Halloween Week: Full Moon Edition

Between the full moon and Halloween approaching, boy has there been energy in Grade 1!

Rather than let that energy get out of control, the boys and girls got to work on several creative Halloween projects! Here is a peek at our week!

Making Connections


We were introduced to the reading comprehension strategy called "making text to self connections". Simply put, students are encouraged to connect a personal experience they have had with something in the story. This helps children better understand the story.

We practiced making connections with two Halloween books, The Littlest Pumpkin and Where's My Mummy? The Littlest Pumpkin is about a teeny tiny pumpkin that nobody picks from a pumpkin patch. Where's My Mummy is about a little mummy who is lost and can't find his mama!

Here are some of the personal connections the children made:

I felt disappointed when my brother did not play with me. 

I felt disappointed when my sister gets to go to a sleepover.

I felt disappointed when I didn't get to watch Transylvania 2. 

When I'm scared I cry.

When I'm scared I turn on the lights. 

The students' work will be coming down soon from the bulletin board so it can be enjoyed at home! Encourage your child to connect their experiences to those in the books you share. 

It Didn't Frighten Me Pattern Stories

After hearing the story It Didn't Frighten Me, the boys and girls got to work creating their own spooky pattern stories! Here is the criteria they followed:

The boys and girls worked over several days to complete their stories. 

Students are encouraged to work anywhere in the room
where they are comfortable and can focus

Here are a few pages from these amazing books!

These spooky books will come home for the weekend, along with a few other work samples from this past month. Students in Kindergarten and junior high enjoyed hearing these stories today, too!

What Will Mrs. Beliveau be for Halloween?

While today's writing prompt was disguised as a silly writing activity, it was actually a sneaky way to get the kids interacting with our Word Wall!

Our Word Wall is where we post the words we have learned in our weekly spelling program. We pulled down the ones we needed to write our sentence: 

The word "be" wasn't posted yet on our wall, but we were able to use "me", "she" and "he" to figure it out. 

Mrs. Beliveau will be a... cat, a fairy princess,
a scream ghost, and a hot dog. 

Great suggestions, kids! But you'll have to wait until tomorrow morning to see Mrs. Beliveau's costume!



Where's My Mummy activity and craftivity from Deanna Jump's unit. 
The Littlest Pumpkin activity and craftivity from Cara Carroll. 

Today`s Surprising Lesson

Today was the day for THE LESSON. 

Since the first day of school, we have been working very hard to learn how to figure out tricky words, apply comprehension strategies, count groups of items, use our senses to understand the world, and SO MUCH MORE. 

But today we strayed from curriculum. 

Far. 

Today`s lesson was not in any one subject, but today`s lesson was important. Really, really important!

Before we talk about today`s lesson, let`s rewind a bit. This is the display on our classroom wall:

These monkeys help us understand the system we use for reflecting on our learning. See Basic Bob at the bottom of the vine? He is just learning to climb. He is basic and does his best with help. Proficient Patty is working on climbing and is making progress, but still needs a little bit of help to climb. Excellent Eddie is a pro at the skill of climbing, and can carry out this skill independently. He is at the top! Throughout the year we will use red, yellow and green to show how well we can complete a task. 

So ... today's lesson was all about work space organization. How can we organize our desks?

We looked at an example of a desk that would be green, or proficiently organized:

We also looked at an example of a desk that would be red, or quite disorganized:

In partners, we worked together to organize our desks!

It was fun to help one another clean up!

Mrs. Beliveau heard the Clean Desk Fairy may come later this week ... hopefully desks stay as organised as they were today!

Fun with our Five Senses

So, what exactly does popping popcorn have to do with learning?

Easy! We popped popcorn and used our senses to describe it! We've just begun our 5 Senses Unit in Science, and boy has it started off with a bang! (or rather, a POP!)

We got right to to work on our bulletin board, cutting out pictures from magazines to post by the different senses. Pretty spectacular work!

Last Friday we welcomed in Scuba Charlotte for a hands-on morning designed to make us "senses experts"! The best part? The program was underwater themed!

Hearing

Using our sense of hearing, we listened carefully to identify sounds from several different sea animals, such as dolphins and whales. Our next challenge was so fun! Wearing blackout glasses, so we could not see, students relied on their sense of hearing to know which direction to travel. Listening for a specific sound (bells, castanets), students were challenged to crab-walk in the direction of their sound. 

Sight

Our eyes can play tricks on us! We colored a fish and a tank, and glued the images onto opposite sides of a stick. When the stick was spun quickly back and forth, it appeared as though the fish was in the tank! We enjoyed a "What is it?" ocean animal game as well as other optical illusions. 

Taste and Smell

We discovered that our sense of taste and smell work together closely! We tasted a cracker with our noses plugged, then tried again with our noses unplugged. What a difference!

We sniffed several scented vials and enjoyed guessing the smells. 

Scuba Charlotte taught us that animals sometimes taste and smell differently than us. A catfish has taste buds all over its body, and a shark can smell so well it can smell blood from miles away. Neat!

We also sampled some mystery tastes ... sugar water, salt water, and lemon juice! Can your child describe each of those tastes? (sweet, salty, and sour)

Touch
We explored many textures from the ocean, and were lucky enough to even touch real coral that was once alive! We identified bumpy, sharp, squishy, smooth and rough textures. 

We got a little sandy and a little wet during one of our favourite activities! Wearing blackout glasses, we used our sense of touch to find items in a pail of sand and a bucket of water. 

Sea Lion Senses
Scuba Charlotte introduced us to her favourite ocean animal, sea lions! They uses their senses in amazing ways!

When a baby sea lion is born, it barks back and forth with it's mama for 20 minutes to learn one another's barks. A mama sea lion can also use it's sense of smell to find it's baby. 

Playing a game -
Can the mama sea lion find it's baby
by listening for the right bark?

Sea Lions rely on their whiskers for their sense of touch. Their whiskers move in the water and can tell them of food is swimming by. 

We learned LOADS about the senses God blessed us with and will continue this learning throughout the week in the classroom. Hopefully you were able to review your child's booklet from the program and hear the many highlights from the morning!

Crazy Day!

Grade 1 is always a little crazy, but today we were extra crazy! Today was Crazy Hair Day! 

A few went with lots of ponytails

Others turned their hair the colours of the rainbow

One student literally turned her hair into a rainbow!

Somehow a spider made its way in ... eeek!

The boys and girls had loads of fun today,

and so did their teacher!

Despite the crazy hair, we did a surprising amount of learning and we worked hard. Can't wait to see what antics tomorrow will bring!

What a fun day!

Can you subitize?

We've moved on in Math from patterning and are now examining numbers to 20! Here was our learning goal last week:

Subitizing is looking at a group and knowing instantly how many there are, without counting each individual item! As adults, we do this when we roll a dice. You don't need to count the six dots, you just know that two rows of three dots is six. Subitizing is a very important skill that develops number sense and helps us understand how numbers are related. 

We are enjoying several games to develop our ability to subitize! This challenging skill is much more fun when it is disguised as a game. 

Here is a group playing a game on the SMARTboard together:

Another group took on the challenge of playing a BINGO game:

These students are playing Snakes and Ladders, but rather than roll a dice, they are using subitizing cards:

Our memories were tested with this subitizing memory game:

Ready to subitize? Below is a link to a subitizing YouTube clip. Numbers appear on a 10-frame, a handy way we sometimes count in class. We know that a full frame is 10, and just one full row is 5. Sometimes seeing the empty spaces is more helpful than looking at the full spaces, too. Careful, it's fast!

Jack-o-lantern Smiles!

We've got a new jack-o-lantern in our class! Look at this big toothy grin ... and check out that big gap!

Today this student bounded into class, even more excited than usual, and showed us the space where his tooth used to be! He is the first friend in our class to take home the Tooth Fairy Bag, and he couldn't have been more excited. 

Inside the bag is a Tooth Fairy journal for students to draw and write about how their tooth was lost. There are also a few tooth-themed books for students to enjoy at home as well. 

Remind your child to share their "tooth news" the next time a pearly white pops out .We'll be sure to send home the Tooth Fairy Bag for a night or two!

That's MY church!

"That's MY church!"

As we pulled up to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church today, one little sweetheart was so excited that we had arrived at HER church! What a wonderful feeling for a child to have! She felt this was a place she could call her own and where she belongs. 

That's OUR church! 

The boys and girls prayed, sang, and participated in our celebration led by Fr. Jack. It was a lovely gathering. Many thanks to the parents and younger siblings who shared in our mass with us. 

We were very fortunate to remain after mass for a tour with our delightful Grade 5 buddies! Care to join us?

This is the foyer of the church. It is the entrance to God's house. 

Then we enter our church. We were reminded it is our home. 

As we enter the church, we see the baptismal font where babies, children and adults are baptized. It is made of marble. Both of Mrs. Beliveau's kids were baptized here!

When we enter, we bless ourselves by dipping our fingertips into the holy water.

"In the name of the Father, and the Son,
and the Holy Spirit, Amen"

The narrow shelf behind the baptismal font (between the foyer doors) holds holy oils used at baptisms, confirmations, and for anointing the sick. 

This is the Paschal Candle. It represents Christ, our light. Each Easter, we get a new candle. This candle reminds us of our baptism, because when we are baptized our baptismal candle is lit from the Paschal Candle. 

To the side of the church is a small chapel. When just a few gather for mass, they celebrate here in this cozy area. 

This is the altar. It is like our dining room table. It is here where the priest stands to prepare the body and blood of Christ. 

The ciborium holds the body of Christ.

The chalice holds the blood of Christ. 

We use only our fanciest serving dishes at this special meal!

This is the ambo. 

The Word of God is proclaimed from here. 

This is the view from the ambo. Look at all the pews! The pews take up the most room in our church, and it is where we sit. We are important! God is present in us. 

We went behind the altar to a small room called the Blessed Sacrament Chapel. 

Here we saw a beautiful gold box called the tabernacle. The body of Christ is placed inside. A little red light shines up high, letting us know the body of Christ is present. 

The priest's clothing are called vestments. He chooses the colour of his vestments based upon the liturgical calendar, or what time of year it is in the church. 

Priests wear green during Ordinary Time, purple during Advent and Lent, white throughout Christmas and Easter, and red during feast days. 

In the church basement is the Clothing Nook where people can shop for free. Wouldn't this be a wonderful place to drop of our clothes when we outgrow them or don't need them anymore?

Today we learned so much about our church, the mass, and our faith! We are so very proud to call OLPH our home! Thank you to the kind and knowledgeable staff who led our tour, to the parent helpers who generously joined us, and to the students for participating respectfully and enthusiastically. We can't wait to come back!