Hello Parents and Students of Grade 1/2,
It has been a wonderful few weeks of
learning. We presently have 24 boys and girls in the classroom; 14 Gr. 1s and 10 Gr. 2s. We welcome Ms. Dallas Holtby
(University of Regina Intern), Mrs. Jen Yim (Arts Ed.teacher) and Megan McKay (Literacy
Support teacher and Phys. Ed.) to the Grant Road School community.
Please pay for the school agenda ($4.00) on-line if you have not already done so.
We hope you enjoy the weekly photos attached
and emails of your children.
One of the first books we read to the
children was My New Teacher and Me!, by Al Yankovic. The theme was that
IT IS OKAY TO BE UNIQUE, SPECIAL.
One of our first health activities last
week with Ms. Holtby was based on “Zones of Regulation”
books: The Way I Feel by Janan Cain, When I Am Sad, and Class
Clown by Robert Munsch. We read
these books and discussed our understanding of “BELONGING” which
is one of our 4 Circle of Courage Goals. Whether we are new to the school, new to the
classroom, new as a teacher, etc. it feels good to belong and to be in the
Green Zone.
This
past Tuesday morning, we worked through Lesson 1 of Spelling. The pattern of focus was “b” words for the Group A
students and ar for the Group B students. See your child’s agenda and please practice
the spelling words with your child for Tuesday, September 18th.
For Social Studies/Health,
Ms. Holtby began her first health unit on the Zones of Regulation that teaches
students to self-regulate and control their emotions. In this unit, the students
are learning the emotions that come with each of the four zones: Blue (sad,
sick, tired), Green (good-to-go, happy, focused), Yellow (excited, worried,
anxious), and Red (angry, terrified, out of control). If you are interested
about the Zones of Regulation, visit the website do read up on its use for
inside and outside the classroom.
Play
the following game with your child. Pause at each question to discuss what the
character is feeling. Is the character in Green, Yellow, Red or Blue zone? Ms.
Holtby is busy creating individual ZONES TOOL BOXES with each child. In them you will see fidgets
and ‘pictures’ helping them to become ‘green’.
As a class, we also had fun making our cool locker nametags, based on the movie, The Incredibles. MORNING ROUTINE: Each morning your child is to place his/her agenda on his desk with his/her ‘daily home reading’. Home Reading will begin next week. We sing O Canada we recite the ‘Treaty Prayer’.
Ms. McKay is our Literacy Support teacher.
Listen to the following “Hello song” in Cree. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPKEjlCQq_U
Check out counting
in Cree numbers
at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi2wmz_SxzI Ask your child about the
Northern lights (ewawatik in Cree).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izYiDDt6d8s Northern lights video
We also did a brainstorming activity with
the children where they discussed CLASSROOM RULES which
you will see posted by our windows when you visit us at the Open House/BBQ.
We began our printing booklets,
reviewing lower case and UPPER CASE letters Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, etc.
Next week, we will begin the PHONICS LETTER OF THE WEEK (Bb). Brainstorm “b” words with your child and try
reading the sentences from the photo.
Mathematically, we learned about patterns this week. A
pattern repeats 3 or more times and the term “core” was introduced. Using snap
cubes, the children created patterns and then translated them to letters,
numbers, colours, shapes, etc.
The math word at the end of the week was ATTRIBUTE.
Ask your child to explain different attributes of patterning (colour, shape,
size, direction, position). We explored attributes this week using
pattern blocks (triangles, squares). The children created patterns using 2
attributes AT ONCE. Example: size and color . . . little orange
square, big red triangle, little red triangle. . . The children had to explain
their pattern rule for each pattern as they extended it. See the
shoes/sandal and hats page from Friday’s Gr. 2 lesson, as well.
On Tuesday afternoon, we met our Grade 4/5 Learning Buddies
(Teacher: Mrs. Hammett/Miss Heron with
Ed. Assistant, Mrs. Foster). We had
an amazing time getting to know each other.
We did a fun, interactive reading activity which involved balloons. Ask your
child about the “popping” session and what was inside of the popped
balloons. It was incredible to receive
so many videos and pictures of the ‘balloon activity homework’ from your
homes. Thank you to those who
participated.
The children enjoyed their first week of Core French
lessons with Mme. Selimos. Ask your child to share about the “Bonjour
Song” and “Alphabet Song”. We reviewed colors and counting from 1 to
20. We played a traffic light action game and reviewed
our numbers to twenty playing LOTO (Bingo numbers
from 1 to 20) and Number Twister and Concentration. Some weather words and
greetings were also introduced.
Here is a number site for
numbers to 10:
Each child worked on a writing activity about summer
vacation with an illustration. I modeled a paragraph on the data projector
about my holidays. The focus was: creating sentences, using capitals and
punctuation. I was not assessing for spelling
for this lesson. Grade 1 goal: to be
able to write a paragraph consisting of 5 or more meaningful sentences by the
end of the year. Most Grade 1s were able to create one sentence with inventive
spelling at this time.
Grade
2 goal: to be able to write a paragraph
consisting of 6 or more meaningful sentences.
The children had the opportunity to use the data projector to orally
present their paragraphs, proudly. We
will begin Writing Traits lessons soon.
http://www.abcya.com/word_search_jr.htm A great site for plugging in your weekly
spelling words and playing a few games with them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR-BLFZyAWs
Vowel song
Raz_kids READING SITE will be up and running soon. Log in with username: grantroad4.
When you come to the OPEN HOUSE, FAMILY
BBQ on Sept. 27th, your child, will be able to show you
his/her work, to date, on the Writing Wall.
NOTE: We will be DECORATING
our paper mache turkeys on Tues. Sept. 25th. Begin gathering fabric scraps,
buttons, feathers, etc. at home to decorate paper mache turkeys. Dollar Store is a good place to purchase a
bag of feathers. You may begin sending supplies the week of Tues. Sept. 18th.
Hugs,
Ms. Selimos, Ms. Holtby and Ms. Daniels J
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