Friday Blog

 Reminders

• Bring indoor shoes to leave at school
• Please dress for the weather (hats, mitts, snow pants etc...)  We go outside everyday for recess, lunch recess, and gym.
• Library book exchange every Wednesday
• Oct. 29th:  Costume day.  Students may wear a costume for the entire day (no props or costume masks)

Here are some highlights of the week.

 In language arts we have been reviewing the graphemes r, t, u, and v this week.  We will finish the alphabet next week and then begin learning 2-letter graphemes the following week. 

Please check Google Classroom for weekly grapheme practice and word work.  Google Classroom

We talked about how to choose a "Just Right" book that is not too easy or too hard, but just right.  Just right books will be coming home next week.

In writing this week we discussed skills that good writers use.  Then we examined some writing samples by talking about the different skills they noticed that the writers used.  Next week, we will create a writing continuum with these examples and students will examine their own writing samples to figure out where they are on the writing continuum.  This will then lead into developing personal writing goals.

In Math we continued practicing skip counting by 2, 5 and 10. We discovered that we still need to practice skip counting by 2.  It is hard for us. Grade 1 students have to skip count by 2 up to 20 and grade 2 students need to skip count to 100 and also be able to start on any number. Watch these videos with your child to practice.

Up to 20. Skip Counting by 2

Up to 100 Skip Counting to 100 by 2

We have also been working on representing numbers using different groupings with blocks and building them using base ten blocks.  Check out Google Classroom under the heading Parent resources. There is a tab for "Math Games to Play at Home". Once there, you will find 3 different levels so your child can choose the game that is "just right" for them.

In Social Studies we started looking at historical pictures of places and landmarks in Calgary.  Students were detectives and used their observation skills to try and figure out what these places were, what their purpose was, and who went there.  We also started a writing piece about our names.

In Science we have been continuing our study of Small, Crawling, Flying Creatures.  This week we  learned about butterflies and the children brainstormed a list of questions they wanted to ask.  Then they researched their question on the iPad and shared with the class. To summarize our learning, they created a web that showed 5 things they learned.  Next week we will learn about spiders!

In Art this week we created spider webs using the resist technique.  Children used oil pastels and watercolour paints.  We learned that you have to push really hard with the oil pastels so that it will show up after we apply the paint.  We also learned that we needed to have really wet brushes so that the paint could resist the oil pastels.  Check out some of our results.

Ask Me About

• The new math game we played using place value
• What were some of the historical buildings in Calgary that we looked at?