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. 

'Twas the Day of Halloween

'Twas the day of Halloween
And all through the halls
The children were vibrating
They were bouncing off the walls!

We were surprised by a visit
From our grandma we adore
We enjoyed spooky stories
We begged her to read more!

Grandma Theresa from Linking Generations

Then a Locked Box arrived
And we puzzled over each clue
We opened three locks
These kids knew what to do!

After lunch we got dressed
And enjoyed the parade
We strutted our stuff
And cheered as we waved!

Then we moved through the stations
Crafts, challenges, and games
We were all so grateful
To the volunteers who came!

We're headed home for more fun
Think of what we learned with Safety Bear
Make smart and safe choices
Have fun and take care!

Thank you Constable Kelly!

I'll see you all tomorrow
November 1st is All Saints Day
More learning awaits
Don't forgot to wear your PJs!


Happy Halloween, friends!

Making Connections When We Read

Reading becomes so much more meaningful when we are able to personally connect with the text! This past few days we have been focusing on making a personal connection with what we are reading. This means the children have been challenged to connect the story to their own life, own experiences, and own feelings. 

We enjoyed reading several books appropriate for the Halloween season! The boys and girls made meaningful text-to-self connections using these texts!

In Creepy Carrots, we met Jasper Rabbit, who loves carrots, until they turn on him and become scary! We connected with the story by sharing our favourite food to snack on!

Next we enjoyed the story "Where's My Mummy?"! Where is little mummy's mama? Little mummy felt scared without mama! Here are our personal connections of a time we felt scared:

The Littlest Pumpkin is about a teeny tiny pumpkin that nobody picks from the pumpkin patch.  The boys and girls thought of a time they felt disappointed, and also made matching mini-pumpkins!

Crankenstein features an ordinary kid who can become very cranky! What makes us cranky?

We tried to pose with our crankiest faces, but it turned into giggles!

Watch for these activities to come home next week and continue to reinforce those personal connections as your child reads. Connecting to the text is an excellent way to increase and develop your child's comprehension!


Where's My Mummy activity and craftivity from Deanna Jump's unit. 
The Littlest Pumpkin activity and craftivity from Cara Carroll. 
Crankenstein activity from Falling Into First. 
Creepy Carrots inspired by Anita Bremmer. 
Connections poster from the Comprehension Strategy Poster collection made by A Year of Many Firsts.  

Building Number Sense: Junk It!

In grade 1 we learn how our number system works by examining numbers up to 100. First, we went hunting for numbers! Where do we see numbers? When do we use numbers each day? Why are numbers so important?

Right now we are working very closely with numbers to 20. 

• How are numbers related? 
• What are some different ways to make a number? 
• How can we take a number apart? 
• How can we count carefully?

Keep hunting for numbers with your child! Road signs, recipes, flyers ... they're everywhere and so important!

Junk It Game

In case you haven't heard, we were introduced to a fast-paced card game, Junk It! It helps us recognize numerals and order them to 10. 

Junk It is a 2-player game. Remove face cards, but keep Aces. 

Put 10 cards in two rows of 5 face down in front of each player. Place the remaining cards in the centre. 

The first player flips a card over, and places it in its numerical spot. 
She picked up a 4 ... 

... so she put it down where the 4 goes. 

When she placed her card in the 4 spot, she picked up a 6 (formerly face down in the 4th place). Off the 6 goes to spot 6!

When she put the 6 down, she picked up an 8, so off that card goes to the 8th place. 

Notice how when she put her 8 down, she picked up the card in that spot? It is another 6! She already has a 6, so she gets to call JUNK IT and discard it in the middle. 

Her opponent can either pick up the card that was just discarded, or select a new card from the pile. Keep playing!

The first player to get all 10 cards flipped over in order wins! 

It is a little confusing to explain on our blog, but the kids are definitely the experts! Will you challenge your child to a game of Junk It?!? Learning is so much more fun when it's a game!

Thankful Hearts

We. Love. Thursdays. We really do!

We call this day "Thankful Thursday" and each Thursday since school began we have been journaling about what we are thankful for. Gratitude breeds positivity and it is a wonderful lifelong practice that will help our students see the blessings God has sprinkled into our lives!

These journals are coming home for the weekend ... enjoy! Return them Tuesday, please. 

This week we spent a little extra time exploring how blessed we truly are. Our blessings so are abundant and we seized every opportunity we could to thank God! 

With just the mention of the word "thankful", the students' hands were shooting up and ideas were overflowing. They were bursting with gratitude!

In the spirit of fostering a "growth mindset" and giving the students (and their teacher) the opportunity to practice perseverance and patience, we tackled a challenging Thanksgiving project, woven place mats!

We began by writing and colouring.

Then with the help of our Grade 3S buddies, the students learned to weave paper strips over, under, over, and under. Fantastic teamwork! Many also showed off their patterning skills!

Amazing work! These will, without a doubt, be the center of the Thanksgiving tables this weekend!

We have been blessed beyond measure and it is so important to take time and give thanks. God is indeed SO GOOD! 

If you and your family are feeling energetic and grateful this long weekend, give this scavenger hunt from Natural Beach Living a try together!

On a personal note, I want to share how very thankful I am for each child in my class. Each student is a special blessing and I recognize what a responsibility & gift it is to spend eight hours a day learning alongside your little one. I am also very grateful for the support I receive from our classroom families and am thankful beyond measure for this support each and every day.

May you have a blessed Thanksgiving!