Student led conference

Hello Families,

Just a reminder that tomorrow is early dismissal for students at 12:30.
Student led conferences are Thursday from 3:30-7:30 and Friday from 8-10. No sign up is required for these conferences. Make sure to bring your child so they can lead you through the planned activities.

Book Fair will also be open for the purchase of books during conference times.

Dancing raisins

This afternoon the students completed a science experiment using their sense of sight and smell to identify some mystery liquids in different clear containers. There were three containers with the following liquids:
1 - water
2 - apple juice, sparkling water, regular water
3 - 7-UP
Once the students guessed what was in each container, they were asked to drop a couple of raisins in and observe what happened. Can your child tell you what happened? Did all of the raisins dance? What happened to the raisins that were in the 7-UP?

Important Info
-Student-led conferences are next week on Thursday from 3:30pm-7:30pm and Friday from 8am-10am. There is no booking system for these conferences, please come at a time that is convenient for you. Your child will be leading you through different activities in the classroom and showing you their work. It is important that your child attends these conferences with you!
-Assembly - the Grade 1 students will be hosting an assembly to share our learning on Friday, April 12th at 11am. You are welcome to join us in the gym for this assembly.

Conference info

A quick reminder that student led conferences will take place Thursday March 21 from 3:30-7:30 and Friday from 8am-10am. There is no sign up required. Please make sure to bring your child as this is a chance for them to show you their learning.

This week Room 15 and 16 finished up with our artist in residence. The students learned a lot of new sketching skills and we are excited to apply them to future projects.
We continue to do 3 Act math tasks where students are shown a video or picture and share what they notice and wonder. We discuss the math possibilities in the video, often coming up with a question. The second act provides students with information so they can apply a strategy to solve the problem. Students are working on representing their strategies and explanations with words, pictures, objects or equations.
Room 16 worked with unifix cubes to build towers and comparing the 'difference' between 2 numbers.
We also played some sight word games, boggle (room 16) and met our literacy groups this week. 
We are wrapping up our community building projects and they will be ready to share during conferences next week!

Scientific discoveries and literacy centers

Scientific Discoveries

This afternoon the students had a chance to explore and make some interesting observations! They were presented with a bowl of a white mystery material. After a discussion about matter, students were challenged to explore the material, describe how it felt and then guess what it might be. After some exploration time, 50ml of water was poured into their bowls. Mix, mix, mix! 

At the end, we had a discussion about what the students discovered. Ask your child what they discovered. What was the mystery material? 

Literacy Centers 

The Grade 1 students have been busy improving their literacy skills by engaging in new literacy groups. Here is some information about what each group has been doing: 

Mrs. Pittman's group

Mrs. Pittman’s group is focusing on story writing. We began with generating ideas about what we can write about. Students focused on likes, interests, hobbies and experiences to create their ‘What can I write about page.’ We discussed how authors write about what they know and what they experience. Students created a plan and are working on their ‘sloppy copy.’ We will focus on beginning, middle and ending  and read the beginning of different stories to help students see that often characters and the setting is introduced and it doesn’t always have to start with ‘Once upon a time’ or ‘One day.’ We will focus on adding more content, detail and description to our work as we edit and revise. We will practice making more complex sentences, spelling patterns, word families, sight words and punctuation as mini lessons during our writing process. We plan to spend a significant amount of time on this piece and students are excited to publish their work. When our stories are complete, we will move into non-fiction texts and continue to apply new concepts we have learned.

Ms. Fraser's group

Ms. Fraser's group is working on sentence structure and making our writing easy to read. We are currently focusing on including finger spaces (spaghetti) and punctuation (meatballs). In the coming weeks we will focus on proper letter formation and sticking our letters to the line, using interesting and descriptive words in our sentences and exploring different kinds of punctuation. Each day we have four tasks that we complete: 

1 - practice using a variety of sentence starters on whiteboards (I see, I like, I can)

2 - read a story and answer comprehension questions 

3 - write about a picture prompt - students look at a picture and write sentences using the starters I see, I think and I wonder 

4 - share our writing with the group - students have the chance to read their work aloud to the group 

Mrs. McCaw's group 

Mrs. McCaw’s group is exploring letter sounds through the Jolly Phonics Program. We are working on blending and segmenting letter sounds through the use of songs, actions and visuals. We are also learning about how to form and read sentences by matching sentences to pictures and creating sentences with common scientific vocabulary. We will continue to practice being independent writers with the help of our Jolly Phonics sound chart. A small copy of the sound chart will be sent home. Have your child tell you about the letter sounds we have learned so far and play with blending and segmenting sounds.

Miss V and Mrs. Crowe's group

In our literacy group we have been working on research projects. We are researching animals who live in our community or extended community like: wolves, squirrels, and bats. The group has been learning about categorizing information, asking questions like a scientist, and using tools in non-fiction literature to answer those questions. We will be making final projects in the coming weeks to share with our peers. 

Upcoming Conferences

Student-led conferences are coming up on March 21st from 3:30pm-7:30pm and March 22nd from 8am-10am. This will be an opportunity for you child to show you what they have been learning at school. There is no booking system for these conferences, you are welcome to come anytime between 3:30 and 7:30pm on March 21st and 8 and 10 am on the 22nd. This is not an opportunity for a one-on-one meeting with your child's teacher as there may be multiple families in the classroom at a time. Since these conferences are a chance for your child to demonstrate their learning, it is important that they attend conferences with you.