What is a Sentence?

When we started Grade 1 together, we knew the sounds the letters make and a few words, too (thank you Mrs. Sombyk & Mrs. Nestorowich!). 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!

During our writing blocks, we are practicing writing our own complete sentences.

Look at some of our hard work!

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. 

50th Day Friendship Fruit Salad!

Today we celebrated our 50th day of learning together with a little fun ... we made Friendship Fruit Salad!

We all brought fruit to share, and together it made an amazing snack, much like how we make an amazing classroom family when we are all together!

We are so blessed and have so much to be thankful for; the friendships we have made, the learning and growth we have experienced, and the kindness we show one another. 50th Day Friendship Fruit Salad was a meaningful (and delicious) way to connect with each other!

Looking forward to the adventures that await! The first 50 days have been fantastic!

Love & Peace: Remembrance Day

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 books "I Call My Hand Gentle" and "Beautiful Hands". 

We wrote about how we are gentle, kind and loving with our hands. Then we painted our hand, adding a creative touch to our writing!

Pop by our hallways to see how we are gentle and peaceful with our hands. 

My hands are gentle when I play soccer.
My hands are gentle when I cook.
My hands are gentle when I pet my cat. 

We also took time to read "The Peace Book" by Todd Parr. As a class, we took time to reflect and, using our senses, made a book together about when we feel, smell, taste, hear, and see peace.

Peace looks like when I snuggle my family.
Peace looks like a sunset.
Peace feels like when I pet my cat.
Peace tastes like popcorn. 

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

We took part in an initiative through Veterans Affairs where we were able to write postcards of gratitude. The postcards will be delivered to Canadian veterans. 

Tomorrow we will gather 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. 

Pattern Stories: It Didn't Frighten Me!

With Halloween on the brain last week, we really enjoyed the pattern story It Didn't Frighten Me! The students enjoyed this story so much that we got right to work creating our own spooky pattern stories! 

Here is the criteria we followed for our illustrations:

The boys and girls worked over several days to complete their pattern stories. They are very creative authors!

Here are a few pages from these amazing books!

These spooky books will come home today! Enjoy!

A Batty Week!

It was a batty week!

Inspired by Halloween, our zoo school animal focus this week was bats! 

We spent the week learning about the Jamaican Fruit Bat, which we are excited to see in the nocturnal wing at the zoo. 

Photo courtesy of the Edmonton Valley Zoo

The story Stellaluna was a wonderful introduction into the world of fruit bats! In this lovely story, a little fruit bat loses her mama and ends up living with some birds, learning a lot about herself along the way! 

We practiced retelling the story using our own little Stellaluna puppet sticks! Retelling a story is a skill we will revisit many times throughout the year. 

Zoo School animals are be the perfect way for us to learn more about senses! Bats use their senses in unique ways!

We learned about "echolocation" and how a bat's sense of hearing can help it find food. 

Then we tried it for ourselves, at our very own "Echolocation Station"! One student whispers and another listens!

We also learned that a mama bat uses its keen sense of smell to find her babies! Students were given a mama bat. The mama bats smelled like vanilla, orange, cinnamon or mint. Then the challenge was on! The students were sent to find their baby bats that matched their mama bat's smell! It was SO much fun using our sense of smell to find our babies. 

We're batty for bats! Can't wait to see more of them at the zoo! Next we will continue exploring the 5 senses God blessed us with! 



Puppet Sticks from Linda Kamp.
Sense of Smell activity inspired by Mrs. Ehle's Kindergarten.
Echolocation demonstration from Innovate. Motivate. Educate.