Dear Families,
It’s my first post for February! Where did those
5 months go?! I can still vividly remember seeing your child’s
bright smile enter Grade One :) I look
forward to our next five months of purposeful, passionate, and peaceful
learning together! I hope you have a wonderful weekend with your
loved ones and enjoy fun, interactive ways to enjoy this cool, crisp winter! If you’re planning on attending the “Winterama”
have a blast! I know some of my students
have been ‘buzzing’ about their upcoming experience with this and they’re
already eager to be writing about it in their Writer’s Workshop notebooks on
Monday! The enthusiasm I have received from
various students for writing is heart soaring for me J
Honesty
Recipients:
 |
| Congratulations Cassius & Ashlee! |
On Monday, we honoured and celebrated January’s
Character Trait of Honesty as a school family. Congratulations to Ashlee
and Cassius for being recognized for displaying this trait. Please continue
being your truthful selves in and out of the classroom, your actions are making
a difference in our school. I know that your peers admire this
quality about you!
This month’s character trait is INCLUSIVENESS – “We invite everyone to play, we never turn anyone
away.” We are fortunate to be in a school culture that is
sensitive to the needs of others – staff and students work together to ensure
that we foster a community that is safe, strong, and free. This
being said, as your child’s teacher, I will continue to explicitly model,
guide, reinforce, and support inclusion so all my students feel a sense of
belonging.
Procedural Writing:
I have been saving this lesson for what seems like months,
but we’ve finally got to it! Mrs. Roth
bought some real corn on the cob for us (thank you so much for this) to make our very own popcorn in a brown
paper bag! I decided to link this
deliciousness with Procedural Writing.
First, I had shown the students the brown paper bag and they had to
predict what they thought we would be making.
They had to use their sense of hearing because I shook the bag. Many felt it was a rock as it made a thumping
sound. Then, I let each student gently
feel the outside of the bag and make a new prediction. Their answers varied a little bit. Next, we all washed our hands and I let the
students feel inside the bag and touch what was inside. Their predictions changed significantly from
the beginning. A lot of students guessed
correctly – corn on the cob! Finally, I
let students see quickly in the bag and their predictions were confirmed.
One of my students said even said, “Miss Gill I still think it is corn on the cob,
but it looked black, so are we making rotten popcorn?” I had to chuckle a wee bit here because the
corn was deep red as opposed to yellow ;) I
revealed the contents and there was a huge “HOORAY” when everyone saw that we
were making POPCORN together!!!
But! Before we could get to this stage, as a whole class, we
wrote a Procedure by writing down a title,
the goal, a list of materials, and the steps/instructions. I have taken a few photographs of this
process, please enjoy!
 |
| Making a Prediction: "What's in the brown paper bag?" |
 |
| We predict it's a rock and we will make a rock pet with it!!" |
 |
| "After we felt inside, we know it's a cob of corn Miss Gill!!" |
This was such an engaging and FUN lesson! Ask your child
over the weekend what their predictions were when they did a knee-knee, eye-eye with a partner about what they thought we were going to make at the beginning, middle, and end. I also encourage
you to do some baking with your child and have them write a simple Procedure using my model (see photograph of my anchor chart for our Procedural Writing for "Making Popcorn"). They need to include the following components:
Title:
Goal:
Materials: You will need:
Steps:
 |
| We have our Procedure (recipe) ready! |
 |
| Put the corn in the microwave for two and a half minutes |
 |
| Waiting eagerly and patiently! |
 |
| Pop! Pop! Pop! We hear it Miss Gill :) YAY! |
 |
| We're ready to gobble our kernels! |
 |
| Yummy! *note: the students are quite rosy from their snowshoeing prior to this picture ;) |
 |
| We did it! |
 |
| Mmmmmdelicious! |
Measurement
Learning:
As we near the end of our Linear Measurement Unit, I had the
students work with a partner to use the metre stick as a benchmark to measure
objects in the classroom that were longer, shorter, and equal to 1 metre so
they get an understanding and gain the confidence when using this unit of measure. The toughest part was finding something that
was equal to 1 metre. We had FUN trying to
find this and many students were so, so close!
Karina and Kurtis measured the floor to our hand washing sink and it was
pretty close to a metre. Alexander found
that our classroom window was almost a metre.
I modelled putting a bunch of books together to get to 1 metre. We were close numerous times, but found
ourselves being 1-2cm longer or shorter than the metre J
On Thursday, we using links to measure around different
parts of our body. I taught the students
some big words such as “’Circumference, Vertical, and Horizontal lines.” They love when I use ‘big words’ like
these! Please reinforce this vocabulary
and their meanings at home.
 |
| Ava: "The magnetic strip is shorter than a metre." |
 |
| Conrad & Miika: "We are taller than a metre!" |
 |
| Emma & Brody: "The cabinet is longer than a metre." |
 |
| Jacob: "A metre is 100 centimetres!" |
 |
| Layla & Kaden: "One desk is shorter than a metre." |
 |
| Karina & Kurtis: "Miss Gill's chair is shorter than a metre." |
 |
| Daniel: "Miss Gill's wipe board is shorter than a metre." |
 |
| Our row of books are ALMOST 1 metre! |
 |
| Non-Standard Measuring Tool - links to measure AROUND things |
 |
| Cassius: "I estimate 13 links around my head." |
 |
| Brody & Emma are editing their findings on their measuring chart |
 |
| Alexander & Conrad: measuring around their wrists |
 |
| We always estimate (guess) first, then measure! |
 |
| Brody & Kaden: working together to measure from neck to wrist |
 |
| Conrad & Kaden: measuring from waist to foot |
Dance-A-Thon:
Keep those pledge sheets going! We will be having our groovin’ Dance-A-Thon
next Friday! All sheets are due to our
office prior to this please.
Quote:
“Always tell
the truth because if you don’t it only makes the problem bigger.” - by: Kaden's learning buddy Steven
Namaste,
Miss Gill
