Meet our Grade 1 Classroom Family!

We have been together for almost a month now, and are a sweet, energetic, helpful little group!

Meet our Grade 1B Classroom family!

This is a very hard-working, creative group of learners. Keep us in your prayers as we journey through this school year!

Pattern Puzzlers

Our first Math unit focuses on patterning. We have worked hard to find a pattern, describe a pattern, continue a given pattern, and create our own pattern. Now the students are exploring how patterns can be related!

Ask your child to describe the patterns below.
How are they similar? Different?

As a class we examined the patterns below. We practiced describing these patterns using words (e.g. glue, glue, eraser), letters (e.g. A, A, B...), and numbers (e.g. 1, 1, 2...).

Then we challenged ourselves to make as many different AAB patterns from blocks as we could! We worked very hard ... this wasn't easy!

It is so important for the children to verbalize and justify their thinking. This helps deepen understanding not only in Math, but in any subject or situation. Don't be surprised if your child struggles with this skill at first. With daily practice together, we will only get better at explaining and justifying our thinking. 

The phrase we keep reminding ourselves of is "everything new is hard at first"!

Daily Connection Time

Before we can learn and grow, we need to understand and trust one another. This is why, each morning, we begin our day with "Connection Time"! This invaluable time helps us ease into a busy day and prepare us for our best learning!

When we gather, we sit in a circle so we can see eachother. We are lucky to have the chapel nearby so we can spread out. This is a beautiful, faith-filled place to begin our day!

Have a peek at some highlights from our morning Connection Time meetings:

1. Prayer and Land Acknowledgement
God is at the center of all we do and all we are, and we always begin in prayer. "Father in Heaven, I give You today, all that I think, and do, and say. Amen". 

Actions accompany the words
 in our morning prayer

Then we say a simple land acknowledgement, showing respect and gratitude for the land we are fortunate to learn upon. 

2. Say Hello!
We have learned the importance of eye contact when greeting our classmates and have several silly ways to greet one another. This one is a favourite ... the Stinky Shoe Hello!

3. News

This time allows the students an opportunity to share what's on their minds, thereby helping us focus on learning later in the day. News can be both good or crummy, and everyone is given an opportunity to share if they wish. So far we have heard about movie nights, power skating, birthdays, lost teeth, dance lessons, and even a new puppy named Mr. Foofy!

4. Social Scenario Problem Solving
To help the children develop age-appropriate critical thinking skills, they are presented with a social problem to solve. In partners, they brainstorm possible ways to solve the problem and then we come together as a large group to share and discuss. 

Some of the problems we have tackled include:

• a classmate pushes ahead of you in line
• you notice a friend crying at their desk but don't know why
• someone wants to be your partner but you don't want to work with them
• someone said there is a wasp nest in the forest

It is important for the students to see that there is no one way to solve a problem and that they do not always need an adult's help. 

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We sprinkle other little literacy and numeracy skills throughout Connection Time, depending on the skills we are focusing on and the time of the year. This week we practiced our numeracy skills while moving our bodies.

5. Story
We close Connection Time with a story. Each book is carefully chosen and has an important lesson. 

With our Terry Fox run this Friday, this book was one we shared:

While Connection Time seems packed, it rolls along rather quickly and sets a positive tone for our day! This is time very well-spent and thoroughly enjoyed. Connection time truly is about building relationships and seeing Christ in one another. 

Going to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo!

This year our Grade 1 class is going to the Edmonton Valley Zoo for Zoo School!

For one full week in March we will be learning at the zoo! We will have demonstrations, hands-on animal encounters, behind the scenes tours, speakers, and so much more! It is a phenomenal way to learn.

To get ourselves excited and prepared for this adventure, we will be learning about many of the animals we will see at our zoo. Each week we will learn about an animal through fiction, non-fiction, math challenges, live cams, and more. By the time we head to Zoo School, we will have spanned the alphabet with animals!

This week we began with the letter Tt! We read "A Tiger Tale" by Mike Boldt, about a little girl who wakes up for her first day of school and discovers she has grown a tiger tail! Yikes!

Using the story A Tiger Tale, we worked on a comprehension strategy, connecting the story to our own experiences. 

"I was worried at my first swim lesson."

We tackled tiger-inspired patterning challenges in Math!

We also enjoyed some non-fiction books, too! We visited the San Diego Zoo Kids website and enjoyed YouTube clips to learn more. We LOVED the live tiger cam! Did you know that no two tiger's stripes are alike? Most tigers have over 100 stripes! We also discovered tigers have webbed feet! 

An important part of our week at the zoo is journaling. We practiced sketching in our journals, as we will be doing lots of this once we are on-site at the zoo. We were patient with ourselves and tried to add as many details as possible. 

It has been exciting to see the students so engaged in their learning! Our ABC Animal journey has only just begun, but it is sure to be a blast! Check your child's Kanga for this week's "Tt Tiger" activity page. 

What animal could we be learning about next week?

The Wheels on Our Bus!

We like to laugh while we're learning, and this week we began by playing with the sounds in eachother's names. It got pretty silly!

We read Pete the Cat: The Wheels on the Bus. Then we practiced singing the song using our names! We focused on using the first sound in our name to make our own silly verses. 

His name begins with a D,
so his bus says "Dumpity Dump"

We set to work making our own buses!

We added the first letter of our names with a foam sticker ... 

... and completed the wheels on the bus poem!

This project gave Mrs. Beliveau an opportunity to get to know the kiddos better. She got an extra peek at the children's abilities to follow directions, cut, print, and glue, as well as several other work habits, such as perseverance, problem-solving, and time management. 

Look at our amazing work! Careful, though ... this little tune can really get stuck in your head!

The Wheels on the Bus names activity is inspired by Deanna Jump's Names Unit: Literacy and Math Fun With Names.