Saturday 15 December 2018

Library Week

This week it is also our turn to visit the library for a read-aloud and book exchange. Please send in your child's library books on Monday or Tuesday the children haven't already done so.

Thanks again, and enjoy your weekend!

December's in full swing!


My apologies for the delay in posting. With an early start to winter my own children have succumbed to a variety of germs and my usual time spent updating the website has been spent in doctors offices and playing nursemaid. Poor little monkeys. 'Our' shared children, too, seem to have fallen to germ season, as we've been missing a few children each day due to illness. We always take the time to 'Wish Them Well'. Ask your son or daughter what we do to build support, community, and compassion in this way.




It truly is the busiest time of year, and the grade one children have been immersing themselves in learning in all areas of the curriculum.


Struggles with tape.😆

Our math and science units are merging together as we learn more about 2D and 3D shapes and solids, various object and materials and their attributes as well as structures-not only as supporting frameworks, but also as man-made or found in nature. The children have been working on building for a variety of purposes and looking for shapes within their 3D structures.

We're also working on keeping up our numeracy skills while we are immersed in a different strand of mathematics. 


In language, we've been exploring word families, writing letters, using our word wall words (and the word wall), stretching out letter sounds, and we've just begun procedural writing using key terms, first, then, next, and last. Please ensure that you are reviewing the word wall words nightly with your child as these are words that do not follow particular phonemic patterns and often cannot be decoded using traditional strategies.
Believe it or not, but these two are not the only birthday twins in our class.

The children enjoyed reading to and with their stuffies. Thanks for sending them in.

Looking ahead to next week:
  • As we've been readying our hearts during this season of Advent, the children have been tasked with completing varying acts of kindness. Please keep the kindness angels coming. The boys and girls enjoy sharing their good deeds.
  • The kids are welcome to wear their Santa hats and/or reindeer antlers this coming week.
  • As we have our school Christmas concert this Friday, the children are invited to wear their Christmas (or otherwise) pajamas on Thursday December 20th.
  • We'd love it if the children could wear red & white on Friday AND a traditional tuque and scarf for their performance.



Sunday 25 November 2018

Weekly Update

Upcoming Word Wall Words this week:
day
with
car
of
how
I'm also adding the instructional word cut to the list.

All across Ontario, this past week was designated as Bullying Awareness and Prevention Week to help promote safe schools and positive learning environments. At St. Anne we are committed to raising awareness and learning more about what bullying is (and isn't). Moreover, we are committed to fostering Kindness and Empathy for one another. We started this week off with a visit from Father Paul, who helped us explore what it means to be kind and caring, why it's important to emulate God's love, and What Would Jesus Do? 

Later on in the week, the children gathered outside to participate in our Upstander Circle, where they pledged to not only be kind to one another, but to stand up to eradicate bullying.

Classroom activities this week around Bullying Prevention included read-alouds, discussions, creation of Kindness Posters, and creating a grade-level Kindness chain where the children wrote various loving phrases about their peers on strips of paper and linked them together to create a long chain.
We continue to work on CVC words, WWW activities, writing sentences using proper spacing, upper case to start and punctuation. We will be reinforcing 'What Makes a Complete Sentence' & Sentence Building in the coming weeks.





The children are fully immersed in a variety of units. In math, they're exploring attributes of and comparing 2D shapes. A favourite game of theirs is to take turns in the 'teacher chair' where they choose a shape in secret and the other children have to ask questions about the shape using 'math language' (ie. Does the shape have four vertices? Does it have parallel sides? etc.) before guessing the shape by name.

Thank you all very kindly for the contributions to our science unit with your recyclables. Keep them coming please. The children are very eager to get their hands on the materials and construct. I am trying to hold them off a wee bit as we learn more about structures and materials and gather more materials for their various projects. They have really-to no surprise as it is such a hands-on unit-taken to our science unit. Throughout the week, the children have been pointing out various 'fasteners' they've discovered, and shared with me and each other how the fasteners work. The video below highlights Calvin's creation. With the addition of the 'straw' of a classmates fruitpouch and some tape as a 'fastener' he turned a piece of paper into a beyblade. Three, two, one...let it rip!!

We do not have library this week but please add to your calendars a reminder to send the children's library books back on Monday December 3rd. This gives me enough time to send home reminders if needed for those not returned so that all children are able to exchange their books on our Wednesday visit. Given the size of the school we are limited to biweekly visits and the children are very disappointed when they are not able to exchange their books because they forgot to return them. It also means no new books for 4 weeks!

SAVE THE DATE!!
Another date to add to your calendar:
DECEMBER 21st
9:30 a.m
Christmas Concert
The primary grade classes-starting with grade one-will be performing a song in celebration of Christmas on Friday December 21st at 9:30a.m. As the morning progresses, the junior grade classes will take stage as well. (Kindergarteners will be performing on December 19th, for those of you with children in multiple grades). We look forward to seeing you from the stage!

Tuesday 20 November 2018

Correction

BLUE day is being moved to Thurs Nov. 22
Fri Nov. 23 is now RED and BLACK day to show our school spirit for the Ottawa Redblacks and their big Grey Cup game.

p.s.
Please send those library books back as we're off to our school library tomorrow. 

Sunday 18 November 2018

Weekly Update

Hello Dear Parents,
The children and I have just embarked on a couple new 'Units of Study' for Math and Science: Geometry and Materials, Objects, & Everyday Structures. It should be a fun few weeks!!
Keeping that in mind, I do ask that if you have any recyclables that could be used to build structures that you send them in with your child to add to our Construction Bin. Items that might be useful include, but are not limited to:

  • empty paper towel (or tp) rolls or other dowels
  • egg cartons
  • thin cardboard boxes (think cereal, etc.)
  • empty tissue boxes
  • empty tin cans and lids (no sharp edges, obviously)
  • empty coffee cans
  • bottle caps
  • popsicle sticks
  • glass baby food jars
  • scrap fabric & yarn
  • small sticks and twigs
Please ensure that any recyclables that are being sent in are clean and safe from contaminants (nuts, oats, dairy.)

We have Library this week, so please have your child bring his or her books back on Monday so we can prepare for exchange.

Our WWW this week are: 
go
big
not
went
and

This week is also Kindness Week. We will be doing a number of activities to highlight the importance of being kind and of being an Upstander in grade one. The entire school community is invited to wear BLUE on Friday November 23rd, to represent all the Upstanders and Peacemakers.

I also invite you to check out St. Anne's new blog on Social and Emotional Learning. It is a great resource to both parents and children. 

Please find below some pics of some of last weeks' highlights:





Monday 12 November 2018

Important Field Trip Reminders


Reminder, our field trip is Wednesday November 14th. We will be leaving the school at 9:30 am. Please make sure to pack them a full lunch and snacks as we will not be returning to school in time for the children to receive their pizza order (pizza will be saved for them upon return for a late day snack/take home). We also request that your child's backpack be empty of extras so that they may store their belongings if need be, and please do not send in any spending money as we will not be visiting the souvenir shop or cafeteria to purchase anything.
Thank you for your support in making this a fun learning event for your child.
Erin Riley

Sunday 11 November 2018

Remembrance Day

You would have been quite proud of how your children comported themselves during our Remembrance Day Liturgy on Friday. I do hope some of you were able to join us to see for yourselves. I also hope that today you find some peace and solice as you remember those we have lost, and know that they shall live on in our hearts forever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thank you to all of the parents that were able to come to our Parent-Teacher conference this past Wednesday. It was very nice to meet all of you. I look forward to meeting a few more of you in the coming days.

This past week was full of learning for your children. We wrapped up our patterning unit.
We will be starting a new geometry unit in math tomorrow, starting with 2D shapes and their attributes.
In language and literacy we continue working with words, on beginning sounds, CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words/word families, syllables, our WWW (word wall words) and writing super sentences. In reading we are starting to explore a new decoding strategy, the 'Stretchy Snake'
I often sing a song with the children to demonstrate how we can stretch out words to hear their individual sounds and have them put the sounds back together to guess the word:
I love someone, yes I do
I love someone, yes I do
I love someone, yes I do
Let me say it slow for you...
N-o-a-h
L-u-c-a-s
I then start changing the song to include various words. I encourage you to play similar games at home.

The children continue to enjoy working on creating their own works of literature, and continue to demonstrate their knowledge of print as they create title pages complete with titles, author/illustrators' name, and picture, as well as text and pictures in their books. We even had one classmate as for help to create an 'About the Author' on the back of his book, reminiscent of what he'd noticed on some of the Robert Munsch books in the class book nook.

We also went to the Learning Commons for our first library visit of the year. You'll have noticed the children have brought home two books, one English and one French. You may keep these books for two weeks and are encouraged to re-read them several times for added comprehension, having the kids using their decoding and comprehension strategies. We also request that you discuss with your child the privilege of being able to borrow books and the responsibility that goes along with that to take care of them. Please return the books on Monday November 19th (add this to your homework calendar please). Our next library visit is Wednesday November 21st.
WWW for the week of November 12-16: boy, girl, but, your, play. I am also going to start introducing common 'instructional' words that the children will start to see more of as they progress in school on various worksheets. This weeks added word is 'draw'.


The school will be hosting two back-to-back information sessions for parents only this Wednesday November 14th. Learn more about Social Emotional Learning from 6-7pm, so you know what your child means when he tells you he's in the Blue Zone, etc. There will also be a Tech Tools Basics session from 7-8pm the same evening. More information is available on the school website.

Speaking of social and emotional health, I was a very proud witness this past week to two separate events where the children demonstrated their great empathy. Above is a photo I couldn't resist taking. Imagine the slightly chaotic scene of trying to organize more than 100 five and six year olds at the end of a long day to ensure they're in the correct bus/childcare/walker line. Imagine the stress this end of day rush can put on some of our littles. Now imagine one of the stressed out littles sitting on the floor in the busy hallway, fighting with his laces. One of OUR littles noticed this wee guy struggling and stopped everything he was doing to kneel on the floor with him and do up his laces for him. Thank you Justin for showing your caring heart!
On another occasion, we had a classmate in tears at the end of the day because she had lost her poppy. She was quite distraught, despite assurances from me that all would be well. As we were about to depart, a classmate came up to me and said, "I'm going to bring some of my own money tomorrow so I can buy a poppy for Autumn to make her feel happy again." Thank you Sergio for showing how much you care!
It fills my heart to see such evidence of empathy and caring amongst some of our wee grade one students.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend with your loved ones,
Erin Riley

Tuesday 6 November 2018

Friendly Reminders / Important Dates



  • Wednesday, November 7th - Parent/Teacher Interviews. Please note that you will need to make a separate interview if you wish to speak with Mme da Costa regarding your child's French progress. 
  • Friday, November 9th – Remembrance Day Liturgy from 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
  • Wednesday, November 14th - Museum of Science and Technology Field Trip. Volunteers are required to forward their validated Police Records Check to anne@ocsb.ca prior to the fieldtrip. We plan on leaving the school around 9:30am and returning around 1:30pm. Volunteers, please meet us at the school around 9:00am so we can confirm your attendance but make sure you have your own transportation to and from the museum. We appreciate your understanding on this as it allows us to minimize buses and their associated costs.
  • Friday, November 16th-PD Day. No school for students.
  • Please return your child’s progress report envelope. We will be reusing these envelopes for our Term 1 report cards. Thank you for helping us to be more environmentally friendly!
  • Please limit the Halloween candy that is being sent to school.  

Thank you for your ongoing support! 

Monday 5 November 2018

FREE Book

Your child was the happy recipient of a FREE book today, Giraffe and Bird, written and illustrated by Rebecca Bender. This free giveaway is courtesy of TD Bank Group and the Canadian Children's Book Centre (CCBC) and is available to all grade one students across Canada to be enjoyed with family as a way to promote literacy. Please feel free to visit their website bookcentre.ca for more information...and Happy Reading!!

Saturday 3 November 2018

Halloween Learning Fun and More

Another busy week with Our Wonderful Ones. Here are a few Pic Collages of the children in their element.
This book written and illustrated by M has sparked an interest in having an Author's Corner Wall. The children have decided to dedicate some bulletin board space adjacent to the Book Nook for their own writings and though their 'library' is small now, I've been enjoying watching them select the hand-made books for enjoyment during our self-selected reading times. Hopefully this endeavor takes off! 




Our patterning unit continues. The children are becoming more comfortable in creating and extending various patterns. We've begun working on identifying pattern cores and on creating and extending and labelling more complicated patterns this week using a variety of materials.
Patterning isn't the only math. We continue to work on our number sense by counting and representing and building different numbers in a variety of ways. We will continue to focus on teen numbers in the upcoming weeks.
We've also been working on writing Super Sentences, paying particular attention to (finger) spacing between our words. 

Using our WWW's and inventive spelling where we S-T-R-E-T-C-H out our words to hear the separate sounds in the words and represent those sounds with letters, we've been writing about our favourite part of Fall, our costumes, how we can be more 'saintly', and more.




Halloween was cause for much celebration this week. Here are a few of our Halloween centres in action.



We also celebrated a birthday this week.
And we got a head start on our art project for Remembrance Day.

Happy Weekend!!

Saturday 27 October 2018

Looking Ahead to Next Week

I will be sending home a paper copy of November's recommended 'Homework' calendar, as well as an assessment I completed with the children on their knowledge of the Word Wall Words (WWW) we've studied so far this year.

I hope many of you were able to join the other Lion's in the gym on Friday night and celebrate Halloween. I hear it was quite the event. Our WWW for this upcoming week support the excitement of the Halloween 'season', and I look forward to having the children use these words in their discussions and writings about Halloween (my favourite holiday)!

WWW

  • fun
  • night
  • out
  • on
  • my
Our Learning Explorations for the Coming Week
Oct. 29-Nov. 2


The 'subjects' will be integrated as much as possible.

Religion & Social and Emotional Learning (Health) & Social Studies

BE WELL
  • “We Wish You Well”
  • Safety

BE COMMUNITY
  • “We Wish You Well”
  • Bucket Fillers
  • Family & Roles

ZONES OF REGULATION
  • Identifying and recognizing the Zones
  • Choosing Calming Strategies
We'll revisit some familiar calming strategies learned in Kindergarten and explore some new ones, such as the 'Hot Chocolate Breath'.

GROWTH MINDSET

Math
Numeration
  • Continue to identify, represent and build numbers in as many different ways as possible (ie. ten frames, dice, tally marks, arrays, dominoes, number sentences, drawings, etc.) with a focus on the teen numbers.
  • Skip-counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's
Patterning
  • Continue to work on identifying pattern core, creating and/or extending patterns with one attribute (colour, shape, size, thickness) change.
Literacy
WWW-fun, night, out, on, my
Reading-using the Eage Eye (picture clues) strategy; independent reading, shared reading, poems, read-alouds, guess the covered word, guided reading groups.
Working with Words-CVC words (consonant vowel consonant), syllables, beginning sounds
Writing-SUPER SENTENCES...using our WWW's, inventive spelling using our phonemic awareness, capitals, finger spaces, and punctuation (.!?). We'll also focus on left to right progression in writing vs. 'list' style writing. 


Science
  • Changes in Nature

Visual Arts
  • Line Design
  • Halloween Crafts

Music
  • Patterns and beat.
  • Singing familiar songs

Phys. Ed
  • Gross motor movement
  • Cooperative games

Happy Weekend!
Erin Riley