January 16 - 20, 2023

Hello, Grade 1 Families, 

Learning Intention: I can create messages through the application of writing processes. 

As we move into the next term of our year, we have adjusted how we write in class. We will use an anchor text each week to guide our writing content/ideas and will begin our writing process with a planning page. This week we used a picture planning page where we drew which season was our favourite and then in the remaining boxes we drew why our chosen season was our favourite. The next day (s) we wrote using our planning page. As we continue with this process, we will add in partner sharing, whole-class sharing and revising to make our writing more interesting to our readers. I was impressed with the level of sentence writing I saw this week. Students will share their writing with families during student-led conferences in March. 

Jan 9 - 13, 2023

Hello, Grade 1 families!

Welcome back to Grade 1! I hope it was a lovely break for all and I wish you nothing but the best in 2023. We have started the year off really well and students are jumping into their learning. 

Learning Intention: I can investigate addition strategies. I can model addition within 20.

One of the skills we focused on this week was addition. We have talked about adding two numbers together within 10 and this week we worked with bigger numbers. We had the pleasure of working with Mrs. Gordon, one of our school's Learning Leaders, who came and worked with us in addition problem-solving. Students were given manipulatives and chart paper and asked to find various ways to solve for a given sum. Ex: ____ + ____ + _____ = 13. Instead of using just 2 numbers in our problem-solving, we now had to use 3. Sometimes we were challenged to find a different way to solve the problem or to not use a certain number or it had to contain 2-digit numbers. It was very interesting and exciting to see their problem-solving skills in action. Everyone did so well and I am very proud of them!

To end our week, we had the opportunity to work with Clay for Kids and create a self-portrait. They are amazing and I cannot wait for them to come back from the kiln. Thank you to the volunteers who joined us. 

I hope you have enjoyed reading your child's journal and listening to them read to you from their poetry books. Students have worked hard this year on learning how to read and have been presenting our poems to our classmates, buddies and other school staff. 

Dec 19 - 22, 2022

Hello, Grade 1 families!

Learning Intention: I can identify each of the senses and what they do. I can identify how my senses contribute to my life and overall well-being. I can use my senses to identify and describe.

We had so much fun with a holiday listening game where we listened to short clips of different sounds we might hear during the holiday season and we drew what we thought it was. Ask your child what sounds we listened to! Some we decided didn't sound the same as they would in our houses, especially on Christmas morning (unwrapping presents), we thought it would be much noisier! On our last day before the break, we tested our senses with popcorn! We listened to it. We smelled it. We touched it. We looked at it and we ate it! Ask your child what describing words we came up with to describe popcorn. Thank you to those families we loaned us your air poppers!

Winter Solstice - What is one challenge I am grateful for? 

• "Shots they hurt but they keep me healthy." ~AW
• "Hockey because when we play real hockey games sometimes I fall." ~WG
• "Math problems because they make me smarter but sometimes they are really hard." ~WE
• "Hockey in the real games we play sometimes there are really good people that could score on the net easily." ~LW
• "I am grateful for my seatbelt. It is a challenge to put on because of my booster seat but it keeps me safe." ~BR
• "It is a challenge for me to do hard math problems but I am grateful because I am learning." ~BH
• "Baseball is challenging because sometimes it is hard to hit the ball but I am grateful for it because I have fun." ~SP
• "I am grateful my mum put me in basketball because it is tough for me when I have to use those big balls but I have my own ball and it is fun." ~LK
• "Shots because they hurt but I am grateful for them because they keep me healthy." ~BJ

As we move into the new year, I wish you all the best this holiday season and look forward to seeing each child learn and grow even more in 2023!