How To Blow A Bubble

This reporting period, our Language Arts writing goals focused mainly on informational writing. First we worked on our non-fiction penguin themed writing. Once our penguin theme unit ended, we moved onto procedural writing in the form of "How To" booklets. To kick off our procedural writing unit, I searched through Pinterest looking for ideas that the students would find fun and engaging. I came across the cutest activity that required the kids to write the instructions for blowing a bubble. The fact that they got to chew bubblegum in class had them hooked immediately. Our "How To Blow a Bubble" writing and craftivity turned out great. They were on display in the hallway until today.

The bubblegum writing activity turned out so well that I immediately knew any other procedural writing activity needed to be as hands-on as possible. So that is exactly what we did! Over the last two weeks, students were partnered-up with another class member. Each group was given an envelope containing pictures that could be manipulated to "make" whatever product they were writing "How To" instructions for. There were 10 different products in total and each student completed approximately 6 activities each. I wish we could have completed all ten activities, but with the terrible round of the cold and flu which hit our school, it was nearly impossible. Let's hope that it is all behind us now!

(*if you are another teacher reading this post, I highly suggest you check out this resource. It is amazing. Just click here .)

This is an example of the "How To Make A Pizza" packet.

Grade one students manipulated the pieces to make the product, then sequenced the steps using transitional words as well as completing a cut and paste activity. Grade two students completed a sequencing activity but then wrote the instructions out, including transitional words, rather than the cut and paste portion. The students loved this unit and their procedural writing as well as their reading skills certainly improved. Tomorrow, we will be publishing our favourite "How To " activity to display in the hallway along with a cute craftivity.

In other news... 

Anti-bullying Day was successful. Check out our classroom full of pink shirts.

-Mrs. Singh



Last Week Peek

I have a bunch of videos and photos to post today, so I will let the pictures do most of the talking.

Physical Education

We were so successful improving our hula hooping skills that we have now moved onto skipping. This is one talented group of kids. Check out our moves.....

 

Every Friday, the entire school meets in the gym to participate in our school wide Health Hustle lead by Mrs. Tarnowski. Here's a peek inside our gym during last Friday's Health Hustle.....

 

 

Non-Fiction Writing

 

We are wrapping-up our study of penguins and non-fiction text features. We completed some amazing penguin reports, which are now on display on the bulletin board outside of our classroom. Come on down our hallway and take a look when you have a chance.

 

 

We also had a chance to integrate a lot of artwork into our penguin theme unit. Last week we were very fortunate to have Mrs. Barone working in our classroom. One of the amazing things about Mrs. Barone is that she is also an artist. She was able to share her artistic talents with us and we created some amazing pieces of artwork.

 

 

These penguins are just the cutest things I have ever seen.

 

We are also loving "Ready Freddy! The Penguin Problem" by Abby Klein. We only have two chapters left to read and we're eagerly awaiting to see how the story ends.

 

 

 

Math

 

After completing a very successful unit on place value skills, we decided to revisit even and odd numbers. Here is a cute bulletin board display that ties in perfectly to our new study of communities. The students created almost identical houses as well as some creative and colourful houses. The identical house were all given an even address whereas the colourful and creative houses were given an odd address. Welcome to Even and Odd Street.

 

 

Social Studies

 

Speaking of communities, last week's focus was on community helpers. We took the opportunity to improve our inferencing skills while learning about the people that work and contribute to the success of our community. Students were divided into groups of two and were assigned one community helper. We researched books and created clues about our special helper. The class then worked together to examine each of the clues and used their background knowledge (schema) to guess the community helpers.

 

 

This week, we will be learning about the changes that have taken place in our community. It will be fun to research and learn about what school was like for our grandparents.

 

Enjoy your evening!

-Mrs. Singh

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Place Value, Penguins and Hula Hooping

SNOW DAY!

 We spent a few extra minutes outside today to enjoy the small amount of flurries that accumulated on our school field. Wow, was it ever cold outside. Don't forget to bring your snow gear to school tomorrow,this includes your mittens and toques, just in case the cold weather keeps up.

Last week, we started making some New Years goals. They are all on display outside of our classroom. We will be working hard to accomplish these goals throughout the year.

In Math, we have been working on place value. We have been completing many hands-on activities to help us strengthen this important skill. One of our favourite and engaging activities we have completed are creating our initials with base ten blocks and recording the value.

We have also been learning a whole lot about penguins and non-fiction text features.

We are also creating our own non-fiction penguin reports. So far, we have written about how penguins look, where they live, what they eat, and about penguin families. My students favourite part has been learning about how the adult penguins regurgitate into the penguins chick's mouth to feed their baby. Totally gross but awesome at the same time!

Our non-fiction reports should be completed by next week and I can't wait to display all their learning and hard work.

Along with our study of penguins, we've been reading some works of fiction from the Tacky Penguin series. So far we've completed a Tacky the penguin craftivity, a Tacky descriptive writing assignment (adjectives) for the stories Tacky the Penguin and Tacky in Trouble. Tomorrow we'll be reading Three Cheers for Tacky and completing a few more writing activities based on the series.

Finally, in gym, we are learning to improve our hula hoop and skipping skills. I  was able to capture a few short videos that showcase some of our amazing hula hooping accomplishments. These kids are ROCK STARS!

The next two are some of the awesome tricks we have been practicing. The first one is hula hooping around the knees and the second one around the neck.

I cannot figure out how to change the position of the last two videos so you will have to view them sideways. If anyone knows how I can change this please let me know. I have tried everything.

Enjoy your evening. See you tomorrow!

- Mrs. Singh

Place Value, Penguins and Resolutions

Welcome Back! It was great to get back into the swing of things at school. We started the day off with a little New Years fun. Every hour on the hour we opened up a brown paper bag with a message, treat or activity for all of the students. It was our way of celebrating and counting down the day since we could not be could all be together on New Years Eve. At 9:00 we found new erasers for everyone in our first paper bag. At 10:00, our paper bag contained a silly message stating that we could work with our shoes off (this was, by far, our favourite). At 11:00 we found 20 sets of sparkly stickers to share with each other. At 12:00 we found another message encouraging us to chat with our friends. At 1:00 our paper bag contained sour keys for everybody to enjoy and finally at 2:00, another message giving us 20 minutes of free centre time. Not only was it fun and exciting waiting for each hour to roll around, it also gave us a little practice and review with telling time.

 

We also wrote some personal and school resolutions to work toward as we start the month of January. We read the story Squirrel's New Year's Resolution by Pat Miller, to help us better understand what is a resolution and why we make them. I found this video link of the story if you would like to hear it again.

 

 

In Math, we started learning about place value. We will be learning about the ones, tens, and hundreds place values for the next couple of weeks. This can be a difficult concept for some students to really grasp but we'll continue to practice it everyday. Here is a great place value song and video to reinforce what we will be learning in class.

 

 

Finally, in the afternoon we started our study of penguins. This theme unit will be part of our Science curriculum, however it will provide us with a ton of opportunities to learn about non-fiction text features and complete a whole lot of non-fiction informational writing. It should be a lot of fun since I also have some fun craftivities planned to incorporate as well.

 

Well, that's a little snapshot of our first day back.

See you tomorrow!

-Mrs. Singh