'Twas the week before Christmas...

'Twas the week before Christmas,
And all through the halls,
The students (and their teacher),
Were bouncing off the walls!

To keep the kids focused, 
To keep them engaged, 
Loads of fun things were planned,
For the last 5 days!

Each day of the week,
Many staff came to read,
From Mrs. Barnes to Mr. Marshall,
What more could we need?

We did several art projects,
First we painted our clay,
Then we used our hand print,
As a manger with hay!

We still did our reading,
For math we had time,
These kids really do love writing,
A favourite pastime!

Cozy in pajamas,
We shopped the Bring & Buy Sale,
What could be in these bags?
We're not telling that tale!

Who knew The Grinch
Was first written as a book?
We did a creative writing task,
Then gave the movie a look!

Then meteorologist Jesse Beyer,
Came from Global TV,
We learned about seasonal changes,
Now we're camera ready!

Then we buckled our helmets,
And laced up our skates,
We zoomed 'round the rink,
Up went our heart rates!

The week reached it's end,
And the holiday drew near,
Merry Christmas to all!
See you in the New Year!


Love, 
Mrs. Beliveau

Advent Concert

Advent is a time of waiting and a time of preparation. We are waiting for the birth of Christ and are preparing our hearts with kindness.  

This week the boys and girls experienced “waiting” and “preparation” first hand! We had several rehearsals for our Advent Concert. Boy, was there waiting, and boy, was there preparation!

Waiting for our turn on stage

The boys and girls did a spectacular job of preparing and performing "Little Donkey"! Look at these beautiful, happy little faces!

What a performance! 

How can we not be in the Christmas spirit?

Reading is a BLAST

To develop a love reading is a huge goal in Grade 1. If the children are excited to read at this young age, it is very likely that they will continue to read and be avid readers throughout their lives. 

One way we have been getting really "pumped" about reading is by welcoming in Mystery Readers. By some stroke of luck, we have had two this week ... and have three more scheduled!

First, the children read three clues about the Mystery Reader. Then, the Mystery Reader is welcomed in to share a story!

Earlier this week, a former student who has a younger brother in our class excitedly shared a story with us! We worked as a team to read her 3 clues and then settled in to enjoy her book!

Here are the three clues for the Mystery Reader we welcomed yesterday:

It was an enthusiastic mom who came to read a few favourites to us! 

If you are interested in coming in as a Mystery Reader, please get in touch. We will find a convenient time and you are welcome to select a book or one can be provided. It really is a simple way of making reading exciting!

Back in October we took part in the Strathcona County Library's Read Aloud Challenge by reading Brown Bear. WE MADE THE HIGHLIGHT REEL! Happen to know those cuties who are holding the "We love to read" sign? 

Could you spot our whole school reading aloud in the gym? 

We have had so much fun reading together! Stay tuned for more crazy ways we make reading a blast!

Advent is Upon Us

This past Sunday marked the first Sunday of Advent. Can your child point out Advent on our liturgical calendar?

The liturgical calendar describes the seasons of the church

Advent is a time of hope and anticipation. We are waiting!

Purple is the colour of Advent. It is a colour worn by royalty, and Jesus is our king!

We changed the prayer table cloth from green, when it was Ordinary Time, to purple for Advent. Can you see our wreath? We light one candle for each of the four Sundays in Advent. This week we lit the first candle.

At mass, the priest now wears purple vestments, the altar has a purple table cloth, and the advent wreath is displayed. 

In our homes, many of us are busy preparing for Christmas, from baking, to decorating, to shopping! During Advent we also prepare our hearts for Jesus' arrival. The boys and girls are preparing their hearts by finding ways to be kinder. They wrote their ideas on a footprint, and we've displayed these on a board titled "The Road to Bethlehem."

I will help my mom make supper.

I will be helpful.

I will not be rude. 

Please encourage your child to prepare for the coming of Jesus. What did your child write on his or her footprint? How else can we prepare our hearts for the coming of Jesus?

Heaps of Snow!

When the snow fell this past Tuesday, Mrs. Beliveau knew just the project our students would be excited to tackle! 

We began by reading Dream Snow. A farmer falls asleep and dreams that heaps of snow fall and cover up his farm animals! The best part? Transparent pages with white "snow" on them, that can be lifted to reveal the animal underneath. 

Then we got busy! 

Each child secretly drew an animal, attached a transparent page, and covered the clear page in white paint to act as our "snow". 

To waste white paint would be terrible, so we did an impromptu little spelling word practice to use up the leftovers:

Everything is more fun when you make a silly face,
including spelling!

Then we turned our snow-covered animals into a bit of a guessing game! Since our animals were hidden by snow, we were challenged to write clues so others could guess our animals!

We followed the criteria carefully as we crafted simple sentences using many of our Word Wall Words (check out how we became sentence experts). 

Now our clues and snow covered animals are holding up traffic in the hall ... everyone is enjoying our creative work!

Try these great clues! Can you guess what animal this is?

Any guesses? A pony!

All that snow this week may have been a hassle for the grown ups out there, but it certainly inspired our boys and girls!

We're Writing Sentences!

When we started Grade 1 together, we knew the sounds the letters make (thank you, Mrs. Lemire!) and a few words. 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:

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

Ask your child to rap for you!

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

... and then continued our sorting independently as we hunted around the room!

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

Then during our Daily 5 language time (more on this soon!), we practised writing our own complete sentences!

"I am playing Barbies."

"When I was at Goofy's Cafe I saw a peanut
butter and jelly pizza it was a blast."

"This is me in the crowds cheering."

Writing strong sentences is a skill we will work on throughout the year! Support your child by finding sentences in the books you read, by identifying components of a sentence in our daily agenda message, and by writing sentences together ... the sillier the better!


"Is It a Sentence" poster was from here. 
Pete the Cat Letter, Word and Sentence sort was from here. 

The Evidence is Clear!

Our classroom is filled with evidence! No need for the police to examine our findings for fingerprints, though. After careful review, the evidence suggests the boys and girls in grade one are learning an absolute tonne! 

Showing off our Evidence of Learning binders!

We've been together in Grade One for nearly three months now, and wowzers, has it gone quickly! We're reading, writing, counting, and altogether learning up a storm! The children have come so far since our first day in August!

Today you will receive your child's Evidence of Learning portfolio. With each work sample, there is a corresponding "I can" sentence. This simple sentence describes the knowledge, skills, or attitudes we are focusing on. Research has shown that using "I can" statements in the classroom helps children become more aware of, and therefore more accountable for, their learning. In our class, we use "I can" statements when introducing a unit, setting goals, completing tasks, and assessing work. 

Accompanying many pieces of work in this binder is a simple assessment. Most often, this is a self-assessment completed by your child. We frequently self-assess using coloured stoplights, which were previously described using our Monkey Bulletin Board. Green means I'm an expert. Yellow means I need a little help. Red means I'm still learning and do my best with help. 

After looking through your child's work samples, please complete the yellow Two Stars and a Wish page. When you come for your conference next week, please return the binder with this completed form. We will use both to guide our discussion. 

We have learned so much and have lots to be proud of!

Famous Artists!

We are famous!


Our art project, based upon the book Lines that Wiggle, is currently on display at the Strathcona County Library! Wowzers!

Boys and girls, your art is amazing and you should be very proud of your creative, hard work! 

Mrs. Beliveau's turkeys taking in our students' art

Head to the library to see our hard work on display throughout the month of November!

We Are Gentle, We Are Peaceful

This year, Remembrance Day falls during our Fall Break. To help the children better understand this special day, we spent lots of time this week learning about it's significance. How have others made our world peaceful? How can we thank them? How can we be peaceful? Our focus this week was peace.  

Together we read the book "I Call My Hand Gentle".

Then we traced and decorated our hands, spending time thinking about when our hands are gentle:

Would you like to see how we are gentle with our hands?




We also took time to read The Peace Book by Todd Parr. As a class, we took time to reflect and made a book together about when we feel peaceful. 

Peace is when I run outside with a ball.

Peace is drawing.

Peace is having a hamburger. 

Peace is Mrs. Beliveau teaching me and my friends. 

Peace is when I eat a doughnut
and relax on the beach. 

We spent some quiet time today creating beautiful "stained glass" windows that can be hung at home during the fall break as a reminder to pray for all peacemakers. 

Today we gathered as a school community to pray, remember, and express gratitude for all of those who have worked and are currently working for peace. 

What a meaningful week. Hopefully the boys and girls are able to look at the poppies on their collars with a little more understanding and a lot more gratitude.