Persistence, Perseverance & Patterns!

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"!

I don't like them ...

 ... I LOVE THEM!

This week we combined math and art to make Pattern People Posters!

We've been working hard to learn how to draw people using shapes and details. Using the skills that we've learned, we drew ourselves with sharpies. No stick people, here!

We created a background with paper strips, and made sure we glued our coloured papers down to make a pattern. A pattern is the same thing, over & over & over!

Look at our beautiful pattern people posters! Like I told the kiddos, "I don't like them, I LOVE THEM!"

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"!

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!

We examined the patterns below. We practiced describing these patterns using words (e.g. glue, glue, post-it), letters (e.g. A, A, B...), and numbers (e.g. 1, 1, 2...).

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

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"! 

Watch for our completed Patterning unit, as well as a rubric highlighting your child's learning, coming home soon!

Up next? Exploring and manipulating numbers up to 20!

Patterns & Pigeons!

Patterns
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!

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

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

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.

Pigeons

The boys and girls in our class are incredibly kind-hearted, responsible kids who work really hard to make smart choices each day. They're a fantastic bunch! 

But, rules are meant to be broken. At least, that's what our new friend, the pigeon, keeps telling us! This past week we have really enjoyed a series of books by author Mo Willems that feature a persuasive, sassy pigeon who is always pushing the limits!

Inspired by the picture books, the students set out to create their own set of rules for the pigeon, just in case he ever swings by Jean Vanier! Would he know how to behave in school?

We followed the directed drawing instructions by Mo Willems himself to draw our own unique pigeons. Then we wrote our own speech bubbles and did lots of careful cutting and gluing. 

Ta da! Our very own set of pigeon rules!

This project was excellent for reviewing our classroom and school expectations, and the students were so engaged. Who knew drawing a pigeon was so easy? There are now little pigeon doodles everywhere! To see all of our pigeon projects, please check our hall bulletin board!

Otters! Zoo Project Week 2

Each week leading up to our special Zoo School Week, we will be studying an animal at the Edmonton Valley Zoo! Our weekly activities are focused around reading and understanding fiction and non-fiction, tackling math challenges, sketching and labelling, and more!

Graphic via Not Nerdy

This week we got to know a whole lot more about otters! We enjoyed learning more about river otters at National Geographic Kids. Our zoo has some amazing river otters, and after learning more about them, we are really excited to see them during our week at the zoo in April! 

Otters are fascinating! Did you know they hold hands when they sleep, so they don't float away from one another? They also use their tummy as a plate and a rock as a utensil when they eat! Otters are incredibly playful as well, just like us!

We sorted words by the short o sound, which is the sound we hear at the beginning of the word "otter". 

We made patterns with the foods otters enjoy eating!

Using our observational skills, we looked at a photo of an otter and took time to sketch in our journals, looking for shapes, adding details, and including labels.  

What animal might we be examining next week? Take an early sneak peek ... you can read more about it here!

Pattern Hunting

Now that we're into our second week of school, we're well into the learning!

Yesterday we were exploring the halls of Holy Redeemer, on the hunt for patterns! Boy, were we successful! In fact, we didn't even have to look too far at all, as these students were wearing their patterns! 

We were a great team and found many patterns, both in and out of our classroom. Check out the patterns we found!



We will now be working on describing patterns using colors, shapes, letters and numbers. Never a dull moment! Stay tuned!

Pumped up for Patterns!

Today we were loud. Whoops. 

We tried to make it down the halls quietly. We really did. But instead, we had a chittery chattery, skippity hoppity, very boisterous group of Grade 1's exploring the halls of Holy Redeemer!

Why wasn't Mrs. Beliveau angry? Why didn't she "shhhhhhh" them? 

As it turns out, the boys and girls were excited. Really excited! They were excited to explore the school to find patterns! 

We've begun our first Math unit, Patterns, and today the students were out and about identifying patterns throughout the school.

Do you want to see the patterns they found?




Now that we can find patterns, we are going to work at continuing patterns and showing the same pattern in different ways. Stay tuned!

Pattern Puzzler

Our first Math unit has focussed on patterning. We have worked hard to identify a pattern, describe a pattern, continue a pattern, and create a pattern. Now the students are exploring how patterns can be related.

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

Ask your child to describe these two patterns.
How are they similar? Different?

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.