Fabulous First Graders

What a cold week this has been!  We have all tried to stay warm.  Make sure that you are dressing your student appropriately with snowpants, boots, mitts, a hat, and a warm jacket, as we do go outside for our morning break and at lunchtime. This week we focused on how to fill in a tens frame. Did you know that you have to start in the same box every time?  Ask your child how to fill out these tens frames. Ms. McGill's class also looked at 3 element patterns.  Both classes will continue to look at 3 and 4 element patterns next week. In Language Arts, we have started doing literacy centres.  The children are practicing different literacy skills, such as practicing the alphabet, reading, writing, making magnet letter words, and using play-dough to create letters. We discussed our school community, and how we have special symbols that represent our school (like the Keeler Cougar sign, the outdoor classroom, our playground, and our school building). The children drew pictures of these s

We started the week off by talking about what a Scientist does.  What is it, you ask?  Well, they ask questions and they make observations!  We spent the week learning about what an observation is and how to make one.  This led us into our Science unit about senses.   We learned that you can use your 5 senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch to make observations.   Throughout the week we made observations in our classroom and the hallways, using language such as "I observed _____ using my eyes."  or "I observed _____ using my ears".  We also learned that scientists record their observations! At the end of the week we put our observations skills to work in Art.  We collected leaves from outside and created pictures by putting the leaves under our paper and rubbing the top of the paper with a crayon.  In Math, we read the story, "Only One You" by Linda Kranz and created 2 and 3 element patterns on our own fish! We also learned two new Math games called

Hello Grade 1 Families, Below you'll find photos of what our classrooms look like this year!  Each student has a bin to keep all of his/her school work and supplies, a coat hook, a desk and a shelf.   Both Grade 1 classes are split into groups named after animals so that during transition times we can spread out in the coatroom and shelving areas, as well as by the sink while we wash or sanitize our hands!   Ms. Secord and Ms. McGill both have floor seating at the front of the classroom.  We use this as teaching space to keep the students engaged.  When we work on the floor, all students wear their masks and we often take "mask breaks" at our desks where we can all sit safely, facing the same direction.    

For the past two weeks Grade 1 has been exploring a BIG question.  Who Am I?  In our last blog we had just started this exploration by tracing our bodies and cutting and gluing a heart!  We put pictures on our arms to represent the things we like to do, pictures on our legs for the places we like to go, and pictures on our stomachs for the things we like to eat!  Answers to these questions included statements such as candy, No Frills, and colouring, among many more.   Another very important day last week was Orange Shirt Day.  In Grade 1 we learned that many indigenous children were taken away from their families for over 300 sleeps and were forced to go to school far away from their homes.  We read a few different books, including Shi-Shi Etko, and When We Were Alone.  We talked about what it would be like to have to stay away from our families, have our colorful clothes taken away, our hair cut, and told we couldn't speak our language.  Then we celebrated that all children matter