "Where do they live?" and "What does their house look like?". I don't know about you, but those were not questions that I would have thought of! We will be working with our buddies throughout the year and we will do activities as simple as reading to each other and some Math/ Art activities. Here are some photos from today with our "Getting to Know You" activity:

Sight Words for this week: 

a 

me

at

it

like

International Literacy Day and Word Work Stations

      We have been pretty busy learning new concepts/skills as well as interacting with others at our school. Tuesday, Sept. 8th was International Literacy Day. We celebrated this by getting together with Mrs. Muir's grade 5 classroom and read with them. You might be thinking that only the grade 5's read to our class but we have been learning some words ourselves! 

We have started learning our sight words and our first 5 words this week are: 
         I, to, at, an, can

   

     We practice these words all week and hopefully by the end of the week they will be able to read the words by sight and spell them. I have sent home a note with the words we are/will be working on and gave you ideas of how to practice them at home. I know you are all very busy but 10 minutes a day is all I ask!! :) 

Kinetic Sand

     We also began learning about "Word Work" Stations. I introduced 6 stations that kids can go to to practice reading and writing our sight words as well as letter recognition and sounds. Some stations are independent, partner work, or groups. We went over our expectations and practiced how to get our materials and clean them up. Overall, our first crack at it was wonderful! Here are some pictures of kids working at some of our stations. 

Wikki Sticks

Alphabet Soup

First Day of Grade 1!

Hello Everyone!

       We had a great first day in grade one. I am very impressed by so many of their skills. We had a very busy day and we almost ran out of time at the end of the day! I sent home many notes with their agenda (there are more to come!). Please send the notes back as soon as possible. I also ask that their agendas come back to school everyday.  I check them to see if you wrote any messages or have any questions. 

     Today we read stories, shares some of our favourite things, did crafts, got our supplies organized, created classroom expectations AND  had an assembly. In our assembly we discussed teamwork and Mrs. Hall decided in order to demonstrate this she would get everyone to tape her to the wall. There are some photos below. 

     I am very excited for tomorrow and I hope your kids are too! :) If you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to email me! My email is on one of then newsletters and on here: kendradoerksen@gssd.ca

Aiden taping Mrs. Hall

Getting ready to take the stool out!