Please add the date of our next ACE award assembly to your home calendars. It will be on May 30th at 9:00am in the gym.
Open House: This Monday night at 5:30-7pm. The students in our class will be exhibiting their very first published storybook! We will also have some recycle themed art on display. This is a great opportunity for you to come engage in your child's educational experience. You can come together and have your child read the story aloud and tell you about the some of the things we are learning about. Feel free to look around the classroom and have students explain some the things posted around the room, or to show you their problem solving math journals. I look forward to seeing you there!
The Curriculum This Month....
Reading: We are using our knowledge and understanding of fluency to practice Reader's Theatre! Each child works with a group to put on a play where they need to get in character and read the lines in their particular part. We will be working on collaborative skills and will talk a lot about working in teams and how to be an effective group member with your peers. Students will be assessing themselves on how they worked with their team, how well they performed their part and how well they think they were able to listen during other children's presentations. This self reflection is an important skill to develop early in life. The kids love this kind of literacy.... they get to make props and costumes and perform for other classes in the school! I can't wait to see the completed products!
Writing: We will focus on creative writing concepts and eventually work toward writing our own reader's theatre scripts. If you are ever unsure of where your child should be by the end of year, please stop by and come chat with me. I would be happy to sit down with you and show you examples of student work expectations from the Ministry of Education for the end of grade one. Writing is a skill that often comes after reading abilities have developed and the pace at which each student progresses is different. Many child will show tremendous growth in this area during their grade one year while others may really begin to shine during grade two. As long as you are seeing progress with your child over the year, no need to panic, lets celebrate how far they have come.
Math: We have been working hard learning about probability and chance. Students have been using their math journals to answer open ended creative questions. These kinds of questions allow children to really think outside the box and show what they really know. Children may have one correct answer or...... 10 correct answers that show how they can answer a question in different ways. The focus in our class to work on organizing our work so that our thinking is most effective. This is a developing skill in grade one, as many of our ideas are expressed orally. We spend a lot of time talking about our thinking with myself providing feedback to each student orally and supporting them with how they can improve their work, while celebrating their wonderful efforts. Here are examples of the kinds of questions we look at......
" There are two coins. If we flip them several times, what might happen? What might show up?"
" A teacher is asked a question and gives the answer "maybe". What might the question have been?"
" If we spin a spinner that has equal parts red, yellow and green ten times, what might the outcome be?"
Social Studies: We continue to work on mapping skills. Kids will be going on a school scavenger hunt and practice following directions!
Science: We will begin to explore energy in our lives and in the world around us. We will look at how the sun is a source of energy along with wind and water. We will do some fun experiment's to complement our learning.
