Week 1 - September 7th

Well, if you made it here, you found my blog; and that is an accomplishment in itself.  I have posted this information already once, but on the off chance you have't read it, I thought it would be a good idea just to post it again.

On our blog, I will include calendar updates, both from the whole RBES school, and from our class. You can click on the calendar pages and sync it to your own Google Calendar app, if you use it.  I will also add photos throughout the month.  Please feel free to click and save photos of your child. 

The home page is where I will post all updated information.  I will try to include as many curriculum updates as possible.  I will be using this blog as an update for parents, so you can hear what topics and outcomes we will be learning about each week.  Also when you are talking to your children about their day, you will have some advance information about what we might be learning. 

September is about learning routines and building relationships.  We will be touring the school, learning how to line up, how to get safely to and from the bathroom, and how to participate in class.

In Language Arts, we will be doing some review and assessments of the upper and lower case letters and sounds.  Each student will be introduced to the class with the "All about ME!" bags that came home last Thursday.  Students will send 4-6 items that fit into a paper bag to show the class.  This helps us get to know each other.  With these activities, we will interview the students, ask questions, write sentences and focus on each child's names.  Our class names will be the start of our word wall.  By doing one classmate a day the students will get very familiar with common words in sentences, and we will make a class book for the students to share with you at home.  We will also be taking a look at the difference between fiction and non fiction books.  Also in Language Arts we will be starting our "Read to Self" portion of the Daily 5.  Students will learn how to pick the proper books ("Good Fit Books") and we will practice reading alone and building our stamina. 

Each week we will also be doing a word sort.  In September we will be focusing on sorting words according to the beginning consonants  We will sort these words differently everyday and then on Friday they will be sent home for you to keep and practice if needed. 

We will also be doing some daily printing practice in September. 

In Math we will be starting our patterns unit, learning about 2D shapes and talking about numbers 1-10.  We will be making some class posters about all the ways we can show a number: tally marks, number lines, dice, written word, unit cubes...I'm sure the students will show me other ways that I haven't thought of, too!

In Science we will be talking about Fall and start our Creating and Mixing colors unit. 

Social Studies in September will be learning about our classroom and school community!  

As for this week we had a great first week.  

Check out some of the activities we did this week!

Your children love our busy bin time.  They think they are getting to play, which they are, but they are also getting ready for Centre Time later in October.  They are learning the rules of each bin, they are learning that there are certain tasks they must complete, and they are learning to work independently away from the teacher. We are still working on our "just right" voice in the class.  We are doing some exiting stuff, so its hard to contain that excitement!

One of the students' favourite part of the day so far has been our silent reading time(read to self).  Students learned how to pick good fit books and are learning what our daily reading time will look like.  Students also learned that there is more than one way to read a book.  They can look at the picture, retell or make up the story, and they can also search for words they know.  We are practicing reading without interruption and everyone has to read the whole time or we have to start the timer over.  We are up to 6:07 minutes already.

We also read a few books that helped us learn a lot about one anothers names.  A favourite was Chicka, Chicka Boom Boom.  We counted the letters in each persons name and added them to our class tree.

  We also read the book Chrysanthemum.  It is about a little girl who gets made fun of because of her name.  We made a big red heart that we crumpled every time the children made fun of her, and then we brainstormed ways as a class we could make her feel better.  Then students colored band-aids to put on the broken heart.  We talked about how "its hard to fix a broken heart," so we need to be careful with the words that we say.  We also used this book to talk about each of our names, how they are special and unique

Another important topic we discussed this week were the Zones of Regulation.  There are 4 zones that we talk about, red being angry or mad, blue being sad or lonely, yellow being excited, worried or silly, and green being happy and ready to learn.  Having this common language in our classroom will really help us as we deal with the big emotions a Grade 1 student might face as they come into school.  Our whole school uses these terms so they will hear them again with other teachers going forward.  These kiddos grasped this so quickly, and have been using the Zones language already when problems are arising on the playground or when students have been missing their moms and dads a bit after these long grade 1 days.

Please feel free to check the Photo Tab for more pictures of the week.  I won't be printing many pictures off this year, so if you see a picture of your child that you like, please save it right off my blog.