Strong Sentences!

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

We began closely examining what a sentence was this past week. 

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 following the writing process, by brainstorming, drawing, labelling, writing and sharing.

Writing strong sentences is a skill we will work on throughout the whole 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. 

Kids Who Wiggle!

We wiggle. We shimmy. We squirm, we twist, we bounce! It is highly possible there are ants. In. Our. Pants. Lots of 'em! 6 year-olds just aren't built to sit still, so we change activities about every 5 to 15 minutes. The boys and girls are certainly not expected to sit still all day!

Given that we are the wiggle experts of St. Nicholas, it only made sense that we read the book Lines that Wiggle!

Here is a reading of our wonderful, wiggly story:

Throughout this book is a raised, sparkly blue line that we all loved to touch! This story shared many types of lines that we see in our world. 

We got to work practicing our lines ...

 ... and drew 5 or 6 across a white page. Then we added a small black frame and got to work colouring each "piece" inside the frame.

Look at this colourful, creative work! 

What wiggly, squiggly masterpieces!

Lines inspired from This Old Art Room. 

Lines That Wiggle art project inspired from Mrs. T's First Grade Class. 

We Remember

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.  

We  took time to read Todd Parr's "The Peace Book", a wonderful story reflecting on simple moments of peace we experience throughout the day. 

Inspired by the story, we took time to reflect and made a book together about when we experience peace.

Peace is (a) playing in my bed (b) when my mom is with me
(c) resting under a tree in the hot sun, and (d) doing my nails. 

We also read Beautiful Hands and I Call My Hand Gentle. Together we wondered, "How can we be kind, gentle and peaceful with our hands?". 

Look at our beautiful  projects, highlighting our peaceful hands.

Today 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.