December News

Beginning in January, your child will bring home a different bag each week with an activity related to one of the five strands of Mathematics.  The bags will be sent home on Mondays and need to be returned on Fridays for reorganization.  I am sure you will find the activities enjoyable; they are designed for you to do WITH your child. Your child will need your guidance to play the enclosed game or complete the activity.  There is also a journal for you and your child to respond in after you complete the activity.  I have found this activity to be very rewarding with my own children – math is REALLY a lot of FUN!  If you wish to opt out of this activity, please let me know before December 23^rd.  We will begin on January 10^th.

Spelling contracts will continue to be sent home on Mondays as well so your child can practice the words we are focusing on during our Working With Words time during our Literacy block.

The Take Home Reading Program is another important opportunity for your child to practice reading that will continue throughout the school year. 

Critical Learning Pathway

Our next focus for our ‘critical learning pathway’ will be the reading expectation:

By the end of Grade One, students will begin to identify, with support and direction, the speaker and the point of view presented in a text and suggest a possible alternative perspective.

In the Language curriculum, the following teacher prompts are suggested,

“Who is talking in this story?”

“Would the story be different if someone else were talking?”

“What is the author telling us about this topic?”

Specific information about this reading expectation, how to help your child with supporting reading strategies, and how your child will be assessed at the end of our unit will be forthcoming. In the meantime, the teacher prompts are excellent suggestions of questions you can begin to ask your child when reading together. If your child is initially unable to respond, please model for him/her. For example, when listening to your child retell our story-bit story, The Paper Bag Princess, ask what you think the dragon would say after he flies around the world.

Agendas

Please check your child’s agenda daily and encourage your child to be responsible for bringing it to school everyday. I check the agendas every morning for communication from home. I also use the agenda as a means of communicating with you.  The children are starting to record reminders themselves now, too.

Reminders

December 3 Crazy Hat/Hair Day

December 10 Twin Day (dress up like a friend)

December 13 evening performance of A Christmas Carole (6:00 – 7:15pm)

December 14 matinee performance of A Christmas Carole (1pm)

December 15 Dairy Farm presentation

December 17 Forestview Spiritwear / Pajamas Day

December 22 Learning With Logan – baby visit

December 23 Celebration/Awards Assembly @ 9:15am and our last day of classes until January 10, 2011

Character Education

The character trait we will be learning more about and celebrating at our next awards

assembly is RESPECT.  We show respect for the various cultures and celebrations that the month of December brings to our Forestview community.

Cold Weather Reminders

I know I sound like a broken record but the cold, snowy weather is imminent!  We have two 20-minute sessions outside each day so it essential that your child come prepared with warm, winter boots, snow pants, a hat, and mittens.

Please send your child with an extra pair of mittens and socks to keep in his/her backpack as these items often get wet and do not dry before the second fitness break.  Our playground does not have very much protection from the wind, so snowpants and a hat are ‘a must’ for keeping warm outdoors.

Please remember to send your child with a pair of ‘indoor shoes’ to wear while inside the school. 

Congratulations to

our Grade One Award Recipients for November!

Grace – Achievement Award

Anthony – Effort Award

Ashwaq – Character Award - courage



Vote for Woodend

The outdoor education site at Woodend has advanced to the Aviva Community Fund Semi-Final Round! Your votes can help us make the Woodend Living Campus a reality! Please visit the D.S.B.N. website today and register so you can vote for Woodend everyday until December 15th.

How to vote:
1. Visit http://www.dsbn.org/
2. Click on the Woodend link
3. Create a log-in
4. Check your email for confirmation

Please help us by voting everyday!

Pumpkin, Pumpkin - song on YouTube

I came across this lovely rendition of one of our 'story-bit' stories on YouTube! Your child may enjoy this as a "Listen to Reading/Singing" activity at home.

Our latest COMPREHENSION strategy - INFER and support with evidence

We have been learning about the reading strategy "infer and support with evidence". We have been using the hilarious books by David Shannon, No, David, David Gets in Trouble, and David Goes to School to learn how to infer.

I love the explanation that Susan Zimmerman and Chryse Hutchins provide in their book, 7 Keys to Comprehension (I highly recommend this book!):
Inferring involves forming a best guess about what the "evidence" (words, sentences, and [pictures]) means; speculating about what's to come; and then drawing conclusions about what was read to deepen the meaning of the literal words on the page. (97)

Each day we have examined a phrase from one of David Shannon's books and "APE-d our answer".
A - answer (we write what we inferred)
P - proof (we provide our evidence from the text and pictures)
E - experience (we write about our own experiences/schema about the inferred situation)

Have a look at one of our charts:

Word Safari Game

If you have a computer-savvy child who would like to try a new game to practice word wall words, here is one to try. I had my 'reluctant' word worker son, Noah, try it on the weekend. He enjoyed it and asked to play it again, so it's worth a try.

Unfortunately, the words are presented in upper case letters only. The font is a little unusual, too.  However, it is important for the children to get used to seeing different fonts.

Have fun playing The Word Safari Game!

November News

Thanks to all the families that helped put together their child’s timeline. I don’t send home many projects as I like to the see the children’s work completed at school. However, this particular project needed parental support and assistance so “THANK YOU”! Your continued support for your child’s learning makes an incredible difference.  Please continue to practice high frequency “lightning” words with your child on a regular basis.  Reading every evening for 20 minutes has a dramatic effect on your child’s development as a reader – it benefits him/her in so many ways from attitudinal to vocabulary development and comprehension – it is one of the most effective things you can do for your child!

We are in the ‘home stretch’ of our first ‘Critical Learning Pathway’ in which we focused on Demonstrating Understanding.  At the beginning of this unit, I did a diagnostic assessment which revealed that the Grade One students really needed to work on this area of reading comprehension. Most of the students scored a Level 1 or were not placed at a level on the rubric when initially assessed. I will be sending home their final summative assessment task and your child’s results to you when it is completed. Please continue to support your child’s efforts to retell fictional stories and non-fictional information throughout the school year. The ‘story-bit’ bag will continue to be filled and sent home on a regular basis.

I will continue to update our classroom blog, so please keep checking in. I try to show photos of what we are doing in Mathematics, as most of what we do is “hands-on” using a variety of manipulatives. I will also try to post ‘exemplars’ from our pathway culminating task, when they are available. Our ‘anchor chart’ is currently posted.

Congratulations to the recipients of our October awards in Grade One.

Sierra – Achievement

Savanna – Effort

Olivia - Cooperation

Cold Weather Reminders

The cold weather is coming!  We have two 20-minute sessions outside each day, so it essential that your child come prepared with warm, winter boots, snow pants, a hat, and mittens.  On snowy days, it is a good idea to have a second set of mittens packed. 

Dates to Note

November 11

We will be having a Remembrance Day assembly in our gymnasium at 10:00.  Families are welcome to join us.

November 19

This day is an Early Release Day Classes are cancelled for students in the afternoon.  This time has been set aside for parent-teacher interviews.

Special Notes /

Questions from Parents

Pizza tickets are sold as a sheet of tickets for $20. You can send money anytime to purchase these in the school office.

Mrs. Worrall’s class makes and sells fresh muffins for 50 cents every Monday during the first nutrition break. If your child wishes to purchase one, please send money on Mondays only.

Miss Darling has also asked me to pass along to parents a request for the children to wear short sleeves on gym days. She also said that if children wish to change into ‘gym clothes’ they may do so as well.

Thank You to Our Volunteers

I would like to thank our Educational Assistant, Mrs. Morton, Grace’s mom, Olivia’s mom, and Levi’s mom for accompanying the class to the Great Pumpkin Patch.  We had a great time learning about the growth cycle of the pumpkin plant from Farmer Anne and Mrs. Scarecrow.

I would also like to thank Mrs. Grimo who continues to donate her time every Thursday morning to listen to the children read their Take Home reading selections. We appreciate all her help in making this program successful!

Mrs. Palmer and Baby Logan also visited us this past month to kick off our “Learning with Logan” program. This program is similar to the Roots of Empathy program that is delivered in some DSBN schools and throughout Canada.

I would like to meet and talk with everyone once the progress report is sent home. I hope you will keep in mind that this report reflects only the first 8 weeks of Grade One. Your child will receive his/her first comprehensive report card that is reflective of a full term of learning at the beginning of February.

Have a wonderful November!

The Great Pumpkin Patch

On Monday, we had a fantastic time on our first field trip of the year! We visited The Great Pumpkin Patch in Fenwick. Bry-Anne Farms did a wonderful job of entertaining the children.
First, we enjoyed a dramatic presentation which explained the life cycle of the pumpkin plant in the barn. We even listened to a walking and talking scarecrow!

Next, we walked through a corn maze and a straw maze led by Farmer Bryan.

Then, we boarded the wagon and rode through the muddy fields to the pumpkin patch!

Finally, we picked a pumpkin and then headed back to the farm. Our bus driver, Mr. Peter, brought us back to Forestview.

We spent the afternoon doing "Pumpkin Math" with our pumpkins.
Did you know that pumpkins float? We used a new math term, "circumference" when we measured around the 'belly' of our pumpkins. We counted the spines on our pumpkins and represented the number on our 10-frames.

Anchor Charts

Anchor charts are created as a class so that the criteria for a particular skill is accessible to the students. Here are a couple of examples of anchor charts in our class.

This first anchor chart is posted above the whiteboard in the center of the classroom. It is a very simple EDITING CHECKLIST for the students to use when writing sentences. All our sentences need to have an upper case letter at the beginning, spaces between the words, and punctuation in place at the end.


Another anchor chart that the students should be accessing is our criteria for RETELLING. This is a good anchor chart for parents to check when listening to your child retell his/her story-bit story or Take Home reading book.

Good retelling (of a fiction story) should:

• tell the important events
• tell the events in the right order
• use sequencing words—First, Next, Then, Last that makes it easier for a listener or reader to understand
• tell what the problem is (at the beginning of the retell)
• tell what the solution is (at the end of the retell)
• what you learned from the story or the main idea

What's Up in Mathematics

Last week we started our Patterning unit. We are primarily focusing on repeating patterns in this unit. We have been working on identifying the pattern core and articulating the pattern rule when we extend, create, and translate repeating patterns. Keep up the great work, Grade Ones!

October 2010 Room 55 News

It was great to meet everyone at the Open House/BBQ last month. The children did a great job showing you around the classroom and practicing introductions. This meeting time was somewhat brief, so if you would like to meet with me to discuss your child’s adjustment to school and/or progress to date, please contact me. The children continue to settle in and are starting to do a better job with our classroom routines. We have also started to build our classroom community through TRIBES. Our school wide character trait focus this month will be “Cooperation”.

Three students in our class were recognized at our September Celebration Assembly for their accomplishments this past month at Forestview. Way to go!
Stefan Achievement Award
Sydney Effort Award
Griffin Character Trait Award - Optimism

Home Connections in Grade One
A list of five sight words will continue to be sent home on Mondays for your child to practice and learn. Thank you for all your support this past month in working with your child on learning to read and write these words. Our goal is to be able to recognize these words with automaticity. These words are expected to be spelled correctly in all of your child’s written work.

Take Home Reading Program
It is imperative that your child practice reading every night. Your support of this program has a significant effect on your child’s achievement. The “star reading strategies” we are focusing on are:
 Use the pictures

 Activate your schema / Think of what you know

 Sound it out

 Retell the story / Summarize

 Make a connection

As a parent, you can encourage your child to make various connections around reading: text to self, text to text, and text to world. This will help your child become aware of the background knowledge that s/he already has and learn how to build his/her background knowledge.

Text to Self: With text-to-self connections, what you read reminds you of something from your own life. Often text-to-self connections carry a strong emotional charge. Making an emotional connection helps us remember what we read.

Text to Text: With text-to-text connections, what you read reminds you of something else you have read or seen on television or at the movies.

Text to World: When text-to-world connections are made, what you read reminds you of something in the broader world.

Children learn by relating their understanding of something new to what they already know. They need to process what they are reading, to talk about it, write about it, to ponder it. A child is much more apt to remember stories, books, and incidents that are meaningful because they connect to other things in his/her life. (Zimmermann and Hutchins, 43-70)

D.P.A.
Your child may have mentioned his/her participation in D.P.A. This refers to our “Daily Physical Activity”. In accordance with the Policy/Program Memorandum No. 138, “Daily Physical Activity in Elementary Schools, Grades 1-8,” October 6, 2005, I have scheduled 20 minutes of sustained moderate physical activity each school day. In order to help me in implementing this program, please ensure that your child has appropriate shoes for participating in D.P.A. each day as well as the days noted on the calendar when Miss Darling takes the children to the gymnasium for Physical Education.

Special Events
We will be focusing on the Language expectations, “Demonstrating and Extending Understanding” throughout the month of October. To compliment our literacy and science units, we will be visiting The Great Pumpkin Patch in Fenwick on October 25th. At Bry-Anne Farms, we will see a dramatic presentation which will highlight the life cycle of the pumpkin plant. As part of our culminating tasks, the students will be RETELLING the important facts in sequence.
On October 29, the children are invited to wear their costumes to school in the afternoon. We can bring our costumes in our backpacks to change into after the 2nd nutrition break. Although we will reserve the eating of treats for October 31st, we will have some fun “Pumpkin Math” activities to do for this occasion.

Welcome to Room 55!

What an amazing first week we had together in Room 55! The children are gradually settling in and getting accustomed to a full day of learning. We are currently reviewing letters and sounds to help us when reading and writing. We have just started to write our "memoirs".

In mathematics, we are working on Number Sense and Numeration while counting our days together.

We will also bring our STORY BIT BAG home this weekend for the first time. We will retell the familiar story, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Be sure to read the enclosed information in your child's bag. The bag and its contents should be returned once your child has practiced RETELLING the story several times.

I am looking forward to meeting families on Tuesday!

Let's Keep Sharp Over the Summer!

The children have worked so hard this year! Many of them were non-readers when they entered Grade One and are now reading at grade level or beyond! It is so exciting! In order to keep their skills sharp, it is very important NOT TO STOP during the summer hiatus. I found lots of amazing suggestions to make reading and learning fun at this site - so I hope you will check it out. Make learning over the summer part of your family's culture.

BookPals - Book Chats Through Letter Writing

A few weeks ago, we mailed our introductory letters to our BOOKPALS at Ontario Public School. Both classes were enjoying the same 'read-aloud' chapter book by Roddy Doyle, The Giggler Treatment. We wrote letters to discuss the book with another Grade One student.

The reading strategy, 'visualize' was focused on as we tried to imagine what the Gigglers look like. What a fun and engaging book! We often referred to the glossary to better understand some the terms used by the author. The Irish refer to some things differently than we do in Canada!

What is your favourite Blue Spruce book?

We have been listening to AND reading the books that have been nominated for this year's BLUE SPRUCE AWARD. We will be voting officially in April. Our school library AND our classroom library has copies of these books. If you would like to learn more about these books, check them out at the Forest of Reading website.

During Literacy Work Stations, we have started to complete story responses to each of the books in our Blue Spruce Memory Books. Watch for more postings of student and staff favourites! Remember to vote here, too!

Just so you know...

Tomorrow (Thursday, March 4) our school is hosting a Healthy Living Carousel from 5 - 7pm. This will be a great opportunity to find out more about services provided in our community that help promote a healthy lifestyle. I'll see you there!

Just so you know...

Our February Celebration Assembly will be held on Monday, March 1 at 9:15 am in our gymnasium. We will recognize students for Achievement, Effort, and the character trait, Perseverance. We hope that you can join us!

Measuring a Metre

We have started our Measurement Unit by closely checking out our metre stick. One of the expectations in Grade One is to use the metre as a benchmark for measuring length, and compare the metre with non-standard units. We estimated how many snap cubes it would take to make a metre. There were a variety of guesses (ranging from 7 to 1000). A couple of math-magicians guessed 50 AND they were very close!

How many snap cubes did it take to make a metre when we played On the Metre Mark?

One of our students came up with a brillant way to keep track of his counting! He put a red cube at every 10th cube. That way, he and his 'math buddy' could count by 10's when they were counting to the metre mark!

The 100th Day of Grade One!

We had a great time sorting our collections into ten groups of ten! There was a great assortment of collections - balls, pennies, UNO cards, cinnamon heart candies, beans, shells, buttons, et cetera. We enjoyed a special treat that created the numeral 100 before we gobbled it up!

Sometimes we were surprised that there were actually 100 objects in our bags. We had read a poem - 100 Is A Lot! - but sometimes it doesn't look like a lot to us.

Just so you know...

-children have been asked (in the February newsletter) to bring a box to school. It will be used as a 'valentine' mailbox - we are starting to paint these on Wednesday!
-the Grade 8 students are selling 'candy-grams' for 50 cents during nutrition breaks; they are trying to raise money for their year-end trip.
-Thursday is the 100th day of Grade One!
-Friday is an early release day - a note from the office was sent home today (Tuesday).
-Monday, February 15 is Family Day - no school!
-our log-in for Bitstrips is "writeon" - your child is welcome to use this site at home, too!

Analysing Texts

During our Literacy block, we have been working diligently on identifying the main idea and a few elements of texts (setting, characters, problem/solution in fictional books). Today we compared and contrasted fiction and non-fiction books. We discussed several of the text features that we found in the non-fictional books that we looked at with our 'elbow partners'. The non-fiction books often had: fact boxes, photographs, labelled diagrams or photographs, headings with bold font, and glossaries, table of contents, and indexes.

We will be starting to write our own DESCRIPTIVE REPORTS about sea turtles. Today we wrote what we think we know about sea turtles and then read some facts about them to see if we were right. We confirmed some information and discovered some new facts. We have more investigation to do!

Not a Shadow in Sight!

Today we discussed Groundhog Day and spent a few extra minutes outside during fitness break looking for our shadows. There wasn't a shadow in sight!
Wiarton Willie may have seen his shadow this morning, but none of the Forestview Falcons were able to see their shadows today!

Procedural Text Celebration

To celebrate the end of our Procedural/Instructional Writing unit, we made our own ice cream on Friday. We followed the directions from the Big Book, Making Ice Cream, from Literacy Place. We had to reach a consensus in our tribes about which flavour we wanted to make. Most of us chose chocolate! We wore our mittens to keep our hands warm while rolling the bag of ice and salt. Most of kept out mittens on to eat our ice cream, too!

Retelling Helps Comprehension

This Friday, the children will be bringing home their "story-bit bags" and retelling the Robert Munsch classic, 50 Below Zero. We have been discussing how identifying story elements (setting, characters, problem, and solution) and retelling the story helps us understand what we read. Please help your child by prompting him/her to identify these story elements once s/he has retold the story to you. Ask about the significance of the 'story-bit' or souvenir from the story. If you would like to hear the story told/read by Robert Munsch himself, check out his fantastic website. We have been listening to him read his stories while at the Listen to Reading Work Station.

Just so you know...

-Take Home Reading bags are going home this Monday, instead of Tuesday.
-Pasta orders are due this Tuesday - pasta is served on Friday during the 2nd nutrition break
-Wednesday is Family Literacy Day - we are "kicking off" the Olympics with a rally in the morning. We are invited to wear red and/or white to show our Canadian Olympic spirit! Families are also invited to join us at 2:30 in our classroom for Literacy Work Stations!
-our new tutor from Brock University, Miss Basit, has started to work with small groups of students on Wednesdays during our Literacy block

Family Literacy Day

On January 27, parents are invited to join us for the last period of the day (2:30 - 3:20) to see the children engaged in Literacy. We will be practicing the Daily 5 (Read to Self, Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, Work on Writing, and Word Work) during Literacy Work Stations. We hope that you can come and visit Room 55!

My Mathematics Programme

Get Ready to Mathematize!

If you would like to read the Grade One Mathematics curriculum, copies can be borrowed from our school office or you view it on-line at http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/ and print your own copy to keep. My approach to teaching mathematics is outlined below to give you an idea of what your child will be doing during our daily Mathematics block.

I model my Grade One mathematics program on our school board’s Math Matrix initiative as well as the work of Cathy Fosnot and Marian Small. I provide problem solving experiences from which children develop essential skills in mathematics. I am also very fortunate to be a participant in a professional learning group known as, S.U.M. which is an acronym for Supporting Understanding in Mathematics.

There are five strands of Mathematics – Number Sense and Numeration, Patterning and Algebra, Measurement, Geometry, and Data Management and Probability. Number Sense and Numeration is the strand of mathematics which I teach and review every day. An understanding of numbers and our numerical system are of great importance. Children generally have difficulty understanding the other strands of Mathematics if they are struggling with Number Sense. A variety of concepts and understandings will be explored and evaluated for report cards twice during Grade One. Number Sense and Numeration will be evaluated and reported every term.

Assessment and Evaluation
I use a variety of ways to assess children’s abilities to problem solve as well as their knowledge of basic math skills. A portfolio of your child’s pencil and paper activities is maintained throughout the year. This collection of your child’s work will be shared with you at each teacher/parent conference. More importantly, I make anecdotal records (observations) of your child in which I document the strategies and approaches your child is using to solve problems. A great deal of our work in mathematics is demonstrated through hands-on activities with a variety of manipulatives or tools. Therefore, whenever possible, I try to include photographs of your child’s demonstration. Problem solving is rarely done in isolation or individually. Children are encouraged or required to work with a partner; this is another reason that I often rely on my observations of the process your child is using to ‘mathematize” to document his/her progress. I also use exemplars (samples of students’ work at each level) to assess and evaluate your child’s progress in mathematics.

My Literacy Programme

If you would like to read the Grade One Language curriculum, copies can be borrowed from our school office or you view it on-line at http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/ and print your own copy to keep. Learning to read is one of the greatest achievements your child will accomplish in Grade One. I have outlined my literacy program to give you an idea of what your child will be doing on a daily basis.

I model my Grade One literacy program on our school board’s early literacy initiative, Windows of Opportunity as well as Gail Boushey and Joan Moser’s Literacy CAFÉ model. This framework provides a variety of reading and writing experiences from which children develop literacy skills.

Each day your child will be Working With Words, have Supported Reading, Supported Writing, and Teacher Read-Aloud and Self-Selected Reading time.

During Working With Words, your child will be participating in activities that will introduce and/or reinforce concepts of print, phonemic awareness, letter recognition, letter formation, sound/symbol connections, sight words, decoding, and spelling.

As the year progresses, we will have portions of our literacy block devoted to Teacher Read-Alouds, Shared Reading, Guided Reading, and Self-Selected Reading. During Teacher Read-Alouds, I introduce and model the reading strategies that the children will be learning. I “think aloud” during these lessons so I can teach the children how to “think as they read.” As reading strategies are introduced, we add them to our “CAFÉ menu” that is posted in our classroom. A list of the ‘star reading’ strategies that we will be learning about are listed at the end of this post.
Shared Reading is a strategy in which the children “share” in the reading with my guidance. We read chart stories, poems, ‘morning message’, and “Big Books” together during this time.
Small group instruction at your child’s level occurs during Guided Reading. We practice the strategies taught during Read-Alouds and Shared Reading together. It is during this time with your child, that I can monitor how well s/he is applying the strategies and coach her/him to use what s/he knows. The children practice literacy skills at Literacy Work Stations in small groups, with a partner, or independently while I work with small groups and conference with individual students.

Our Supported Writing block involves the children in writing activities during Interactive Writing in addition to Focused Writing and Writer’s Workshop. Listening and speaking plays an extremely important role in acquiring literacy. I do have a “show and tell” time in my Grade One program. However, we regularly have “buzz groups” in which the children are involved in structured listening and speaking activities. These activities are frequently excellent precursors to writing pieces. Your child will be asked to share oral retelling of our favourite stories this year with you. Look for the ‘story bit bag’ that will be send home periodically throughout Grade One. The monthly calendar denotes when this will be visiting your home and when it should be returned to school. Our class mascot will also visit your home this year for one week.

Poetry is another important genre that I use in my literacy program. I use poetry to encourage your child to reread and develop fluency. We look forward to seeing you at our Poetry Café in Term 3!

Assessment and Evaluation
I use a variety of ways to assess children’s reading and writing abilities. Your child will be keeping a reading and writing portfolio this year. These important collections of your child’s work will be shared with you at each teacher/parent conference. I also make anecdotal records (observations) of your child, take running records of your child’s reading, use rubrics based on the Grade One Reading and Writing curriculum expectations, and use exemplars (samples of students’ work at each level) to assess and evaluate your child’s progress.