It is WINTER! How do I know...well the amount of snow on the north shore is amazing! It is truly a winter wonderland out here!
Speaking of snow..we had a lovely day playing in the snow on Friday. The children rolled big balls and little balls and created sculptures and rolled in the snow..and by the time they were finished they were cold and very wet! Now we did have a discussion about that afterwards...about what to wear for different types of weather. I told them that their job was to take ownership of some of the things they need to keep them happy. They need mittens, jackets, hats, boots etc. If they have all these they will be happy! Some of them wanted to complain to me...but..decided that instead of fussing they would smile and next time bring the right stuff. So all in all a great day of play. In the afternoon we drew ourselves with a big wide open mouth catching snowflakes. The children loved this art project...I will take pictures next week to show you their creations!
This week brought us a lot of opportunities to have discussions about resolutions, and what that means. We talked about making goals and keeping promises...about making goals that were achievable ...and how to make realistic goals. The children called them "wishes" so we created three wishes for our new year. They did a great job. We reviewed classroom rules and expectations and practiced them as well throughout the week. The children were awesome and to be honest I was a little bit concerned how they would settle in after such a long break...and they were GREAT! Great attitudes, sunny smiles and an eagerness to do their tasks.
This week I read the children the book (part of a book actually) called the Six Cedars. This is a first nations inspired book that talks about six cedar trees with different animals attached to them. So the first cedar tree that an eagle lands on is the home to the wolf. The wolf is known for his communicating skills. To be a good communicator one needs to listen with their ears, watch the person who is talking and then use their brain to respond appropriately. We are working on being wolves this term. Remind your child about being a wolf!
This week we started our new social studies unit. During first term we talked about our family and our roles and responsibilities in the family. This term we will look at our place in Canada and the different provinces and territories that make up Canada and interesting facts about Canada. Mr. A introduced Canada with a Canadian map. He will be using Ipads and a book creator app to create their own booklet of different features about Canada. On Tuesdays, Mrs. Whitelaw and I will team together to talk about a province a week in the library. If you would like to send any Canadian content books, feel free to do so.
This week the grade ones worked on numbers to 50. They had a set of 50 snowmen that were numbered from 1-50. They have been working on ordering them, looking at numbers that are bigger than and smaller than, taking five numbers out of the bag and putting them in order of smallest to biggest, numbers that come before and after. Some of the children need to continue working on their counting to 50 and looking at their numbers to 50. I will send the bag of numbers home soon so you can play this game with them.
The grade twos are working on mental math adding strategies...strategy of 0, plus one, minus one, counting on, adding 10 to a number etc. I will send the package of strategies home with the children once we accomplish all of them! Learning these strategies will help the grade 2's when they begin adding and subtracting double digits. Continue practicing these at home to develop their understanding and confidence in it.
Reminders:
1) Please send back the skating permission slip. Payment has changed this year..you need to go online to pay, but I still need the permission slip signed and returned to me. At this point it doesnt look like we have too many drivers...we need drivers to make this set of field trips possible.Finger's crossed that we won't have to cancel. The children love skating and learn so much by the end!
2) Every Monday I send home spelling words for the grade ones and the grade twos. Please practice them. It does help them when they are learning to read and to do independent writing. I mark the "tests" just to see if they do remember the phonetic rules and it helps me to understand what to teach them. It is not designed to stress them out..but just to help them be accountable for a "teeny" bit of homework. I always suggest to do the practice when you do the home reading. The two go hand in hand.
And with that, happy snow day. See you all at school bundled up warmly on Monday.
Enjoy the fun pictures..the first set was of our nature walk. We looked at the "dead log" but is it really dead??? Ask your child that question.
Take care
teri
 |
| Field study..investigating the dead log! |
 |
| Snow day!!! |
 |
| Even the teacher's were having fun!!! |
No comments:
Post a Comment