Monday, September 25

  Here are a couple of important announcements for this week:

• the Terry Fox run will be next Friday
• Orange Shirt day will be this coming Friday
• as part of the daily reading students should be doing, our class has access to both RAZ-Kids and Epic Books!  However, Epic Books is only "open" during school hours between 7 am and 3 pm.  The Epic Books! class code is found in the Hapara Workspace.  With RAZ-Kids, I am hoping to get the class to be able to learn how to do some recordings of their readings in class.  I went through this last Wednesday, so hopefully this will continue to work smoothly.  In the future, if they have access to technology at home, they will be able to hopefully do some recordings there as well.  However, it isn't necessary as I will be providing in-school time on their laptops.

Now onto today!  This morning, we had our daily math plus the students had an opportunity to talk about their weekend before we headed to our photos for Picture day.  We had an outdoor gym in the afternoon, and played a game where they hid tennis balls in the yard (then had to find the other teams).

In Language, we went through the new Working with Words lesson.  I highly recommend that each child write 10 different sentences using these words, to be completed by Friday.  Some students use the on-line document found in their workspace, whereby others do hand written copies.  They can use the back side of the sheet found in their yellow duotang if needed.   If they prefer lined paper, I can have some added to their duotangs.

In Math, we had a short task to see what they understood from the past two weeks regarding patterning.  After this, I introduced them to the website thatquiz.org where I will leave the occasional assignment (they access this in their Math workspace).

Also this week, we will continue going through the school boards Digital Citizenship lessons to help them create a positive digital footprint and well as be a positive digital citizen who models the gospel values during their online citizenship.

Monday, September 18

I hope everyone had a great weekend!  Thanks for coming by last week for the Meet the Teacher.  It was a pleasure to meet so many of you.  First, a quick announcement.  The Terry Fox run will take place on October 5th.  St. Marguerite d'Youville School is participating in the Terry Fox School Run on October 5th! We are so proud to be a part of this Canadian tradition in the fight against cancer. Please support our student’s fundraising efforts and donate today at: https://schools.terryfox.ca/StMargueritedYouvilleSchoolOttawa 

In Math, we have continued our patterning unit.  This past week, we looked at growing and shrinking patterns.  We have also been looking at a variety of patterns on hundreds charts, bar graphs and number lines.   We have also been using number lines to help us understand and assist us with our addition and subtraction.  The strategy of "jumping" on a number line to help break larger numbers into smaller portions is helpful for some.  

In Language, we have been looking at a variety of words used to describe colours.  For example, instead of using the word orange, the class was exploring additional ways to describe the shade of that colour (eg. pumpkin orange, apricot, marmalade, merigold).  I have posted some links on the workspace for the class to explore.  We have also looked at ways to describe the colour (eg. bold, brilliant, deep).  

Also last week, we were practising some colouring techniques in advance of some of our Visual Art lessons.  Most of the students took this work home, but here are some examples in case you missed it.

Onto Week 2!

We are certainly chugging along through the first week of school! I will try to get at least two posts a week to keep you updated.

We start each day with our Daily Math, followed by our "Math Up" lesson on patterns.  We looked at patterns around the classroom and in our life, then looked specifically at number patterns on 100-charts, number lines and calendars.  As we progress through the year, if you are interested in seeing what our "Your Turn" questions look like, they are linked on the student portal (in Hapara) under the Math tab.  This is accessed by going to the student portal (https://sites.google.com/a/ocsbstudent.ca/k-6/), and clicking into the workspace.  The student log in using their email which is firstname.lastname@stu.ocsb.ca  If they do not remember their password, please feel free to let me know (or they can tell me at school).  The math work in the workspace does not have to be completed as it is the same as what is done in class.  There will also be some "Sum it Up" pages which is a good read for you if you would like to see the taught concepts for the day/week.  One quick comment about the daily math.  This is only a 5-10 minute exercise at the start of the day that I project on the front screen.  We go through all the questions together, and the class puts their answers in a notebook.  It is just a nice routine to do that helps touch upon concepts that they will see at different points of the year.  For example, this week there are some questions that involve fractions.  Although we won't specifically look at fractions until later in the year, it gives a quick look each day now which will make it easier when the time comes for more formal lessons.  Again, I post the daily math in Hapara so you can see what the questions look like if you are curious.

In Language, you may have seen a yellow duotang come by at home today.  This is for the Working with Words lessons for the week.  The class can practice these words for the week, and they will be quizzed on 10 of them for Friday.  If you are looking for homework for the week, I recommended to the children that they can choose 10 of the words at write them in a proper sentence either in the document in Hapara, or they can write them on paper too!  Last week (and this upcoming week), we worked on our descriptive writing.  We have been looking at the 5 senses and how they can be used to add description in their writing.  So far, we have focused on sounds (the Pear Decks are always linked in Hapara if you are curious).  We also continued our read aloud of A Dog's Life.  I have also linked the first and second chapter on the workspace if anyone wanted to reread (we are halfway through Chapter 2).  While I read this aloud, I have multiple pause points that I will discuss "tricks" the author uses, get them to predict what may happen next, draw real-life connections and give them basic thoughts that a "good adult reader" thinks about as they are reading a story.  

Finally, in Science class we have started our unit on Soils.  We looked at the parts of soil (tiny rocks, air, water and humus) and designed our title page.  Also, we are finishing up our Lego Portraits (I will share some pictures soon!).  

Day One!

 It was nice to see everyone this morning!  The enthusiasm to come back to school that was seen in the morning, carried through the whole day.  I am sure this will be a great year.

We spent the first block learning a little about myself, the school and our routines.  It didn't take long until we were already at recess! 

After recess, I showed them a number of read alouds I will be reading during the year.  I prefer to read from chapter books, where I provide numerous pause points to discuss what is happening in the story and take predictions of what may happen next.  It leads to a lot of deep conversations.  The books are projected on the Smart Board so they can read along, and we often use it to discuss the language concepts for the term.  For example, we will be looking at descriptive writing first, so I will be using opportunities in the book to analyze how the author described the setting.  The first book I will be reading from is A Dog's Life: An Autobiography of a Stray, written by Ann M. Martin.  Each night, you can always ask your child what happened in the chapter for the day.  Would provide a great opportunity to provide a little recount!  I will also be posting each chapter in their workspace, so they will have access to past chapters as well as the chapter that will be read the next day!

Afterwards, the class filled out an All About Me page that we will finish up tomorrow.  

On a side note, we do have 2 snack times after each recess, plus our lunch of course.  Please make sure you send nut-free snacks and lunches.

During third block, we had our first Art class.  We discussed the difference between portrait and landscape.  To make our art today, we were going to use portrait style because we are making Lego People.  This helps discuss concepts of line and shape to make forms.  This is the video we were learning from:

Lego Person Self-Portrait

Soon, we will be adding their face and hair to make it unique to themselves.  Here are some samples we referred to:

Lego Hair

Lego Faces

During fourth block, the class watched a Mystery Doug science video.  We normally will be watching this on Mondays, but the Lego video was too good to ignore today.  Here is a link to the video.

How were LEGO bricks invented?

Then they had French class with Mme Faly.  Last block will be their regularly scheduled time for French.  If you would like to take a peek at our day schedule so far, I have included a link at the top of the sidebar on this page (you will have to be on a web browser to view).

Whew!  That is a lot!  I won't be posting so much every day, but did want to give a good idea what we have been doing.   It usually will be posted two times a week before 5:30 pm, hopefully earlier, but it depends on my schedule after school.  Still lots of driving to help out my own family!  See you all tomorrow!