Arbour Day (and a little bit of geometry too!)

I've got to stop taking so many pictures!  Honestly, though, I want you to see your sweet kiddos having the time of their lives, trying new things, learning, smiling and enjoying their days at school.

If you ever run into your town counsellor here in the County, please let him or her know how wonderful the County sponsored (as they pay for everything, including the bus!) Arbour Day for the Grade One students of Strathcona....and I hear that was over 1000 of them!

After watching some cool tree climbing antics and learning about pruning, the students got to run through an obstacle course.  I think there were 7 or 8 stations all together.

These are white spruce seedlings (that were sent home today).  Place two adults finger tip to finger tip next to each other.  That's how massive these trees are going to be at maturity.

My advice:  don't plant next to a fence or your house!  They will need about 4 meters of space on every side in order to grow up healthy and strong.  Did you get a tree in Grade One?  WOuldn't it be fun to show your little one how large it is now?

This beaver mascot was kind and very photogenic!

It was a beautiful day with just enough wind to keep us from overheating.

The children disappeared into the trees to make little fairy houses.  We adults were not allowed to follow!

The fire department talked to the children about fire safety in the forest.

They sent us home with pamphlets and tattoos!

The students learned about how a tree grows and each got a tree cookie (ha! ha! not the kind to eat) and counted the rings to see how old the tree was.

Two of my munchkins were invited up on stay with Peter Puffin, to act as characters during one of the songs that he sang.

Have the children told you about the seeds that we have planted?

Here's a group of them as they used magnifying glasses to check out the parts of the plant.

The know where to find the roots, stem, leaves and we hope to one day, see our plants produce flowers.  Ask them about the seed coat and how the seed gets its' food at the beginning of it's growth, when it is still a sprout.

We are trying different activities each day of Mental Health Week.

Today, we were asked to create and so we used toothpicks and marshmallows to see if we could create the sides and corners of two dimensional (2D) shapes.

Do you know what a rhombus is?  Ask your kiddo because they all know!

Here's a rectangle,

and here's an octagon!

Happy birthday to this 7 year old!  They are growing up so fast!

Another busy week in Grade One!

On Tuesday morning, the students from Grades 1 through 4 made the trek into the big city and enjoyed a morning of music supplied by the Symphony Orchestra...and one bear, just waking up from his winter hibernation!

They thoroughly enjoyed the comfy seats!

Don't they all look so grown up...

in their special clothes?  Thanks for taking the time to get them dressed up for this special outing.

It did tire them out!

On Wednesday, the students very carefully followed the directions,

and put beads onto wire in the proper pattern.

'

Today, they were able to use those lovely rosary beads as the whole school participated in the Living Rosary.  The students were just wonderful!

They were so proud to carry the rosaries that they made into the gym.

We'll keep them at school until the end of the month, so that we can actually learn how to say the rosary.  They know the prayers, but need practise on how to move their fingers along so that they know which prayer is next.

Did you notice that cutie from Gr. 4 photo bombing us??  Ha! Ha!

The students are beginning a bit of a review on 2D shapes.

They learned that the correct mathematical term for diamond, is actually rhombus.

They also learned that the term for same shape, same size is congruent.

They are so excited when they can tell others about their new learning!

Today, they worked in pairs and challenged themselves to use different 2D shapes to cover the different pictures that they were given.  They surprised even themselves, and every few minutes I was called over to another pair of students, who wanted to show how they figured out the best shapes to use.  Another proud moment for them (and me!)

They never complain about who they are paired up with.  They have the kindest hearts!

It will be 3D objects next week!

John Janzen Nature Centre

Let's See...

granola bars and juice boxes....check

everyone have their hats and coats....check

did you bring your sunglasses?...check

put on your outside shoes.....check

camera....OOOPPSSSS!

Thank you SOOOOO much to the parents who took photos of this awesome morning spent exploring the season of Spring at the John Janzen Nature Centre.

It was a beautiful morning and I think the kiddos had a great time! (me too!)

We listened and looked and saw so many interesting and informative things on our Nature Walk.

Ask your kiddo what a fungus is!

We played a couple of fun, run around games in the warm sunshine and then came in to hear our leader, Jackson, share his vast knowledge about animals in the different seasons, with us.

His big yellow box had wonderful treasures that we got to pass around, a mallard duck, a chickadee, a moose hoof, a beaver belt and then we all got to ....

touch a live salamander!

Ask your kiddos why they could only touch it with one wet finger!

THANK YOU again to my dedicated parent and grandparent helpers!

Fact Family Fun

Do you remember working with Fact Families as a student?

It is one way that the students are working to achieve the Alberta Education Mathematics objective:

9. Demonstrate an understanding of addition of numbers with answers to 20 and their corresponding subtraction facts, concretely, pictorially and symbolically, by:
   • using familiar mathematical language to describe additive and subtractive actions
   • creating and solving problems in context that involve addition and subtraction
   • modelling addition and subtraction, using a variety of concrete and visual representations, and recording the process symbolically. 
   

This week, the students are working with others in their table groups

to complete the four different fact family activities that I have created.

The students have the opportunity to share their thinking, watch a successful 

table mate and ask questions to solidify their understanding, as they complete the tasks.

Of course, they often come and check in with me for one on one consultation, 

ensuring that they are on the right track!

Each day, the table group gets a different math tub to work on, but they are 

all focused on the concept  of inverse operations.

Inverse operations are opposite operations that undo each other. 

Addition and subtraction are inverse operations.

Look at the results!  I am so proud of these little mathematicians!

They are proud of themselves, too!

Mo WIllems....What a great author!

Have you met these adorable friends?  The one on the left is Gerald Elephant and the little one on the right is his friend Piggie the Pig.  These two characters come out of the brilliant imagination of Mo Willems, author extraordinaire!  

Mo Willems wrote 25 books about Elephant and Piggie.  The stories are funny, and are the perfect books for the students to read and practice their fluency.  What is fluency? The definition that I found from readingrockets.org is 

Fluency is the ability to read a text accurately, quickly, and with expression. Fluency is important because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension. When fluent readers read silently, they recognize words automatically. They group words quickly to help them gain meaning from what they read.

The students are working on reading in groups of words or phrases, and making their reading sound as if they were just talking to another person, the way they speak in real life.

Since Elephant and Piggie are talking to each other in these silly books, the students are really practising this new skill.  BUT, in these books, Elephant and Piggie are often whispering, shouting, and sounding worried or angry, so the students are using their Eagle Eyes to look carefully at the characters' facial features and body language to figure out how the words should be said.

The students really loved making their own versions of these cute characters!

This week, the students are meeting a new, and just as famous, character named Pigeon.

In these books, Pigeon does a lot of talking, but he is talking to the reader.  The students are learning how to imagine what they might say back to Pigeon if they were in the situation that is happening in the story.

Today, the students followed some guided drawing directions and added these characters to the front of their duotang.  Cute, right?

Learning about our senses

Using a make believe scenario of being under water with 'Scuba Charlotte" the students traveled between five stations manned by our wonderful parent volunteers.

Without their sense of sight, the students used their sense of touch to see if they could find a variety of objects both in a pail of sand and in a pail of water.

This group is testing their sense of hearing as they try to crab walk over to where the sound is coming from.

This group is testing their sense of hearing as they listen to how a mother seal will find her pup.

It was so interesting to see how the students reacted to their sense of taste, without using their other senses.  Some of them actually preferred the sour taste to the sweet taste!

A HUGE thank you again to the parents who were able to come and spend the morning with us!

As always, I couldn't have done it without you!