Hi families,
Just a reminder that the first round of yearbook orders are due tomorrow, Jan. 26. There will be another round of orders later on this year. I sent home the form a week ago, but if you require another form please let me know!
Thank you!
Ms. Holmes
Yesterday our surprise was revealed! We are now Pen Pals with a grade two class at Arcola Community School! We were able to FaceTime with Miss. Patterson’s class and the students were thrilled. We had generated many questions to ask them beforehand and were pleased to learn that the grade two students had very similar interests as us and our school had some similarities to ours! Once we ended the video chat, we talked about the structure and content of a letter. We then wrote our first drafts (our rough, practice letters) using some of the questions we had generated earlier. Some of the students wrote two FULL pages for their pen pal! It was amazing to see the enthusiasm on their faces and in their writing. Sometimes it’s easier to sit down and write when there is a real person on the receiving end.
This week we continued our Mo Willems author study with Ms. Perkins’ class. We will be wrapping it up next week! We will be starting our guided reading groups next week which will combine some of Ms. Perkins’ students with my students.
In numeracy we are working on basic number sense concepts such as counting forwards and backwards, grouping numbers so make counting large amount of objects easier, building numbers different ways, and counting on from a given number.
In health we have been discussing emotions and have been working on “My Feelings” booklets. While discussing the many different emotions people can have, we have also explored appropriate ways to deal with them. Anger, for example, is okay to FEEL, but it is NOT okay to hurt other people when we are mad. We discussed ways to deal with anger, such as go to a quiet place to calm down, exercise, talk to someone you love, etc.
Finally, in inquiry we have been watching short educational videos about bats and have been reading books and magazines to pull out information about bats. We have narrowed down our research categories to “habitat,” “food,” “physical appearance,” “types of bats,” hibernate/migrate,” and “interesting characteristics.” These categories may change as our research continues. We have decided that at the end of the research project that we will create our OWN non-fiction book to help educate others about bats. In order to make our own book, we analyzed non-fiction books for content and design. We learned that non-fiction books have real facts/information, real pictures, diagrams, maps, table of contents (which tells us what page you need to turn to to find certain information,) and a glossary (which tells us what words in the book mean.) We are excited to continue our research next week!
Have a wonderful weekend! Just a reminder that there is no school on Friday (Jan. 20).
Ms. Holmes
“Bring your blankets and pillows to sit on, concession with snacks will be available! This is a family event so all children must have an adult present supervising. All unattended children will be given a Pepsi, a chocolate bar, and a puppy.” 🙂
Good morning families,
It is so wonderful to see the sun shining and feel the warm temperatures we have so missed!
Today your child will be bringing home a ziplock bag with number words in them. There are a few games they can play: put the number words in order, put the papers upside down and read the words as they are flipped over, write the number that corresponds with the word, etc. They can also tell you the numbers that come before and after the number on the card. Please also check to make sure your child is writing the numbers the correct way–we have been practicing a lot in class!
Have fun and happy learning!
Ms. Holmes
Hello families!
I hope you had a restful weekend despite the bitter cold weather we’ve had!
We had a busy first week back at school. We gathered with Ms. Perkins’ class for literacy every day and read Mo Willems books and engaged in literacy activities. We found that there were many similarities and differences between the “Pigeon” books! We will be reading “Knuffle Bunny” books this week! If you have any extra magazines at your house and are willing to part with them, please send them with your child this week. We will be creating art pieces in the style of Mo Willems.
In numeracy we are starting our new unit on representing numbers to 20–a foundational unit before we move into our addition and subtraction unit. Students are practicing counting forwards and backwards between any two given numbers (ex: 31 to 50 and back again), skip counting by 2s to 20, and 5s and 10s to 100, as well as building numbers different ways (using rods and cubes, ten-frames, tally marks, drawing pictures, etc.) and finding the two parts that make up the whole number (ex: 2 & 6 is 8; 4 & 4 is 8; etc.)
In health we are discussing emotions and how to deal with them appropriately. We are exploring the many emotions that humans can possess and identifying the descriptive words for the complex emotions.
Finally, in inquiry we are very excited about bats! We are reading through our books with partners and finding information to help answer our many questions. Soon, we will be taking a more in-depth look at one aspect of bats.
Have a wonderful week and enjoy the reprieve from this harsh weather!
Ms. Holmes
Hello families,
Your child brought home an order form for pink shirts for Red Cross Day of Pink earlier this week. Orders are due Friday, January 20th. NO late orders will be accepted as there are limited quantities of shirts. Pink Shirt Day is on February 22nd, but our school celebration will be on Thurs. Feb. 16. Shirt orders are OPTIONAL.
Pink shirt day focuses primarily on anti-bullying as well as celebrates respect of ALL people. Wearing a pink shirt on this day shows your support of diversity, inclusion, and acceptance.
If you require another order form, please let me know as soon as possible! It is strongly encouraged that payment be made online on the school website in your Online Payments account.
Have a great day and stay warm!
Ms. Holmes
For our science inquiry unit we will be learning about….bats!!! After counting up our first-choice votes it became apparent that we had a tie between snakes and bats. The students suggested we have another vote to break the tie, and so at the end we had 11 votes for snakes and 12 for bats! At the end of the unit we will be experts on all things bats. To kick-off the unit we brainstormed things we THINK we know about bats and then wrote out questions we have about bats. The unit will tie in science, literacy, social studies, art, and health outcomes.
If you have any books, magazines, newspaper clippings, internet sites, etc. or know someone who knows a lot about bats, please let me know! We are going to learn how to find information and how to pull all of the information together. If your child has a question and you want to investigate as a family, please share the process with us! Together we will become experts!
Have a great week 🙂
Ms. Holmes
In our class we LOVE presentations (show-and-tell)! We always run out of time at the end of the day, so I proposed to the students that perhaps we could have presentations during lunch time. They agreed and we have created a schedule. Students will present ONE DAY a week:
Mondays: Moiz, Simon, Sam, Rylee, Lydia
Tuesdays: Aryan, Alexis, Jesse, Connor
Wednesdays: Irene, Jalen, Avery, Ayyan, Amanda
Thursdays: Kaitlyn, Quinn, Nevaeh, Anoushka, Nia
Fridays: Yahya, Gauri, Chec, Tharaa, Eric, Joshua
Presentations are a chance for students to show something they have made or brought from home, or tell us a story about something that is going on in their lives. Periodically I will assess their oral skills.
We are excited to start this new routine!
Ms. Holmes
Hello families!
I hope you all had a restful and enjoyable holiday season 🙂 Welcome to 2017!
The first two days back at school was wonderful. It was so nice to hear all of the students’ stories about what they did over the holidays!
Before the break, we had a lot of excitement. We finished our Holiday Calendar Extravaganza activities which involved learning about Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, and Christmas around the world (Russia, Uganda, and Mexico)…
We even got together with Ms. Perkins’ class and engaged in a compare and contrast activity using a Venn Diagram.
As a class we read “The Polar Express,” made our own Polar Express books, engaged in literacy activities, and then watched the movie. We discovered there were many differences and similarities between the book and the film!
Then, with our buddies we made paper bag puppets! Some of us made reindeer, Santas, elves, or snowmen. We had a lot of fun and our grade 7 buddies were wonderful!
And of course, we went bowling!! Our buddies were, again, very helpful and encouraging. We had such a great time 🙂
Looking forward to our first full week!
Ms. Holmes