October 21-24

 

October 21-24

Our Story Sticks: The Story of the Land during Autumn

 

While visiting Fish Creek Park, students collected found items or treasures that were unique, made them feel connected to the land, and represented the story of the land during the season of Autumn.  As a follow up to our field study to Fish Creek Park, students were asked to build a 3-Dimensional mobile of these treasures.  Students worked to roll and create cookie shapes out of salt dough then pressed their treasure into the dough.  We then went on a stick hunt to find the perfect stick to hang our ornaments.  Finally, students strung and tied their ornaments to create a beautiful 3 Dimensional representation of their experience in Fish Creek during Autumn. 

 

Learning Intention:

· Analyze environments and investigate interactions and changes.

· Changes in environments include seasonal changes. 

· Expression through the use of art materials as a vehicle or medium for saying something in a meaningful way.

 

Success Criteria:

I can:

· Visually represent a story

· Make two- and three-dimensional assemblages from found material

· Use simple clay modelling techniques of rolling, pinching, adding, pressing

· Document signs of seasonal change over time

· Share personal experiences related to seasons. 

· Discuss how changes in the appearance of environments, plants, and animals are related to the seasons. 

· Represent an environment in different seasons to show environmental changes. 

October 15-18

Dear Parents,

Reminders:

As the weather is getting cooler, please remember to send your child with suitable clothing to be outside like extra layers, mittens, and a hat.  

We have been busy in grade one building routines to foster the strong foundations for literacy and math. Read below to see what we’ve been working on and how you can support your child’s learning.  

Mathematics

We have been working hard on counting forwards and backwards.  Through songs, problem solving situations, and games we have been learning about counting by 1’s and the patterns of skip counting by 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s.  

The following is a summary of the key ideas your child has been learning in math.  You can use this summary to support your child and there are some simple suggested activities.  

Counting by 1s

When reciting a number sequence — such as counting by 1s from 1 to 10 — students are not counting objects. Instead, they are simply saying the words in the number sequence. Learning the number sequence is a crucial step in learning to count.

Many students in Grade 1 can count by 1s as high as 10, 20, or higher.

The intention, over the course of the full year — not right away, is to build students’ capacity to count to 100.

The recognition of patterns can help students learn their counting words. The numbers from 1 to 12 are simply unique words students must learn. The teen numbers, however, follow a pattern. If students can recognize that pattern, it will help them recall the number words.

The “10 words” (20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100) are also simply words that students must learn. All the numbers in between, however, follow a pattern up to 99.

Having a 100-chart around for students to notice can help them become familiar with the numbers to 100.

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Counting by 2s

Again, when counting by 2s, students are not counting objects but simply saying the words for 2, 4, 6, and so on, up to 20 at this level.

Noticing patterns will help students count by 2s. Between one 10 word and the next, they need to say a number ending in 2, 4, 6, or 8.

Exploring the first two rows of a 100-chart will help students recognize the pattern.

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Counting by 5s

Again, when counting by 5s, students are not counting objects but simply saying the words for 5, 10, 15, 20, and so on, up to 100.

Students may notice a pattern: we say 5 or a number ending in 5 and then the next 10 word over and over.

After students are comfortable counting to 20 by 5s, they will soon be able to extend their counting to 30, 40, and beyond by following the pattern.

Exploring a 100-chart will help students recognize the pattern.

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Counting by 10s

To learn the words for counting by 10s to 50, students will have to learn the words to use: ten, twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty. Afterwards, a pattern emerges: 60, 70, 80, and 90 contain the words six, seven, eight, and nine, respectively.

When learning to count by 10s to 100, students may recognize that each 10 word matches a number from 1 to 10. There are further patterns beyond 100, but Grade 1 students are not expected to count beyond 100.

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Helping Your Child

There are many opportunities in casual situations where you can encourage your child to count forward and extend the count, just by asking “Can you go higher?”

For example, you could count together as you stand in line at the grocery store or as you travel on a bus.

When your child begins to count higher, be aware that it’s often difficult for children to cross over to the next group of 10, for example, going from 19 to 20. This is more difficult than, for example, going from 13 to 14. Be attentive to what your child can handle and when he or she is ready to take this step.

To help your child count by 2s, talk about how we skip numbers and say only every other number.

To help your child count by 5s, talk about how we skip numbers and say only the numbers that end in 5, as well as 15 and all the 10 words.

To help your child count by 10s, talk about how we skip numbers and say only 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and so on. Explain that all these numbers are 10 apart when you count by 1s. Explore a 100-chart with your child to help him or her see that the numbers are 10 apart.

Using the 100-Chart

The 100-chart is a counting tool found in many Grade 1 classrooms. It shows the numbers from 1 to 100 in sequence in rows of 10. You can make and use a 100-chart to help your child explore the patterns of numbers between 1 and 100.

In Grade 1, students are expected to count back by 1s from 20.

Usually, they find it easier to learn counting backwards in this sequence:

•	3, 2, 1
•	then 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
•	then 10, 9, 8, … 1
•	then 20, 19, 18, … 1

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Helping Your Child

Help your child understand that to count backwards by 1s, we say the numbers in reverse order. You might want to brainstorm with your child times that counting backwards is helpful, such as a countdown before a race.

One way to engage your child is to have your child count backwards with you as a kitchen timer counts down. (Note: It must be a timer with seconds, not just minutes.) Your child can feel a sense of accomplishment when he or she can reach 1 just before the buzzer goes off.

We rarely need to count backwards in real life — we can almost always count forward instead. Counting backwards, however, can help prepare students for subtraction.

Literacy

Home Literacy Decodables

Your child will have brought home a small decodable to share with you.  This decodable will focus on sounds that we are learning and practicing during our structured letter and sound lessons.  Please take time to read this book along with your child. Your child may exchange their book Mondays and Thursdays in addition to our regular library book on Wednesdays. 

Structured Letter and Sound Lessons

During our structured literacy lessons we focus on explicit instruction of letter sounds, blending and  segmenting, accuracy and automaticity of letter sounds, decoding words, reading and spelling irregular words, as well as reading and spelling connected text.  We have been focusing on the sounds, a, m, s, t, p, while blending sounds to make sort consonant vowel consonant words.  The following is an example of practice you can do at home with your child orally or in writing.  

 October 7-11

We had such an amazing time learning on the land this week with our Walking Field Trip to Fish Creek Park.  We would again like to thank all of our adults who volunteered their time to join us.  These experiences become such special ones and build memories together, as well as enhance our learning in the classroom.  

Learning Intentions

I can observe seasonal changes in a local environment (Fish Creek Park)

I can discuss how changes in the way an environment looks, plants look and animals look is connected to seasons 

I can investigate how animals behave in fall, such as migration 

I can describe an environment, using information gathered using my 5 senses.

We enjoyed moving through a couple of different spaces at Fish Creek to explore and notice things about the land.  We looked for 3 or 4 special items, that would help tell the story of the land at this time of year, and we each got to collect them in a small bag.  We will build on sharing these items next week and exploring the story the land is telling us.  We were excited to see many different things and engage our Minds, Heart, Bodies and Spirits as our Indigenous Ways of Knowing into our experience.  Many of us were excited to notice the beaver activity, notice signs of animals and walk off the paved pathway and in the VERY tall grass!  

      

 

 

 

Once back at school, we spent some time sharing and doing a “brain dump” to draw and record some of the memories and highlights from our trip.  We drew the bridge, the beaver signs and chewing, flowers, leaves and many more!  

 

I hope everyone enjoys their Thanksgiving weekend, and we look forward to continuing our learning next week!  

October 1- 4

 Dear Parents, 

This week as a part of our school community, we have been learning about Terry Fox, a Canadian Hero.  Our grade one community took up this work by connecting Terry in his younger years and his “Magic Yet” by looking at his challenges and accomplishments to become a basketball player and long-distance runner.  Through stories, students learned about Terry’s life as a child, the discovery and his battle with cancer, and his goal to raise $1 for every Canadian to fund cancer research.  Students in our classroom community then focused on the contributions of Terry Fox and his “Magical Yet” to overcome challenges and achieve a goal.  We concluded our work by completing the Terry Fox run with our Andrew Sibbald school community and reflecting on our learning through a visual journal representation.  

Learning Intentions:  

-Students examine personal characteristics, feelings, and emotions and explore understanding of self.

-Students demonstrate how movement can support different types of physical activity.

-Create written messages with my drawings and words 

Literacy

During our focused literacy lessons we learned about the letter “A” letter “M’ and letter 'S' this week.  During these lessons students learn the sound the letter makes, learn the position of our mouths, lips and tongue when we make that sounds, practice isolating letters and sounds, blend those sounds together to make words, and looked at the lines that make up each letter when printing. Please practice these letter sounds at home, and find objects and items that start with A or M, or words that have A or M in them.  

Learning Intention:

-Letters represent sounds in words.

-​​Letter combinations represent units of sound within a word

Reminders:

-Walking Field Trip to Fish Creek on Wednesday, Oct 9 (see previous email)