UNSCARY Stories!

We began our week enjoying The UnScary Book, a story by Nick Bland about a little boy who wants to write a very scary, spooky, terrifying book. 

It all goes sideways when lovely, nice things show up in the book instead! Rainbows, ice cream, bunnies, and even Grandma all arrive in this very UNSCARY book!

We decided to create our own unscary stories! Students were introduced to a Colouring Rubric last week and were challenged to follow the rubric when creating their illustrations.

We had a blast being creative and writing our own "unscary" pages and enjoyed reading one another's work! 

Our colouring rubric is now an expectation whenever we tackle a project with any colouring. It will help us to our best! These stories will be coming home in the next few days for you to enjoy. 

We Are Sentence Smarties!

When we started Grade 1 together, we knew the sounds the letters make and a few words, too (thank you Mrs. Dziwenko!). You'll never believe it, but we are now working on writing FULL SENTENCES! 

We really began examining what a sentence was this past Monday. 

We learned three things every sentence has:

Then Mrs. Beliveau revealed her hidden talent ... rapping!

We sorted letters, words and sentences as a class ...

... and then continued our sorting independently!

As a class, we worked together to correct sentences, adding capitals and end punctuation. 

Using supported sentence frames, we are practicing writing our own complete sentences! In a few weeks we'll learn how to independently use the criteria checklist, in the top right corner.

Writing strong sentences is a skill we will work on throughout the year. We've got so much progress to be proud of!

Colouring Criteria

This past week, the students were introduced to the word criteria.  

As a class, we created criteria to follow when we are drawing, colouring or illustrating.

Using a familiar picture from our most recent religion lesson, students put the colouring criteria into action! 

Students were sure to check our colouring criteria to ensure their illustrations were amazing. Next week we will be writing and illustrating our very own Halloween stories, so this colouring criteria will help us become successful illustrators! Stay tuned!

Alphabet Celebration!

We have so much learning to celebrate! Over the past few weeks, we have worked very hard to learn all 26 letters and sounds, and we are proud to announce that we are becoming Alphabet Experts!

To celebrate this achievement, our hard working crew had a little Alphabet Celebration! 

The kids were thrilled to handle the decor!

Armed with clipboards and pencils, the students hunted for pictures high and low. Their task was to sketch the image and print the beginning sound. These kids are sure up for the challenge!

Pani Lynne, our Linking Generations senior, came with a silly alphabet book, B is for Bedtime Bananas!

Pani Lynne led Alphabet Bingo with small groups:

Children enjoyed letter puzzles, 

a "shake and find" jar filled with coloured rice and hidden letters, 

and a challenging ABC I Spy!

We'll be forging ahead, putting these sounds together to create simple CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words, such as "pig" or "jam"! We are well on our way to becoming strong readers!

Thank You, God!

This week we spent a little extra time exploring how blessed we truly are. Our blessings are abundant and we seized every opportunity we could to thank God! 

We were challenged with a wonderful opportunity to practice perseverance. After a short prayer asking God for patience and grace, the students learned to weave paper strips over, under, over, and under. Fantastic effort! Many also showed off their patterning skills.

A little writing and colouring, and our placemats were ready! 

What beautiful masterpieces!

This week we read Apple Pie Tired, a beautiful story about teamwork and generosity. Inspired, we came together as a classroom family and followed step by step directions to make apple tarts. 

What a delight to share a delicious treat together as a classroom family!

We have been blessed beyond measure and it is so important to take time and give thanks. God is indeed SO GOOD! 

Rhymes & Crimes!

We are working hard to develop the necessary skills for reading, and rhyming plays an important part. Rhyming allows children to play with words and makes language fun and engaging. It encourages children to listen to language and notice its sounds. 

Take a peek at few activities we have enjoyed this week!

Nothing Rhymes With Orange

After reading Nothing Rhymes with orange, we brainstormed rhyming words ... 

... and created our own rhyming posters! 

Rhyming BINGO

Rhyming BINGO is so fun it hardly feels like work, but boy, are the children refining their rhyming skills! Students listen to clues I read aloud that rhyme and then they find the picture/word on their card.

Rhyme Bag

We have Rhyme Bags that students will take turns bringing home. Only items that rhyme can be placed inside! Feel free to not only choose items to place inside, but illustrations, words, or images printed from your computer. All items will be returned. Happy rhyming!

Rhyme Crime

A rhyme crime was committed at St. Nicholas!

After reading the book Rhyme Crime, we came back to our room only to discover that many missing items were replaced with things that rhyme!

The chair and the table were replaced with a bear and a cable!

Where is our rug? All we see is a mug!

Then our globe was replaced with a robe. 

Goodness, where is the plant? And has anyone seen the dice?

Seems the tape and the glue were replaced with grapes and a shoe!

How will we play with the blocks now?

Thankfully, we tracked down the missing items and were able to solve the rhyme crime with some team work!

Learning in Grade One sure is FUN!

Every Child Matters: Truth & Reconciliation

Learning about the truth of our history from First Nations, Métis, and Inuit knowledge keepers is an important part of the path to Reconciliation. This week we took time each day to learn and grow with an open heart and open mind.

We have already begun learning about Indigenous people of Canada, and this was an excellent way to understand the meaning of the word "Indigenous":

The tradition of storytelling is vital in Indigenous culture, and our week of learning is reflected in the many stories we read. 

We read a beautiful Anishinaabe story called Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox. Being connected to the land and nature is woven through Indigenous culture. We reflected on the qualities portrayed by various animals in this book and shared which animal meant the most to us. 

We shared the Cree book Awasis and the World Famous Bannock, and then we gave this traditional recipe a try! Measuring a teamwork played a big part in making bannock ...

... but tasting was the highlight!

Out on the land, we read the Cree story When the Trees Crackle with Cold, a book exploring seasonal changes. Then we got our "nature trappers" and hunted for beauty in our forest!

We discussed the value of each person. We are made with love and intention, and are all children of God. We had some challenging and insightful conversations as we shared Phyllis Webstad's book With our Orange Hearts. We discussed residential schools and reflected on how students should feel in school. 

Then we carefully created orange lanterns that can shine and remind us how important every child is. 

We were so proud to light them and gather in prayer:

Though our week has ended, learning the truth about Canada's history and deepening our understanding of the First Nations, Metis and Inuit cultures has only just begun.