Skates and Smiles

What a wonderful end to our week! Yesterday we spent the afternoon skating at the Ardrossan Rec Complex! Loads of fun!

Our Phys Ed curriculum calls for students to demonstrate basic skills in a variety of environments. We enjoyed skating (a basic skill) at our local rink (an alternative environment). Our curriculum also states that students require opportunities to demonstrate effort while participating in a variety of activities. We saw lots of effort from everyone on the ice! 

Here are some highlights from our afternoon:

Many thanks to the parents who helped us tie skates, snap helmets, and encourage the kids! It was so much fun and a fantastic way to get some exercise! 

We'll be back at the rink in March! We can hardly wait!

Creating Colour: The Sequel!

We have learned so much about color already, and yesterday we welcomed in 5 very brave and energetic moms and dads to help us learn even more!

The parents were tasked with running 4 messy, hands-on centers!

Station One: Adding Water to Paint
First up? Adding water to brown paint! Can you guess what happened?

As we added water, the paint became thinner, and it was easier to see the bear outline beneath. The paint became more transparent!

Station Two: Adding White

Then we added white paint to the primary colours. The kids loved seeing the paint get lighter each time more white was added!

Station Three: Adding Black

We added black paint to the primary colours, and many predicted the colour would get darker! Great prediction, scientists!

Station Four: Colour Mixing

We had some fun rolling, squeezing and squishing plasticine! It was a great review of the primary colours and how they combine to make the secondary colours. 

So much fun! 

Next Wednesday, February 4th will be a small review quiz for this unit. To help your child prepare, our experiment sheets have been sent home in this duotang with your child today, along with a helpful study guide:

Consider reviewing this blog post with your child, as well as this other one from a few days ago!

Creating Colour

We have been hard at work with our Science Unit, Creating Colour! 

We made predictions about what would happen when we mixed red, blue, and yellow with each other. Then, using a paperclip on top of a paper plate and a magnet beneath it, we were able to mix these three primary colours, mess free!

Look at our results:

Here is a ridiculous YouTube clip we enjoyed which reinforced what happens when we mix primary colours (be VERY careful, the song gets stuck in your head!)



Then we posted what we had learned on the wall:

This week we tackled two enormous words, TRANSPARENT and OPAQUE. Can your child describe the difference?

Look at the items we gathered:

Then we examined over 20 samples and practiced identifying if they were transparent or opaque. The boys and girls looked at everything from ketchup to shampoo! 

But this was just the beginning! Our messy morning of colour centers was fast approaching! 

Stay tuned for our next blog post, Creating Colour: The Sequel!

News!

Each morning the boys and girls come tearing into the school with all sorts of interesting, hilarious and exciting news!

"I got my ears pierced!"

"It's my mom's birthday!"

"Check out my new socks!"

"Look at my harmonica!"

"This candy cane is almost as big as my leg!"

(all true statements, by the way!)

Since returning to school after the break, we have begun sharing our news together each morning. 

We work as a class to write someone's news, led by that particular student. By using the Word Wall, finding words we need around our room, utilizing our children's picture dictionaries, and stretching out words we don't know together, the news of the day is crafted! Then we spend a few minutes working with the sentence, sometimes hunting for vowels, other times counting syllables. It takes about 10 minutes, but it's 10 minutes of powerful, engaging learning!

Working together to write the news!

Hard at work!
"I went to the swimming pool."

Now a classmate is hunting for
vowels in the daily news.

This is a tremendously rich opportunity for countless Language Arts mini-lessons; capitals, end punctuation, rhyming words, environmental print, Word Wall Words, spelling, word families, vowels, phonic rules, blends, syllables, and so, so much more! 

Here is some of the news we've recently shared:

"I got my ears pierced."

"I got a Barbie Dream House for Christmas."

"I like to play Plants Vs. Zombies."
(and he used a classmate's shirt to spell Plants Vs. Zombies!)

"My sister got a Furby just like me!"

Sharing our news is one of our favourite times of day! We collaborate as a class and have lots of fun along the way, and there is ALWAYS exciting news in Grade One!

Our Snowmen are Stars!

It's official! Our art is famous!

Our Bird's Eye View Snowmen that we made last month have been placed on display at the Strathcona County Library for the month of January! Better head down and have a look! 

Our students' beautiful art has received many rave reviews! Boys and girls, you're famous!

Mrs. Beliveau and Julia, checking out the snowmen. 
Despite Julia's grumpy look, she did love the display!

Wacky Winter Fun

Our Winter unit in Science has been lots of fun this week!

Not only are we learning about animals in Winter, but we are also exploring what people do in Winter. 

We got our creative juices flowing when Mrs. Beliveau read Snow Day. In the book, a "snow day" is declared and kids must stay home from school! The children in the book do loads of fun seasonal activities, which became an excellent conversation starter for our class!

Then, Mrs. Beliveau promised we could do those Winter activities we just read about! Ski, sled, build a snowman, skate ... but how?

The boys and girls dressed in their warm woollies and posed as if they were doing a snowy activity. Can you guess what winter activity these kids are acting out?

Then students focused their efforts on writing a complete sentence about their activity, 

chose a whimsical Winter background, 

and glued their cutout with a few details in white to complete the picture!

Look at what we made! 

In winter I like to ...
 (a) play hockey (b) make snow angels
(c) catch snow on my tongue (d) throw snowballs

We sure do know what people do in Winter!

Project idea adapted from a project featured by Christina Bainbridge. 
Visit her blog at Bunting, Books and Bright Ideas.

Snuggly Under the Snow

Experiment!

That word alone can get a room full of Grade One students absolutely, positively giddy!

And that's how our day began, with excited kids ready to learn! Our current Science focus is on seasonal changes in Winter, and today we were exploring how some animals survive the cold. 

Do you think it is warmer under the snow or on top?

This generated an enormous amount of really thoughtful discussion and the students were asked to predict where it is warmer. Then, off to experiment!

The experiment was simple: bury one thermometer in a snowbank, and leave the other sitting on top of the snow. To protect the thermometers, each was encased in a cereal box.  (Honorable mention to Ben Beliveau for eating so many Cheerios for the sake of Science).

Off we went to set up the experiment! Students watched from indoors as Mrs. Beliveau tromped out to bury one box/thermometer and set the other on the snow. 

We headed back to class and were very busy all morning! 

After lunch, we hustled back to check on our experiment:

Mrs. Beliveau checked the box sitting on top of the snow .....

The thermometer read -9 degrees C. 

Curious onlookers

Then Mrs. Beliveau dug out the buried box ...

The thermometer read -5 degrees C.

What?!?! 

It was warmer under the snow!

Genuine surprise that it worked

We hurried back to class, and working with a giant paper thermometer, spent time exploring what this meant. 

Many animals have a better chance of surviving the cold winter when there is a lot of snow. This snow acts like a blanket. It traps heat from the earth, as well as an animal's body heat when an animal burrows deep. Turns out that winters with little snow are harder for plants and animals to survive!