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!