Our students were presented with the challenge of figuring out how to build a rainbow of 6 colors, when they had only been provided the 3 primary colors: red, yellow and blue. We saw some great thinking and problem solving happening as they connected their knowledge about color mixing to create those additional colors they required to complete their rainbow.
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Today we celebrated our knowledge and understanding of patterns by having a Pattern Day theme throughout all of grade 1. Many students came dressed in a variety of pattern clothing, ready to show off what they know about patterns. The students created pattern borders, pattern writing paper and pattern greeting cards. We had a visit from the Pattern Presidents from Pattern World and had the opportunity to share our pattern creations with the presidents. While presenting their patterns, the presidents asked each student a variety of questions about their pattern, and proudly the students demonstrated exceptional understanding of patterns. Way to go grade ones!!
Our students have been working on building their word knowledge through a variety of hands on activities each morning to start their day. Having the variety of choices keeps the students engaged and promotes an individualized planning approach to meet students at the level of word work they are ready for.
We have been working on building our reading stamina each day during "Read to Self" time. The students understand that the 10 ways they are going to get better at reading is to: read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read. As a class we created a poster of expectations that remind the students of what "read to self" time should look like and sound like in order for it to be a successful learning opportunity for all of our students. This part of our day also provides the teachers with time to meet one-on-one with students or work in small groups. Our grade one class received a very special delivery today, in celebration of Pink Day. Shorty before lunch time Mr.W delivered this amazing tier of 50 beautiful pink cupcakes to our class. The cupcakes were made by an anonymous and very thoughtful indvidual. Our class would like to send out a HUGE THANK YOU to the person that made our pink day a memorable and special day for us! You have filled our buckets with your generosity and thoughtfulness. Sincerely, Mrs.Quance and Ms.VanMaarion's fabulous firsties!! This week in Science we begin a unit on "Creating Colour." Throughout the unit students will be exploring colour mixing, experimenting with different shades of colour and identifying colours and objects as transparent, translucent or opaque. We will start the unit with a favorite colour survey and build a graph from student responses. Each student will record their classmates favourite colour and to follow up the survey the final results will be compared and discussed. We would like to get our grade one families involved in starting off this exciting colour unit by asking you to complete the favorite colour survey attached to this blog post. We thank you in advance for your participation and cannot wait to tally the results to see what the favourite colour is for our grade one families! The "Daily 5" is a literacy structure that teaches independence in a differentiated learning environment that focuses on developing individual student goals for building comprehension of text, accuracy with applying reading strategies, and fluency when reading a variety of good fit texts. It is a structure that also develops student's word building knowledge and writing skills. It consists of 5 tasks that are introduced individually. When each task is introduced, students will participate in a discussion about what it will "look like" and "sound like" to engage in the task independently. The students will then work on building their stamina until they are successful at being independent while doing that task. When all five skills are introduced and the students are independently engaged in reading and writing activities, we as teachers are able to work in small groups and confer one on one with each of our students. This structure is effective, the results are amazing and the students are excited about their Daily 5 time. The daily 5 tasks are: 1) Read to Self, 2) Work on Writing, 3) Word Work, 4) Read to Someone and 5) Listen to Reading. This week we began to practice "Read to Self." There are a lot of components to engaging in successful "read to self" time that were discussed as we prepared our students for their journey into their "read to self" task. We developed an i-chart as a reminder of these expectations that we can refer to often. Not all students are ready to pick up a book and begin to read the words so other options for "read to self" time were explored and modelled by the teachers. Students were introduced to the 3 Ways to Read a Book. We would love for you to tell us where your favourite place to read is when you are doing "read to self." Please tell us in the comment section of this blog post.
Clipart from Google What a fabulous day we had together in grade 1! It was a very overwhelming and exciting start to the day as students reconnected with friends from kindergarten, organized themselves and their many supplies and explored their new learning environment.
As our morning continued on, it didn't take long for students to identify the value in ensuring our classroom is a positive, respectful, productive and safe environment for leaders and learners as we sat together as a class and established some rules and routines for the classroom, hallway and playground. The highlight of our day was most likely the mystery of the missing gingerbread men. As clues were left behind to guide us on our search, we were able to take a tour of the school to explore the many areas that we will be using this year. Our search ended in the library, where our precious gingerbread men were waiting, ready for icing and candy. Students ended the day with smiles on their faces, high fives and hugs for their teachers; it was a great day! We know it is going to be a remarkable year in grade one and our students are going to achieve many great things. Mrs.Quance & Ms.VanMaarion |
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May 2015
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