Terry Fox Run Day!

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Today we ran our Terry Fox Run!  Room one ran 147 km. all together.  That is a greater
distance than from Calgary to Banff!  Wow!  Our training really paid off.
Have a great weekend!

Harvesting Day!

Here is just a brief update as I will be away this afternoon for an appointment.

This morning we harvested the garden from the sun circle.  We harvested potatoes, beets and carrots.  We had a gardening station and a washing station.  Next week we will be baking using the produce from our garden.  We will also be doing some counting and graphing to see what the quantity of our harvest was.

This afternoon we met our big buddies from Mr. Pedenko's class.  We walked the Terry Fox route with our big buddies so that we would know where we needed to run for tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the Terry Fox Run  We will need to make sure that we come to school with good running shoes and also a water bottle.  Our run will begin with a brief get together in the gym and then we will go outside.  The whole school will be running together.  It will be great!
We have been training very hard to build stamina for this day.

Today we began our day with centers.  After centers we worked to complete the title for our Goldenrod painting.  We gathered at the carpet go use the zoomy camera to observe in a zoomed in way, various seeds as well as the Goldenrod flower and leaves.  We looked up some facts about the Goldenrod.
We found out that:
- it can be used for medicinal tea
- the flowers make a good hair rinse, especially for blonds
- the flowers can be used in baking to add color to bread and pancakes.
- it can be used for a facial steam.
-  the flowers can be used for herbal baths.
-  the seeds can be used to thicken soup.

I hopefully, fixed the link to watch the youtube video on shapes and naming 3D shapes.  Just scroll back to yesterdays blog to view it.

Library Day!

We began our morning with centers.  When we met at the carpet we read a story called, "Pocket Mommy".  After the story we went to library.  Mrs. Kidd talked to us about the expectations in the library. She said that we could choose two books each week, as long as we remembered to bring our books back from home.

Mrs. Hamby brought in some seeds and seed pods from her walk on the weekend.  We looked at each plant and tried to figure out where the seeds were and what part of the plant held the seeds.  We looked at some grasses, sunflower, vetch plant, lantern plant, and pine cones.  When Mrs. Hamby shook the vetch pods the seeds made a sound like a little rattle, almost like a rattle snake.  We also read a new library book called, "The Bad Seed".

In math today we got a new math challenge at each table group.  One of our goals in math is to be able to name the 3D and 2D shapes that we build and use for our challenges.  Click on this link: Here is a video we have been watching to help us learn the names of the shapes


This afternoon we shared ideas about how to be a great citizen at Dr. Coffin School.  Here are our ideas.



















We are sending home a Terry Fox donation sheet.  Please only collect from friends and family as we do not want the kids to go door to door for donations.  Our school goal this year is to raise $1,600 dollars in donations for the Terry Fox Run.






Here is the link for the shape video

This week Payton, Satvik, Samantha, Solomon, Muhammed, Logan and Jared will help me write the Blog.

This morning we started our day by drawing a picture for our journal writing.  When we met at the carpet Mrs. Hamby had written about her weekend but she left out all the periods.  We had to try and decide where the periods needed to go.  We also talked about sharing an idea about Friday, Saturday and also Sunday if we were writing about our weekend.  This would help us come up with a few more sentences.  Then we went and wrote about our weekend.  We tried to make sure that we put a period at the end of each idea.

We had our math challenges, and tomorrow we will have another new challenge.


This afternoon we went outside for our Terry Fox training.  Our goal was four laps.  The Terry Fox run is only four more days away, Friday.  Please send in a voluntary toonie or loonie donation for the Terry Fox run.  You can send it in any day this week.  Each day some students from Mrs. Saunders class will come and check the donation box.  It is going to be warmer this week so please send a water bottle for our afternoon training time.

We made our last flag this afternoon.  It is going to be for our ideas on being a good citizen.  We had a conversation about what it means to be a responsible citizen.  We also talked about what the word citizen means and all the various ways that we may be a citizen.  Tomorrow we will share our ideas about how we can be responsible citizens in our classroom, school and community

I'm looking forward to meeting everyone at conferences.  If you have not already returned your yellow information sheet about your child please bring it with you to your conference.  This interview time is an opportunity for you to share some things about your child that you would like me to know to ensure a successful transition and school year for them. 

See you soon and have a great weekend!

This morning we sketched the Goldenrod plant in the Natureground.  It looks very tall and has a thick stem.  It bends over and has yellow flowers at the top.  The leaves are pointy and go all the way up the stem.  See if you can find it in our Natureground.  We talked about what plants and animals do to get ready for winter and then we watched a story called, "Bear Has a Story to Tell".    We saw a picture of the "Boss Grizzly Bear" in Banff.

In math today we worked on our shape challenges.  Tomorrow we will try a new challenge center.

This afternoon we worked very hard.  We worked on sharing our great student ideas and finishing our flags to hang up for display when you come to conferences.  We will show them to you when you come.

 In our Terry Fox training we tried to run or walk 4 laps today.  It was easy at first and then it got hard.  We are trying to build our stamina.

There is a notice coming home today about Fun Lunches.  Please check your child's backpack.

Library Day!

This morning we had a Student Teacher visitor from Mount Royal University.  His name is Mr. Docherty and he will be visiting in our classroom every Tuesday morning for ten weeks. 

Before recess today we worked on adding some more facts about Rose hips to our art journals.  Soon we will be ready to sketch a new plant in the Natureground.

This morning in math we began working on our shape and space center challenges.  We will go to the same center again tomorrow so that we can finish the challenge.

This afternoon we read a story called "I Call my Hand Gentle"  and then we traced our hands and cut them out.  We will be writing our ideas about being great students on our paper hands.  That was all we had time to do since Tuesday is a music day for us.  We go to music at 1:45 until 2:30.

In music we learned a new song and Mr. O'Reilly used the drum to keep the beat.  It was called up the river, down the river.  We had actions with the song.

In gym we practiced for the Terry Fox run and then we had a chance to go to the playground.

Today we got to go to library.  Tuesdays will be our library day.  We got to see the Book Fair books and we made a small wish list.  We will be bringing the wish list home.  We did not choose any books to take home today.  Mrs. Kidd said that the book fair will be open tomorrow during the barbecue and also Thursday and Friday for Face to Face Conferences.

The Welcome Back Barbecue is tomorrow night from 5:00 - 7:00.  That should be fun!

This week Joel, Lukas, Gavin, Yazmine, Georgie, Trinity, Maria and Ahmad are helping me write the blog.

This morning we began the day by drawing a picture about something that we did this weekend.
Before we wrote about our weekend we met at our small group carpet. We had to see if we could find all the mistakes in Mrs. Hamby's journal writing.  We found uppercase letters mixed into the words, messy printing, missing periods and even some spelling mistakes.  We helped her fix them.  Then we went and wrote in our journals about our weekend.

After recess this morning the grade ones had printing and we practiced the letter "Vv".

In math this morning we learned all about the new challenges this week in our math centers. Tomorrow we will get to practice them.  It will probably take two days to work through each challenge.

This afternoon we worked on our new flags for our "How to be a Great Student" ideas.   We used cool colors of tissue for this flag. The colors included light blue, dark blue, purple, violet, turquoise blue. Our friendship flags were warm colors.

For gym we trained for our Terry Fox run.  Our goal was to run three laps around the field.  When we finished we got to go to the playground.  We had some journal finish up time and we also did our class jobs before we went home.

*Remember to book your Face to Face conference time for Thursday evening or Friday morning.  Please check for availability online.

Today we created a weaving project made from twigs, yarn and natural objects gathered from the Whispering Woods.

We began by reading a book called, "Hands, Growing up as an Artist".  It's a story that shares about different types of handwork.  We discussed different types of handwork.  Some examples that the kids gave were; sewing, painting, paper folding, crafts, knitting and crocheting, gardening, building things and carving.

We chose our yarn color and had already gathered out twigs last week.  We began by weaving the yarn around our branch.  We watched a demonstration to see the technique.  After our snack break we went outside to gather the objects to weave in.

We will have the finished pieces on display this week when you come for conferences.

Have a great weekend!

This morning we learned some facts about the Wild Rose plant and the rose hips that it grows.
Some of the facts that we learned
1.  We learned that if you eat rose hips it will give you an itchy bottom.
2. You can use rose hips to make jelly, syrup, wine and tea.
3. You can use the petals to make oils, perfume and put them in salads and sandwiches.
4.  The petals taste a little bit like bubblegum.

We have added some of these facts to our watercolor painting in our art journals.  The grade ones will add three or more ideas and the grade twos will add five or more from the list that we made together.

This afternoon before we went to music we shared ideas about what makes a "Great Student".  We came up with many great ideas.  We will be sharing these ideas through another art project.  Here are the ideas that we came up with.

This afternoon in music we got a new music journal.  Mr. O'Reilly played his electric guitar.  We got to decorate our music journals today.  In gym we learned some line games.  One is called "Chicks, Chicks" and the other was called "Octopus Tag".

Reminder that tomorrow is Fresh Air Friday.  We will be doing some activities outside so please make sure that your child has the right clothing for the weather conditions.

One of the highlights of our day today was that we got to paint our rose hip sketches using watercolor paints.  We learned how to add a background to our painting as well as some of the watercolor techniques of blending and shading by adding more or less water into the brush.  Some of us added more details to our sketches before we started painting.

After recess the grade ones worked on practicing our printing for the letter "O" while the grade twos had solo book time.  We learned that we can turn the "magic c" into the letter "o" by completing the circle.  We are also trying to practice the size of our letters and making sure that they are sitting on the lines with spaces in between.

This afternoon we got to finish our friendship flags.  They will be hanging in the classroom when you come next week for conferences.  We will be able to show you the one that we made and the friendship idea that each of us chose.

Some of us got a little wet today since we didn't have the right outdoor clothing for the rain.  We still have to be outside even when it rains or snows for both recess and lunch time recess.  We will be aloud to stay inside only if the temperature drops to -20 so we have to make sure that we always have the right clothing for the weather that day.  Some of us still need to make sure that we bring indoor shoes to school so that we can help to keep the school clean.

*Please make sure that you return your welcome back barbecue notice, if you are coming, by Friday.

Each day we begin the morning with a literacy time.  This morning we introduced four centers to everyone.  They were:
1. Drawing, following the steps to compose a picture.
2. Building Geo shapes.
3. Working on a team puzzle.
4. Working on a team doodle art poster.
Once we have the routine established the centers will continue to change and when we are ready we will begin to have guided reading groups in this time.

Following centers we went outside to begin our research of plants.  We are beginning our plant research and becoming junior botanists.  This morning we went outside to sketch the rose hips on the wild rose bushes in Whispering Woods.  Tomorrow we will paint them and then learn some facts about them.

After recess the grade ones had printing practice, the magic "c".  The grade twos had solo book time.
 For math today we had math centers that helped us discover more about shapes.

After lunch we worked on our friendship flags.  We are sharing our ideas about being a good friend on our friendship flags.  They will be hanging in our classroom when we are done.
We had our first music class with Mr. O'Reilly today.  We sang some songs and he played us his bass guitar and another guitar.  We look forward to our next class on Thursday.

We also had our first fire dill practice today.  Mrs. Polski said we did really well!  We cleared the school out in 75 seconds.  Wow!

Have a great evening!

    Welcome to the room one blog.  We will be using this blog to communicate things that we are doing in the classroom as well as reminders throughout the year.  We usually compose the blog with students as a way for them to share about their learning and their day.  This gives them a voice and allows them to highlight things that are important to them as well.  We hope that you look at the blog daily as a way to stay in touch with what is happening in the classroom.  This also provides you with a way of beginning a conversation about the day and allows you to ask specific questions to gather more information.  We hope that you enjoy it!