The trouble with David!

Earlier in the month, this wonderful book about a little boy named David became our focus for creating our own classroom book, which you can see below.

David Shannon, the author of this book, also wrote other books about David.  We used the other books 'David at School' and 'David in Trouble' to help us think about how we should follow God's rules and be a peacemaker.

The students had the opportunity to create David, following verbal directions and watching each step before trying that step on their own.  Each and every David that was made has his own personality, and helped me as the teacher see the individual students' own ability and fine motor skills.  It helps me to know what to work on next, which is often called 'assessment for learning.'

All these wonderful happy little boys bring a smile to my face!

Our school division has adopted a policy that basically asks each classroom teacher to assist students in making 'the heathy choice, the first choice.'  To that end, I am encouraging all my little ones to choose a fruit or a vegetable from their lunch kits for their morning snacks.

We've seen a great variety and the students find that with the natural sugars, they are able to sustain their focus better until they get to eat their large lunches around 12:20.

The children are sent outside for their recess without a snack.  This allows them to play and move and 'get their sillies out' during recess.  Once they come in, we take about five minutes to each our fruit or vegetable snack.  Help keep them healthy and ready to learn by ensuring their is a fruit or vegetable in their lunch kit each and every day!  Their bodies thank you!

Sight Words and Spelling begin!

Today we began learning some new words to both read and spell.  The words are often called sight words because we want the students to see them and know them...reading them by sight.  Sometimes they are known as popcorn words because they keep 'popping' up in the books that we will be reading.  I read a statistic that said that about 250 words made up around 80% of what we read.  Knowing these words makes reading so easy!  

This yellow duotang will come home every first day of the week...so on a week where a holiday falls on Monday, the duotang will come home on Tuesday.  It should be returned to school on Friday please.  On Friday, I will ask the students to show me how well they know the words, both reading them and printing them.  It will seem like it is a spelling test, but these words should be remembered all the time...knowing them for Friday is not enough.

Usually there will be 5 words to learn plus a 'challenge' word.....to begin with the challenge words will be colour words.  Each week we will also explore a word family.  I will put in these words at the beginning of the week for the students.  Your job is to practise both reading the words and printing the words.

One of the weekly activities will be to colour the words.  These will be sent home.  Would you kindly have your child cut out the rectangles and add the words to the orange pocket at the back of the doubting?  This allows you to have 'flashcards' to review with and examples to spell the words (and see the size of the letters).

Have fun!

Welcome to First Grade!

Here is our happy home for the next ten months, Room #111.

You are always welcome!

The students have their own space for their coats and backpacks and lunch kits.  We are not hanging our backpacks up because each child only has one hook and in the winter, it will be needed for snow pants!  The students are placing their backpacks onto the wooden ledge on the bottom.

Here is where their outdoor shoes (and all too soon, boots) are kept.  Our names are on the bottom.

Our classroom is right across from our school's chapel.  Many staff members meet before class every morning to begin our day in prayer.

As you enter into the classroom, you will see our 'Challenge Accepted' board.  This is the theme of our Catholic School District for the year.  We are focusing on knowing that we CAN, with the help of others and Our Lord, do great things!

Across one wall is this very important board that will be full of words as we learn to spell, our book bins that the students will choose books to take home and read nightly, once beginning assessments are complete and our book boxes where each student will keep books for reading during 'Read to Self' time.

This is my 'little group' table where small groups of children will gather for specific lessons to assist them in learning the way of letters and words and numbers.

Here in the front of the classroom is one of the carpets that I have for our group learning time.  The students are in desks that are placed in pods to allow for group interaction and small group learning.

From this angle, near the small round table you can see that we have two lovely windows to watch God's world go by.

The first thing I noticed when I came into this classroom is that we have a sink!

In this corner is another gathering spot, with benches, another rug and a variety of bins full of learning activities.

We gather in this area every morning to do our morning calendar activities.

Sometimes I get to sit (gasp) and read to the children!  Sometimes a very attentive and well mannered student gets to sit in this comfy chair.

Just keeping it real....I never get to sit at this desk....which I have not yet had the time to clear off even!

Near the end of our first day of class, we got to interact with this cool book.  It showed us that colours can appear and move about if we follow directions.

Each student got a small baggie full of white play dough and they found that if they pressed and squeezed and kneaded the dough, colours began to appear!

Here are our 'brag tag' necklaces.  More about these a little later.

Each day, one student becomes 'teacher's pet' and gets to do a variety of special helpful jobs for the class.  The day that the student is 'Teacher's Pet' that child will get a green cloth bag to take home.  It is the bag that the student uses to bring a special item from home for their sharing time.  The student should be able to give three clues to the others in the class and we will have a fun time guessing what might be in the bag.  Please remember that it should not be a food item, or alive!

Speaking of food, we do have a student who has an allergy to 'tree nuts'.  This means that to ensure this little person's safety, the following should not be brought to school in any foods.  Sadly this means that the product 'nutella' cannot be brought to school.  Although peanuts are not in this list, it is typical of all schools, that peanuts should be avoided as well.  Try 'wow butter' as an alternative.

Here is some information:

Tree nut allergy is the second most common allergy in infants and young children. Approximately 0.4- 0.5% of American children have a tree nut allergy. Tree nuts are a common allergen reported to cause fatal and near-fatal allergic reactions.

Almond
Beechnut
Brazil nut
Bush nut
Butternut
Cashew
Chestnut
Coconut*
Filbert
Ginko nut
Hazelnut
Hickory nut
Lichee nut
Macadamia nut
Nangai nut
Pecan
Pine nut
Pistachio
Shea nut
Walnut

Thank you to those families who have already sent back these important papers.  I need permission to have your child appear on the blog.  Please know that I never, ever use names to identify the students in my care.  As soon as I have them all, I will create a group e-mail list and will be sending home information this way.

Please consider 'following' this blog.  I believe that when you 'follow' an alert is sent to you each and every time I post on this blog.  

Thank you to my two dear friends who sent me these lovely flowers on the first day of school.  I will miss working with them but know that their friendship will endure!

Looking into the past and seeing where we came from!

Late in June our class will be visiting the Fort Heritage Precinct, one of the best field trip opportunities, in my opinion, with it's connection to the past and the hands on child entered activities.

With a connection to Social Studies, the students and I looked into why the name of our community is Fort Saskatchewan.  The students were amazed to learn that the RCMP (back then known as the NWMP) had actually built a fort along the river, and that lead to the community that exists today.

We read books, watched a few little movie clips, brainstormed, created lists and were ready to write!

What a fine job the students did!  They wrote about our own Canadian police force,

demonstrating their knowledge

and pride in being part of Canada.  You must read them!

What else were the students proud of? They were proud to get to bring home candles in a teacup, which they chose especially for their moms!

Small Crawling and Flying Animals

Thanks again to the parents (and grandparents) who were able to join us and make this in school field trip a success again. Our leader, Bugsy, put the students onto a real dilemma, in which they had to become Crime Scene Investigators to solve the mystery of who stole the honey from the hive.

Each station allowed the students to learn about different aspects of insects, as they tried to figure out which of the six suspects was the real criminal.  

At this station, the CSI explored the different types of mouths that these creatures have.

At this station, body parts were looked at ....very closely!

The students worked their way through 5 different stations one of which allowed them to decorated a bug catcher house.  It was a lovely Friday afternoon full of learning and fun!