Week 30 - April 18th, 2019

Here are just a few highlights from our short week.

1B had a great turn out to the Family Dance! 


Emma, Bently's new puppy came for a visit this week.  We are going to get to see her again in a few weeks and discuss how much she has changed.  This was a great introduction to the "Needs of Plants and Animals" science unit we will be starting in May.

We had an exciting week of building in 1B.  My classroom is looking a little crazy, but the creativity is amazing to me.  We built a boat and a car this week.  We tested our boats by putting them in water and seeing what happened.  We also had some students figure out a way to make their boat move by using an elastic and a couple of Popsicle sticks.  The cars did not disappoint either.  They were so excited to use some of he supplies they brought from home and  I loved seeing them share their materials and work together.

We also had in a special guest this week teaching us about triathlons.  Students learned that in a triathlon you swim, bike and run in a race.  He set up a few activities around the gym to simulate what it would feel like to participate in this type of race.  On Wednesday, students set out and participated in their very first Triathlon.  It was so much fun!  

For writing this week a couple of the other Grade 1 teachers lent us the book "Duck Rabbit."  It is a story that we use to start talking about opinions.  The shape of the duck/rabbit is seen in a variety of places and students have to think about whether it is in fact a duck or a rabbit.  Once we finished the book students made a final decision on what they thought!  

After they decided whether they thought it was a duck or rabbit, they had to come up with 4 reasons why.  Next week we will put our ideas down into a paragraph and design our very own duck or rabbit.  

We also had a chance to add accessories to our pet penguins and visit the Pre-K classroom to practice reading our stories.  They had so much fun!  

Our last project was working on another type of poem this week a simile.  Students practiced coming up with a variety of words that would describe themselves as a certain animal.  We are just finishing up some pictures of the animal that we would consider to be most like us!  

On Thursday, when I was away, the students had a Lego challenge to building a playground.  They had to work in teams and I am looking forward to seeing what they built on Tuesday.  

Enjoy your Easter Weekend!

Week 29 - April 14th, 2019

Week 29 was a fun week in 1B.  We almost finished off our Penguin unit doing a variety of fun activities.  We learned how to do research this week by taking a closer look at 6 different types of Penguins.  Students worked in groups to search out information to report back to the class.  They looked up differences in their appearance, what they eat, who their enemies were and at least 2 cool facts about that specific species.  The students loved doing this!  They were so excited to read the text looking for information.  They highlighted what they thought might be important and then worked at copying it into their information sheet.

To continue with our penguin theme we talked about what it would be like to have a penguin for a pet.  As you can imagine they came up with so many ideas about what they would do with a penguin for a pet.

Then of course they set out to write their own ideas down on paper.  We wrote a rough draft and a good copy.  They always surprise me with their ideas.

 On Thursday, we took some time to use clay to design our very own pet penguin.  We didn't quite finish them as we need to add accessories.  Next week we are going to share our Penguin stories and pets with the Pre-K class down the hall!

In Math, we are strengthening our basic addition fact skills with a variety of activities.  We have been playing games on Mathletics, playing shaker games and card games, using 100's charts and number lines.  They are getting so quick and efficient with their skills.  We are close to moving onto subtraction!

 In Science, we are talking about the season of Spring.  We wrote poems and made some water colour and sharpie pictures to go along with them.

We have also started talking about how we can take care of our world.  We will be working on a few projects over the next couple weeks to keep this important discussion going.  

That's all for now! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!