Reading, Creating, Discovering and Hatching!

We've begun exploring the parts of a story and together we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle:

After enjoying the book, we closely examined Mr. Carle's illustrations. He has a unique method for making designed paper and then cutting it into the pieces for his pictures. 

We followed Mr. Carle's paper-making technique. First, we painted our paper. We added drips, drops, stripes and spots in every colour!

No shortage of creativity in our class!

Once our paint dried, we cut shapes to make butterflies!

Our week ended with tremendous joy and wonder as new life filled our incubator! We were thrilled to welcome several ducklings into the world. Once they’re fully dry, they’ll move into a cozy little “barn” right in our classroom. What a beautiful reminder of God’s goodness!

Books & Butterflies!

We've begun exploring the parts of a story in Language Arts!

• Beginning: The characters, setting, and problem are identified
• Middle: Main character tries to solves the problem
• End: The problem is solved!

Together we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle. 

Then we identified the parts of the story as a team:

After enjoying the book by Eric Carle, we closely examined his illustrations. Mr. Carle has a unique method for making designed, textured paper and then cutting it into the pieces for his pictures. 

 

We followed Mr. Carle's paper-making technique to make butterflies! First we painted our paper. We added drips and drops in every colour! 

See? No shortage of creativity in our class! Beautiful paper designs, kiddos!

Once our paper dried, we used tracers to cut out the shapes to make a butterfly.  A little glue, and ta da! Colourful, Carle-inspired butterflies!

We'll continue to dig into the parts of a story and will move towards writing our own stories. What a wonderful week of reading, discussing, and creating! 

Heaps of Snow!

Our playground and field are covered in snow, so it was fitting this week to read Eric Carle's book Dream Snow!

In the story, a farmer falls asleep and dreams that snow covers his farm animals. This book is very clever! Clear plastic sheets, with "snow" on them, can be lifted to reveal the animal underneath! The students loved this!

Inspired by a similar project on Mrs. Bainbridge's blog, we began creating our own version of Mr. Carle's book, but with a twist! Students were each going to write several clues about an animal of their choosing. An illustration of the animal would accompany the clues. Just like in Mr. Carle's book, a clear page with painted "snow" would cover the animal, so it would be lifted up to reveal the animal hidden under the snowbank!

Here is the criteria the students followed for the project:

Children got right to work writing clues for an animal of their choosing. They were very secretive about their animal, and worked nearly silently on their clues.

Students were challenged to write four clues, each beginning with a capital letter and ending with a period. As well, students were challenged to spell Word Wall Words correctly (weekly spelling words posted on the wall).

Once we completed our clues, we moved on to our illustrations. Students drew their animal, as secretly as possible, on a snowy landscape.

The very best part of the project was adding "snow" to a transparency placed over each student's illustration.

These amazing writing projects are on display in our hallway, and everyone is enjoying peeking under the snowbanks to see the animal hidden underneath! Can you guess the animal by reading the clues?

It's a fox!

Because of their fantastic work, the hallway near our classroom has been packed with curious students, reading the clues and peeking under the snowbanks! Well done, Grade One!

Ducklings & Butterflies

Ducklings

THEY'RE SO FLUFFY!

And so our week began, with a classroom full of little "Agneses", thrilled to meet our fluffy little ducklings! (thankfully minus the extra tight "Agnes squeeze"). 

We are participating in a duckling-raising program through Glenwood Memorial Gardens! We're in charge of naming and caring for our ducklings for 2 weeks. It has been lovely meeting and snuggling with our new little miracles. 

We even gave them a little swim this afternoon!

Butterflies

We've all read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle, but have you ever really examined the illustrations? Mr. Carle has a unique method for making designed, textured paper and then cutting it into the pieces for his pictures. 

We followed Mr. Carle's paper-making technique to make butterflies! First we painted our paper. We added drips and drops in every colour!

Once our paper had dried, we used tracers to cut out the shapes to make a butterfly.  A little glue, and ta da! Colourful, Carle-inspired butterflies!

Snowy Sentences

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

We really began examining what a sentence was these last few days. 

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!

This week we read Dream Snow. In the story, a farmer falls asleep and dreams that snow covers his farm animals. This book is very clever! Clear plastic sheets, with "snow" on them, can be lifted to reveal the animal underneath! 

Armed with our knowledge of sentences, we made our own version of the book, but with a twist! 

Students each wrote clues about an animal of their choosing. Kids were challenged to write a sentence beginning with a capital letter and ending with a period. As well, students were required to spell Word Wall Words correctly (weekly spelling words posted on the wall).

An illustration of the animal accompanied their clues. Just like in Dream Snow, a clear page with painted "snow" covered the animal, so it would be lifted up to reveal the animal hidden under the snowbank! The very best part of this was adding "snow"!

Here are the clues:

Peek under the "snow" to see the animal!

Because of their fantastic work, the hallway near our classroom is packed with curious students, reading the clues and peeking under the snowbanks! Well done, Grade One!

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. 
Writing project inspired by teacher Christina Bainbridge. 

Criteria for Strong Illustrations

Our writing has become really strong! We began the year writing a beginning sound or a word or two. Now? We can write a complete idea independently! Each day we work hard at our writing, and our growth is amazing! SO much to be proud of!

But lately, our illustrations have not matched our strong writing. At times, we have not given our illustrations as much effort. How can we make our pictures as awesome as our writing?

Students looked at some examples of illustrations and brainstormed what makes an illustration dazzling. Then we gathered and sorted our ideas, and together generated criteria for a strong illustration!

We have already had a chance to apply our learning! Sorry, though, no pictures of the students' illustrations today ... these are part of a top secret Mother's Day project!

Some spring butterflies have showed up in our room today, too!

We also removed our egg turner to prepare for hatching! By Monday we should have some barnyard news! We can't wait!

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!