November 6 - 10

We really enjoyed getting to know our VIP better this week. You were such a great helper in the classroom as well. Thank you!

Remembrance Day Ceremony

The students looked great dressed in their best clothes to participate in our Remembrance Day ceremony on Friday.

May we all take time to think about the soldiers that fought for our freedom and those that paid the ultimate price. Lest we forget!

Curricular Update

Writing Workshop

During our Writing Workshop this week, the students were given the following journal prompt:

On Remembrance Day we will take time to remember the people who fought for our freedom. We will be completely quiet and still for one minute to remember. What will you think about during your one minute of silence?

We brainstormed all of the things that we would think about during our minute of silence and then the students were asked to organize their ideas into a paragraph.

Freckle Juice

This week we started our Novel Study of Freckle Juice by Judy Blume. Freckle Juice is a story about a boy who wanted freckles so his mom wouldn't notice that his neck was dirty. If she doesn't know it's dirty, he won't have to wash it. Sounds about right. Some boys will do whatever it takes not have to a bath!

For each chapter we will complete various "reading responses" to apply specific vocabulary and comprehension skills to the book. This week we discussed the story's setting, made predictions and partnered up to write their own Freckle Juice recipes.

The students also enjoyed the visualization activity where they wrote one sentence and illustrated a mental image made while reading chapter 3.

Please be sure to respond to your child's Back and Forth Journal entry.

The students continue to enjoy working on their handwriting. This week we learned how to form the letter "Q."

Reading Workshop

This week I read "A Poppy is to Remember" by Heather Patterson. It's a great book about how the red poppy became Canada's symbol of honouring those who fought for our freedom on Remembrance Day.

We also read "A Bear in War" written by Stephanie Innes. This picture book is a true story about Teddy’s remarkable journey from his life in East Farnham, Que., through his voyage overseas and his eventual journey home. This book id more than one family's testament to a brave soldier. It is a gentle introduction to honouring those who have died serving their countries in war.

Math

This week we started our Number Sense: Place Value unit in Math.  In this unit the students will review the place value system for reading and writing numbers in base ten. The following goals were covered this week:

• identify the place value of digits in 2- and 3-digit numbers.
• understand the value of digit in 2- and 3-digit numbers.
• represent 3-digit numbers with base ten materials.
• write numbers represented by base ten blocks.
• represent numbers in expanded form and recognize a number written in expanded form.

 Science

We started our Hearing and Sound Unit in science this week.  I began the unit by reading the story "The Listening Walk."  This is a story about a father and child that take a walk together and listen to the sounds around them. Following, our class went on our own listening walk to identify the sounds we hear inside the school, as well as outside.

This week we discussed how sound is the result of vibration. The students learned that volume is how loud or soft a sound is and pitch is how high or low a sound is. We also learned about how the human ear senses vibrations.  We discovered that the ear has three main parts: The Outer Ear, The Middle Ear and the Inner Ear.  We hear sounds with our ears.  Vibrations move rapidly through the air towards our ears and make part of the human ear vibrate.

The students will be creating another lapbook to summarize what they learn throughout the unit.

Art

We enjoyed the book "A Poppy Is to Remember" so much that it became the inspiration for our art project this week. Our class created  "Mixed Media Poppies" to hang in the gym for our Remembrance Day ceremony.

Buddy Reading

We loved ending our week by reading with our Grade One buddies!