Welcome Back!

It has been a fantastic week of learning with our amazing Grade One students!   


Looking Back


We have been busy learning the routines of Grade One over the past week. There are many new things to get used to! The students have been doing an excellent job adapting to the schedule and we wouldn’t be surprised if they are pretty tired at the end of the day for the first few weeks!


This week we have been focusing on printing our name “the grade one way” with a capital letter at the beginning and the rest lowercase. We encourage you to practice printing their name this way when they are writing it at home. 


We hope you discovered a small book in your child’s backpack today with the sounds and words we have been learning about this week. Please keep this book at home and review the letter sounds and words by reading the book together. A small book like this will come home at the end of the week for the next several weeks while we review and practice letter sounds and learn new “heart” words (part of the word will need to be learned “by heart” rather than sounding it out). This week, our focus was on the sounds /t/, /a/, /b/, and /h/ and the words ‘is’ and ‘for.’ Thank you for reviewing and practicing these with your child at home. 


In Math, we have been representing the number for each day of school. During our calendar routine, we are talking daily about how many days of school we have had and the different ways we could represent or show that number (e.g. tally marks, 10 frame, number word, etc.).  Ask your child to tell you one or two ways they can show a number (hint: we call them out during our number body break!) We read a story called “Chrysanthemum” and talked about the number of letters in our name. We built our names out of blocks and compared the length of our names with a friend in the class. We also built a graph with our names to show the lengths of all of the names in the class. Can you guess which block tower represents your child’s name?


Mrs. Webber’s class:





Mrs. Janisse’s class:



This year we will be talking about the Seven Grandfather teachings which are the basic values important to some indigenous groups. There are seven core values that are represented by an animal. This month our focus will be on courage which is represented by the bear. We watched a video explaining the story behind the teachings and we did a journal page and drew a picture of something that would show courage. 



In Social Studies, we have been getting to know each other and are learning that we are all unique. We drew a picture of ourselves on the first day of school in our visual journal and did a page in our visual journal this week about the things we like. Today in your child’s folder, you will find an All About Me bag. Please help your child to fill this bag with 4 items that tell about them. They may bring it in any day next week. Some examples of things they might put in their bag are: a picture of their family, something that represents their pet or favourite stuffy (e.g. a collar or a photo or a picture they have drawn), something that represents a favourite activity (e.g. a wooden spoon if they love baking or a hockey puck if they play hockey).  Please help them to prepare to share their items with the class (they can just show each item and tell why it is important to them). We will be sharing about 3 or 4 bags per day.  All items will be returned, however they may need to stay at school for a few days, so please do not send a favourite stuffy they need for bedtime, etc. 


Looking Ahead


Library: Our library day is Tuesday. We have already visited the library this week and we brought home our first book on Tuesday. Please return library books by Monday or Tuesday in order for your child to be able to sign out a book the following week. 


Please send your child with a water bottle everyday. Water is the preferred beverage for school. 


You may have seen a ziplock bag in your child’s backpack this week. This will be used as a communication bag to send things to and from school. Please send this to school everyday, even if it is empty.

 

Birthday Celebrations:

We enjoy recognizing your child’s birthday as close to the date as we can.  Please do not send in treats to share with others on your child’s birthday.  Instead, we would love to celebrate by reading a book of your child’s choice on or close to their birthday.  If your child’s birthday falls in July or August, we will decide on a date in June to celebrate their birthday.  


Scholastic Book orders - This year all ordering is done online. The monthly flyers we send home are just a small sample of what is offered and there is tons more on the website. If you would like to order please use our class codes as we get free books for our classroom!

Mrs Webber’s code is RC227782

Mrs Janisse’s code is RC208539


If you need to contact us for any reason, the best way is through email.  

Mrs. Janisse: lajanisse@cbe.ab.ca

Mrs. Webber: gjwebber@cbe.ab.ca


We look forward to partnering with you and your child this year!





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