~ Happy Halloween! ~

Today was a fun day of costumes and learning!

Room 2 had so many different costumes - from princesses and superheroes to scary witches, skeletons and mad scientists! There were also lots of other movie and game characters, insects, policemen and more!

The teachers planned on being dominos ... but Mr. P came dressed as "Domino's" (pizza).. oops! hehe

Enjoy the long weekend!

Reminders:

• No school Tomorrow - Nov 1 (PD Day)
• We are still needing more volunteers, especially for Nov. 4th - if you have police clearance and are available to help out on one of our swimming days please let me know :) 
• Deadline to order photos is Nov 6th. Photo retakes are on Nov 7th.
• Next week (November 4-8), donations of non-perishable food items will be collected for the local food bank.
• Save the date:  Remembrance Day Assembly is Friday, Nov 8 the starting at 10:45 am.  All parents and guardians are welcome to attend.

Upcoming Event:

Gordon McRae, a children’s book author,  will be visiting the school on Thursday, Nov 14. He has written picture books, novels and fairy tales.   We will begin with Rooms 1-2 at 9am.  He will be taking book orders.  Parents are welcome to come.

Please visit his website at https://gcmcrae.com/

Also, Dec 4 at 11am we will be hosting Jace Jax and Henry Hama who write and illustrate the Kidsburgh Chronicles.  Parents are welcome.

Both presentations will be in the learning commons.

Week 9

Highlights:

•  In Math we started our unit on shapes. We learned about 2D shapes then went on a shape hunt within the classroom and in the school.

Then we made a table in our math journals and started recording our findings:

• We also finally got to showcase our vegetable mural in the hallway! You can tell by looking at our mural that we had a lot of carrots!

• We did some more research for our plant study. We looked up information about the Wild Rose Hip in our Alberta Wildflowers book, but there was no information. So, we went on the internet instead. This is what we found out:

• Then, we made fact bubbles to add into our art journals where we painted the Wild Rose Hips:

•  For Word Work the grade 1s learned the letter "u" and letter "i", while the grade 2s have been working on their sight words using the "No Excuse List of Words"

• We also started our unit on colors. We learned about primary colors and how they can create new colors by mixing themselves together. Primary colors are the source of other colors. But, primary colors cannot be made by mixing other colors together. Then, we started painting a color wheel. We started with the primary colors:

• Then, we moved on to blending the primary colors to create secondary colors: 

• Our wellness goal for this week is to be responsible for our things and take care of our learning environment. Ask me what I did each day to achieve this goal!

Reminders:

• Halloween Parade is tomorrow, Oct. 31st in the afternoon. Halloween costume expectations and parade details – be respectful of the costumes you are choosing for your child to wear to school We also discourage violent type or extremely scary costumes.  Do not bring all of the props or extra items that go along with your costume.  Leave props at home.   The Halloween parade will start at about 1:15 pm. 
• We are still needing more volunteers, especially for Nov. 4th - if you have police clearance and are available to help out on one of our swimming days please let me know :) 
• No school on Friday, Nov 1 (PD Day)
• Photos have been sent home - the deadline to order is Nov 6th. Photo retakes are on Nov 7th.
• Save the date:  Remembrance Day Assembly is Friday, Nov 8 the starting at 10:45 am.  All parents and guardians are welcome to attend.
• Students in Grades 5 & 6 will be collecting donations of non-perishable food the week of November 4-8, 2019.  All food items collected will be provided to a local food bank.

FAF #6

Highlights:

• Today we had the opportunity to share our Plant Identification Books to our big buddies. We took them to the Nature Ground where we found the flowers during our investigation of plants. Although many of the flowers are no longer visible on the grounds, we were able to show our big buddies where they use to grow and show them the pictures and facts from our books.

• Then we came inside and read the story "Planting a Rainbow" by Lois Ehlert
• We learned that some flowers start as bulbs - these bulbs are planted into the ground and then after some time they grow into beautiful flowers 
• Afterwards, we went outside to the front of the school to:
1.  Dig holes that were about 1 kid's hand deep
2.  Place a flower bulb in
3.  Cover with soil
4.  Added water on top

 Here we are digging...

 Some areas were a lot harder to dig in than others...

 But we were able to make holes that were at least a kid's hand-size deep...

 Then we placed in a flower bulb and covered it with soil...

Finally, we added water on top!

• Later, we met with our big buddies again and went outside to the look around in our Brentwood Community for environmental math and interactive art:

• The big buddies were studying angles and sizes, whereas we were looking at colors and shapes because were starting our new unit on colors next week! 

The colors that we noticed were used the most often were: Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow

There were lots of fun interactive art pieces that we got to enjoy with our big buddies~ 



 This is the "Mirror"

This one has us using our left and right feet

 

Long jump was very popular!

Reminders:

• Please remember to bring library books back for Monday :)
• Monday, October 28th is swimming. 
• please remember to pack your swimsuit, towel, extra undergarments, and a small snack and a separate bag to carry swimming items to the pool.  
• We are still needing more volunteers, especially for Nov. 4th - if you have police clearance and are available to help out on one of our swimming days please let me know :) 
• Halloween Parade will be on Oct. 31st in the afternoon. Halloween costume expectations and parade details – be respectful of the costumes you are choosing for your child to wear to school We also discourage violent type or extremely scary costumes.  Do not bring all of the props or extra items that go along with your costume.  Leave props at home.   The Halloween parade will start at about 1:20 pm. 
• No school on Friday, Nov 1 (PD Day)

Week 8

Highlights:

•  This week in word work we have learned about the following letters: T, t; a; d; and G, g

• In Science we were finishing up our plant ID books, covers and back covers. We are hoping to have these done for Friday so that we can share them with our big buddies. Here are a few cover pages that were finished so far:

• We also learned about researching facts about the flowers we have been studying in science. Mrs. Yoon showed us that research can be done using books and on the internet using a search engine. We used a book to look up facts on the Great Blanket Flower. Mrs. Yoon read to us from the book and we were able to pick out some interesting facts. Here are the ideas that we took notes of as a class: 

• Then, we used Google to look up interesting facts about the Goldenrod flower. We learned that: (1) Young goldenrod leaves are edible (you can eat them!) (2) chewing leaves helps with sore throats and toothaches (3) Flowers were used as herbal tea (4) Flowers were used to make yellow dye. 
• Afterwards, we had to pick some facts about the flower and create "fact bubbles" to glue onto our paintings.
• For Math, we met as a large group and gathered the totals from both classrooms:

We talked about the numbers and learned that room 2 had more vegetables than room 1. We will be using these numbers to solve math problems in the coming week.

Reminders:

• Tomorrow is our first day of swimming! October 24th 
• please remember to pack your swimsuit, towel, extra undergarments, and a small snack and a separate bag to carry swimming items to the pool.  
• We are still needing more volunteers, especially for Nov. 4th - if you have police clearance and are available to help out on one of our swimming days please let me know :) 
• upcoming swimming dates for next week: Monday Oct. 28 and Wednesday Oct. 30
• For this Fresh Air Friday (Oct 25th) we are planning on going outside to plant various flower blubs in our flower beds - these were donated to our family by the Embry Family :)
• Halloween Parade will be on Oct. 31st in the afternoon. 
• No school on Friday, Nov 1 (PD Day)

FAF #5

Highlights:

• Today we finished up our cook book! We all made stamps out of the vegetables we harvested, and then used paint to decorate the covers. Everyone's cookbook is unique  :)

• Afterwards, we read "Over and Under the Snow" byKate Messner. 
  We learned that plants and animals prepare for winter.  Animals prepare by hibernating after gathering food and eating as much as they can, adapting by changing color and/or growing more hair/fur, or migrating to warmer climate. 
• Then, we went outside to play the game camouflage in the Whispering Woods.  We imagined that we were animals that were trying to hide from the predators (which were Mrs. Hamby and Mrs. Yoon).  It was fun trying to camouflage into the environment but sometimes our bright colored jackets made it easier to be seen!

•  This week we also had several discussions on what it means to show kindness. We really worked on being "flexible" in our thinking and through our actions when in the classroom, as well as outside during recess and after school. Everyone is different and we need to be respectful of each other. We learned that it is very difficult when people feel lonely or left-out, so Room 2 has made a pledge to be inclusive and welcoming to others. 

Reminders:

• If you still have any library books at home, remember to bring them back for Monday :)
• On Tuesday, October 22, 2019, it is our classroom’s opportunity to host the monthly Treat Day and raise funds for our in-class expenses. Treat Day is a fun event for all Dr. E. W. Coffin students. Treats are sold for 25 cents each. It would be very much appreciated if each family could supply one dozen healthy treats to sell to all the students at recess.  Some suggestions for treats are: muffins, pretzels, rice cakes, cookies, brownies, Rice Krispie squares, popcorn. Non-food treats are also appreciated.
• Please package treats as a single serving, if applicable.  Please ensure treats are nut-free, and no candy or chocolate bars. Please drop your treats off at the tables in the front hall on the morning of October 22.
• If you are able to volunteer to assist in setting up and selling the treats at recess that morning from 10:15 until 11:00 am, please log in to your Sign-up Genius account to sign up.
• Swimming starts next week on October 24th - we are still needing more volunteers, especially for Nov. 4th - if you have police clearance and are available to help out on one of our swimming days please let me know :) 

Week 7

Highlights:

• This week we had pre-service teachers from the University of Calgary visiting our school! We met Ms. Brown and Ms. Black on Monday. They were very helpful and it was fun having them in the classroom. 
• For journal writing we learned about editing our work - so, once we are done writing in our journals we have to go back and check that each sentence started with a capital, each sentence had an end-marker (i.e. period), there were spaces between words, and we had to re-read the writing to make sure it made sense. 
• In Word Work, the grade 1s learned about the letter "S", which also has the Magic C in it. 

We brainstormed a few words that started with the s-sound, and noted them in our writing journals.

• We have also been introduced to new literacy centers as we are getting ready to begin guided reading groups next week. They include creative writing, literacy games, and practicing keyboarding skills on Dance Mat Typing.

We also learned about acrostic poems, and made one as a class about OCTOBER:

• Tuesday was Photo Day!
• We also started a new unit in gym: Volley Ball! 

Here we are practicing some ball-handling drills that help to develop our hand-eye coordination...

 We also learned how to "bump" a volleyball that comes towards us. We practiced having arms straight ahead, one hand on top of the other and palms facing up with thumbs touching to bump the ball. We also practiced standing with feet shoulder-width apart and knees slightly bent.

• In math, we gathered everyone's tallies and totaled up the number of vegetables that were harvested harvested by room 1.  

• Then we continued on with creating the vegetables out of construction paper and glued them onto our large mural:

• We also started Weekly Wellness Goals - this week our class decided to make it "acts of kindness." Ask us about what we did to accomplish this goal every day this week :)  

Reminders:

• Families are welcome to our literacy-based ‘curriculum evening’ tonight. It is a drop-in format and will take place from 5 pm to 7 pm. 
• Swim lessons are scheduled for the afternoons (2:10pm - 2:50pm) of October 24, 28, 30 and  November 4, 6, and 13. 
• November 7th is Photo retakes.
• Next week we hope to begin our Home Reading Program.  If you have been cleared to volunteer you will receive an invitation email for Sign-up Genius. You can go on there and book yourself into days that you would be available to come and help with home reading. It involves having kids read to you and helping them exchange their books for new ones.  It works best to have two volunteers for each day.