I think that Valentine's Day lovin' feeling is still lingering in my heart today. Have you ever had those moments when your children are asleep and you can't help but watch them, as your heart swells with soo much love? Isn't it amazing how children can just melt you inside? How quickly they grow and it seems that every day they change in some way or another. That is one BIG reason why I LOVE teaching so very much. Each day I have the special gift of spending time with your children and being a small part of helping to shape their understandings. I am truly honored and take my responsibility seriously. The love of a parent runs deep and I know for myself that these special moments in their little lives are so valuable and important. Thank you for continuing to support us as we work, learn, and discover together. YOU are sooo special! For all of the roles you take on during each day, you make such a difference in your child's life.
Alright, enough with the mushy stuff. So much has taken place since the last post that this may be a long one. I can't believe that we are in March and I haven't posted since January. Hopefully there are still some loyal readers that are eagerly awaiting new pictures.
To begin, our welcome back in January 'knocked our socks off' with a special writing assignment. The children were to tell 3 resolutions they had for the new year.
One of my favourite resolutions that the class came up with was sharing smiles. Don't you agree that a smile is a simple way to share love, yet powerful enough to touch someone's heart?
In math, we have been working on many new units of study. Our class has been focusing on telling time to the hour and half hour. They have had a lot of instruction using small manipulative clocks. The children practised creating different times and reading digital and analogue clocks. Our class loved relating a clock to ourselves ( A clock has a face and two hands ). We will continue to work on time to the half hour, because it tends to be a little trickier for the children.
SHOW ME THE MONEY!
You probably guessed that we have also been learning about money. The children are working on naming the coins and stating their value. This term, we will continue our learning by adding and subtracting money amounts.
Don't kids say the funniest things? When I was introducing the different coins to the class, I told the children that the nickel has a beaver on one side. One sweet little guy must not have heard me properly and confidently said "Justin Bieber has his own coin?" The class couldn't have been more excited. I just said "Unfortunately, Justin Bieber does not have his own coin...yet". But, I must say that the children definitely remember the nickel; they now call it the Bieber coin ha ha.
Learning about composing and decomposing numbers is an on-going process. We created "very sweet", pardon the pun, cocoa fact families. The children are really getting a good understanding of how numbers work together through addition and subtraction.
In Geometry, the children learned all about tangrams and their use. They were given the task of covering numerous outline puzzles (different degrees of difficulty) with their tangram pieces. Some puzzles provided lines to distinguish each shape; however, the harder puzzles removed the lines. They all seemed to love this activity and I have to admit that some of the puzzles were quite challenging. Tangrams only have 7 pieces, so many of the puzzles looked as though you needed more to cover them (very tricky indeed).
Our literacy time has been full of exciting learning! We have dived deep into guided reading groups and it is a joy watching the children grow in their decoding skills.
Well...I have BIG news!!
Are you ready?
Our feature learning topic for the months of January and February has been 'Penguins'. We have made comparison charts, discussed characteristics, talked about fiction and non-fiction etc. It has been such a wonderful experience for all of us. The writing portion of our unit revolved around each child creating their own non-fiction book about penguins. We worked through the writing process with rough drafts, research, editing, adding more detail, more editing, good drafts etc. It was such a learning process; however, they gained so much insight. Here are a few pictures of the finished products, in all of their cuteness!
This was one of our KWL sheets on penguins. I had to highlight this particular one because if you read the portion about what she learned about penguins, it says 'Their mommies give them bracelets so they no their babies names'. Isn't that the sweetest (not factual), but cute nonetheless. When I asked this little sweetheart about her writing, she told me that babies know their mommies by their own call. I guess she wanted to make the information more exciting by adding a little extra, which she definitely did haha.
The children did a wonderful job on these projects. They especially loved learning that penguin babies eat regurgitated food (that fact went over very well in our class). Don't you agree that their drawings are precious?
Our penguin unit culminated with the children making short slideshows. Even our principal Mrs.Walters came in for our premier spectacular!
100th Day Celebrations!
Well, when I sent the note home to have your children dress like they were 100 years old, they did not disappoint. They looked incredible and made me laugh hysterically (it's true, especially when one little old man hobbled into the room holding his back and complaining about his aching back). Did I forget to mention how much I LOVE first grade!!
Some of our activities for the day included the following:
Creating 100 day trains
Making 100 day necklaces (counting by 10's)
Decorating and sporting our 100 day glasses
Creating 100 pattern block trains
Our day wouldn't be complete without a chocolate hunt for 100 hearts!
The children couldn't believe that they had been in school for 100 days. Every day during calendar time, we would add one piece to our puzzle to represent the number of days in school. When the puzzle was complete they were awarded for all of their hard work with a cupcake surprise! And you know how much we love surprises in first grade!
100 day collections
The collections that were brought in for 100 day were very exciting. The ideas ranged from tiny beans to race cars and candy. We counted and compared each collection. We discussed length, size and weight. By the end of the day, the children were thrilled with each other's collections and to stand back and see that 100 is a lot!
As you can see, we have been very busy learning together in first grade. The wonder and excitement in their little eyes, never ceases to amaze me. I hope you have had a lovely March break with your family and have created some special memories. Keep checking back to our blog for upcoming photos of our "egg-citing" experiences hatching chicks!
Keep Smilin'
Can you guess who this little old granny is? (hint: Yes, we are related)
