The first week of school..September 2020

Choose Joy

The reason for our hope

1 Peter 3:15

This is our school district's theme for the 2020-2021 school year.

How appropriate!  We could choose negativity, despair, unwillingness to adapt because of the 

situation that the world is facing BUT

Our God tells us that we need joy!

I asked all the littles to tell me what brings them joy after reading this lovely book by Corrinne Averiss.

I took their photos on the first day of school and their words and photos are welcoming them into the classroom.  You will see a photo from earlier last week, before I had met them all, showing how the door

into the classroom looks.

Every classroom has a sanitizing station at the door and the kiddos are quickly adapting

to what they need to do to help keep them safe.  They understand that wearing a mask means

that we care about others and that by wearing a mask you are keeping others safe.  THANK YOU

for sending your child in a clean mask everyday.

Door to the classroom (Room 111)

We are doing our best to be as far apart as we can be.  Each table has two littles at it.

The blue bin is for their own supplies because AHS says we cannot share.  The light blue bin

is the 'tidy tub' so when they cut and have little papers to recycle, they go in the bin, thus

there is less moving around the classroom.  I wash tables every morning, they wipe their tablespoon with

a school provided wipe before snack and before lunch.

David is such a beloved book character!  We read these two books

during the staggered entry days.

The students followed my verbal directions and watched each step as I drew

David, on the SMARTBoard.  Step by step, they too drew David and they are

on display in our classroom.

The classrooms on the main floor are extremely luck to each have a working sink.

The students wash their hands before eating snacks and eating lunch.  They noticed how

many soap bottles I have lined up for their use.  The red cup covers the water fountain

because AHS has told us that we cannot use them.

Thank you for sending a water bottle that meets my criteria.  That means that the

water comes out through a straw, like the one on the left or has a spring loaded

mechanism, the the one on the right.  This helps avoid the accidents that can happen

in backpacks (and yes, we have had one of those already) and the ones that happen

in our classroom (not yet....but you never know!)

The type of water bottle that I would kindly ask you to avoid is the type

that requires you to completely take off the lid, or that if it was put on it's side, the water

would spill out.  Could you please choose a different bottle to send with your child, if

this is the type you have been sending?  I would appreciate it!

I like to avoid the tears that go with water spilling all over on their tables.

We have a morning snack.  I ask the children to choose a fruit or vegetable if possible.

Could their snack not be put into their lunch kit?  We are trying to avoid too

many students in the hall at a time (social distancing) and if your child has to unzip the

lunchkit, find the snack....or choose because there are yummy things and they want to

eat them all....it means that instead of 10 minutes, the whole exercise is taking 25 minutes.

My own social distancing attempts to avoid touching the students' food.  These littles often

need help with opening their containers.  I sanitize all the times that they do, so please know

that if they need help, I won't say no, but it might be helpful if each student can open their

own containers.  Many of them do not know how to open a prepackaged cookie or cracker bag.

Perhaps this is something that you can help them learn how to do at home.

I will always help, but I really want to be careful to ensure that they stay healthy.

One last thing...the system I use for blogging has gone through an update since I last used it in March,

so it doesn't look as colourful as it used to.  I will look into trying to 'spiffy it up' this weekend.

Come meet the Cat in the Hat

Dr. Seuss makes me smile!  How can you not when his words are

so silly, the pictures are of creatures that I have never seen, and 

each and every one of his books are full of wisdom and lessons to

learn in the best of ways....through stories.

I loved when I. learned that the publisher and Dr. Seuss had a bet

that Dr. Seuss could not write a book for children (that they would

want to read) with only 50 words.

He did it and Green Eggs and Ham was born!  We checked

and there are only 50 words.  Each and every one of my students

should be able to read this book.  We practised with partners in the

classroom.  Reading such as 'long' book made them very proud of

their learning so far this year!

What else do you think of with Dr. Seuss books?

You probably remember that he liked to 'play' with words and

that many of the nonsense words that he made up rhyme with

words in the English language.  These couple of weeks with

Seuss, we are focusing on reading and then spelling rhyming words.

We made our own fish bowls gull of handprint fish.

The most famous cat in the world was created by Dr. Seuss.

That was the little movie that the class watched for their dollar 

donations to Valeda House.  We then talked about how the book

and the movie were similar and different.  Great observations were

made by the students!

We then were asked the question "Would you like the Cat in the Hat

to come to your house?" and created little people that might or

might not resemble the students in the classroom.

"I would not like the cat in the hat to come to my house because 

He would make a big mess."

"I would like the Cat in the Hat to come to my house because he would 

play with me."

"I would like the cat in the hat to come to my house because my house is 

not fun os the cat in the hat is fun."

Now I bet you are wondering which Dr. Seuss books will be featured this

coming week!

As February ends.....

My camera is not the greatest, but the pictures do give you the

idea of how much the students like Flashlight Friday.

It's like they are getting away with something....

Do you remember taking a flashlight and hiding under the covers

so that your parents wouldn't know that you were reading?

That's what it is like in the classroom....

It's so lovely to watch the kiddos fully immersed in their books!

An even more engaging activity was taking Fruit Loop cereal

and laying out enough to cover 100 circles,

then stringing those cereal circles onto a ribbon,

to make a necklace.

They were so happy to do this (and there was the added

bonus of having to count to 100 AND work those little fine 

motor muscles at the same time!)

Outside in our hallway over the coat cubbies, are the students'

writing about what they could not do on the first day of school

that they can now do on the 100th day of school.

HOORAY!

We are really focusing on putting small groups together,

or taking a large group and making it into two smaller groups.

These plastic plates are helping the students think of those numbers 

as part-part-whole.

They worked on telling stories about the numbers on their own first,

and then sharing their stories with another student in the room.

It might have sounded like this:

I have seven Santas.  My mom has three Santas. 

(there would be 3 and 7 in the smaller compartments of the plate)

When you put seven and three together, there are 10 Santas.

(the two groups would be moved into the larger compartment,

to show the whole number)

Shrove Tuesday!

Thanks to the wonderful mommy who came in and made these delicious

pancakes for us.  (AND AN EXTRA BIG  THANK YOU TO THE

PARENTS WHO OWN HEADQUARTERS RESTAURANT FOR  

MIXING UP AND DONATING THE BATTER TO OUR SCHOOL!

Here's what 100 little pancakes look like!

Our question to answer was 

"Can a Grade One class eat 100 pancakes?"

The answer was "Absolutely!!"

We asked that question because the wolf tries to fatten up the 

chicken for his stew by leaving her 100 pancakes, 100 donuts, 

and a 100 lb. cake on her porch.

The students paired up and read this shortened 'rebus' version

of the story.

After recess, the students went on a hunt to find the 100 chicks from the

story that were hiding around the classroom.  The real challenge was to

put those little chicks onto the 100 board when there were no numbers on the board.

I was really impressed with their thinking.  I heard these great conversations:

I put the 45 there because I saw 40 at the end, and then I counted these empty boxes

41, 42, 43, 44 so I knew that the 45 needed to go here.

I put 67 here because I know you count like this:  65, 66 and next would be 67.

I put 21 here because you count down like this:  1, then 11 and then it would be 21.

All those mornings at Calendar work is paying off!!

100th Day of School

We started our day with a fashion show.

We used our hallway stools to create a runway and

talked about how to walk with confidence.

At the end, each student got to pose for a picture.

What a wonderful shirt!  I loved the tally marks on the hockey sticks.

I can't remember exactly what it said on front but it might have been something like

" I crushed the first 100 days of school!"

Too cool!

I don't know how this little girl got one hundred photos

of herself onto this shirt, but I was super impressed with

the creativity.

I knew what this little guy was going to wear before I

saw him.  His sister was so proud of her brother that

she came and told me all about it before school started.

He is a 'bright' little boy!

Look at this confidence!  She is so proud of her pom pom shirt.

She told me that she chose where mama was going to glue each

one on.  I hope that you all enjoyed working with your child

 to make this memory!

 Here's the kings and queens of the day!  They have learned so much.  As them how to count to 100 in a different way than by 1's!

Challenging activities included writing one hundred words....

doing a scavenger hunt around the room and by highlighting 

the numbers that were found, in the colours of purple and pink 

(you can see them in the background), the students found the

surprise....the correct answers create the number 100...

and writing their name over and over again in 100 squares, colouring

each letter a different colour to create a special name pattern.

Look at this proud little one.....she can write (and read) 100 words!