Names project, measurement, and reseach

This morning was our first day of guided reading and our first day of home reading book exchange! Ask me if I had guided reading today and who my guided reading teacher will be (All the grade 1's and most grade 2's had guided reading today). We are bringing home our second home reading book today. Please remember that these books should come back to school each day so that we can have a new book to practice each evening.

In math we did a measurement challenge with leaves. We started the challenge yesterday by collecting leaves and putting them in order from smallest to largest with our table groups. Today we using ordering, comparing, and measuring to figure out the widest, narrowest, longest, and shortest leaves that we had collected.

This afternoon we continued working on our life cycle diagrams for our arthropod research. Before we started this work we learned a fancy new word: Metamorphosis. We learned that this word describes the process of an insect or other animal going through its life cycle. We learned that some of our arthropods go through complete metamorphosis and some go through incomplete metamorphosis. Here is a video we watched about the process:

Home Reading!

Today we are bringing home our first books for Home Reading! Inside the bag you will find our book for tonight, some information for parents, a recording book, and a book mark of reading strategies. Please be sure to spend about 15 minutes practicing reading the book with an adult and then don't forget to put it back in your backpack so that it comes back to school tomorrow. Each day we will have a chance to re-read the books with a volunteer and pick a new one to bring home.

Parents: If you are interested in volunteering for home reading please check the Sign-Up Genius for available days. 

Tomorrow we will also be starting our guided reading groups here at school. Each student has been placed in a small reading group and will spend time with a teacher developing their reading strategies and comprehension skills.

Leaf art!

Today was all about leaves! We have been noticing all the different shapes and sizes of leaves that are falling around our school this week and thought that a day all about leaves would make sense. We started by going on a leaf hunt in Barrett Park to find different sizes, shapes, and colours of leaves.  We also talked about the different textures we might find and tried to look for leaves that were still flexible but not too wet.

After recess we used our leaves to create some leaf art. We made animals, cars, and even towns! Here are some pictures of our artwork.





We will be starting Home Reading on Monday. We will be looking for volunteers who can start coming in on Tuesday. If you are able to volunteer please sign-up on Sign Up Genius. We are hoping for 2 volunteers each day. Have a great weekend!

Literacy Night!

Tonight is literacy night! The evening will start at 6:00. Today during our literacy time we went over all the stations so that each of us will be able to guide our parents through the stations and show them some of the things we do here at school. 

Tomorrow is Fresh Air Friday. Please dress for the weather!

Fun Lunch!

This morning we started with centers and then we worked on our name cards for our names project. We are using beads to make our name cards look really fancy. It is sort of a tricky job because the beads are small so we need to be really focused when we are working.

After recess we worked on our graphing project. Some of us have finished but some of us will need one more day to finish.

Then it was time for fun lunch! Thank you to all the volunteers who came today and made our fun lunch possible. We had a great time!

This afternoon we worked on our arthropod diagrams. We started by learning to give each other feedback. Ms. Boyer taught us how to give Oreo Cookie feedback. Please ask me how we do this and why it is called Oreo Cookie feedback. After we had given each other feedback we got to work trying to finish our diagrams and incorporate the feedback.

Don't forget that tomorrow is picture day! 

Also, we are hosting our first ever literacy night on Thursday night. At this event we will be sharing some of the activities we do here at school and giving you information about our home reading program! We are looking forward to seeing you there!

Helping the birds

Today was Fresh Air Friday. We started the day with centers and then got going on our outdoor project for the day.  We have observed that with all this early snow most of the insects have gone underground or aren't around anymore and many of the berries and seeds are covered by snow. We wondered if this might be making life a bit tricky for the birds. So, we decided to make some natural bird feeders to help the birds get through this unexpected early snow that has probably come before they were ready to migrate.

To make our feeders we went to the Whispering Woods to collect supplies. Mrs. Hamby, Mrs. Armour, and Ms. Boyer also brought some extra supplies for us to use like birdseed, lard, apples, grapes, and twigs.

Once we had collected our supplies we created our feeders in the classroom.

At the end of the day we took them outside and hung them up in the trees for the birds. We hope they enjoy these yummy surprises!

Author Visit: Alice Kuipers

This morning we started the day with our new centers. We didn't have very much time yesterday so today we returned to the same center to have some more time. At the end of center time a few people were ready to perform poems or share their bookmarks.

After that it was time to go to the learning commons for our author visit. The author's name was Alice Kuipers and she has written a lot of books for kids and young adults. She lives in Saskatoon but is originally from England. Today she talked to us about how she goes about writing a book and talked a bit about some of the books she has written. Here is the link to her website: http://www.alicekuipers.com/

After that we had a late recess and then we had a meeting with Mrs. Polski. Mrs. Polski has been getting worried that some of us are going to start losing things because it was getting a bit messy at our coat hooks. She talked to us about some strategies she would like us to use to help keep our coat hooks tidy and our things safe.

After lunch we had our computer time. We had another chance to try out the games at Math Playground. Then we played soccer for gym and had library. In library Mrs. Kidd told us that she might be holding a story writing contest soon! The winner of the contest will get a copy of one of Alice Kuipers books. She told us to stay tuned for more information coming soon! At the end of library Ms. Boyer showed us a new chapter book she bought that we will be reading as a read-aloud in our class. It is called The Wild Robot and is written by Peter Brown.  Ms. Boyer read us the first chapter. Ask me what has happened so far. 

Tomorrow is Fresh Air Friday. We will be doing an activity to help the birds get through this early winter we are experiencing.