Happy Earth Day!

Dear families,

I hope you got my messages on Google Classroom last week. Unfortunately our day trip to Dufferin Grove was cancelled at the last minute as the teacher was ill. It will be rescheduled - I'll let you know when I hear. I also sent home some algebra that the kids were really into so that they could keep working on it, and you could see it. I used letters as variables and then made questions with them. If your students enjoy this, it's really easy to make your own questions. For example,

A=1, B=5, C=10

A + A = ?

C - B = ?

C + A - B = ?

Last week I finished up meeting with everyone to do a math check-up, and we continued with our math game centres. I added a few games that involved writing addition questions in our math journals using either playing cards, regular dice, or 12-sided dice to pick the numbers. Several students filled pages with questions and answers - very impressive, and good practicing!

We have gotten back into Social Studies for our second unit. This time we are focusing on the local community. We will be investigating important places in our community, and also developing some mapping skills. We began by brainstorming some places in our neighbourhood that we visit regularly. Students mentioned school, the grocery store, daycares, parcs, community centres, their homes, their friends' homes, and lots more. 

We have started into our first big project, which is to design our own city. I've provided some buildings to cut and paste, but students get to decide how to arrange their city and connect everything with roads. We have been talking about where things tend to be located, for example, you often find schools near houses, but the zoo is usually outside of town. We have also been noticing the symbols that are on certain buildings, for instance we know that medical buildings often have a cross or an H. We are pretty excited about this city designing project - still lots more work to do on this!

In language, we are beginning a unit on poetry. We will learn to write a few different kinds of poems, beginning with acrostic. Using a list of adjectives, students have already written a poem using their name, and many have begun one using a sibling's name.

You might have heard that we had an X-Movement workshop last Thursday. The instructors from X-Movement are always so engaging. We did some stretching and breathing exercises, danced along doing some very fun movements, and ended with a game of freeze dance. I think the kids were surprised how much fun they had, which is good, because we have two more workshops! These will be the next two Thursdays, and we really need to remember our indoor shoes on these days especially.

We finished off last week with Earth day. Here we are in our green, blue, brown, floral, camouflage and animal outfits! 

The kids were keen to keep as many lights off as we reasonably could (and still work), and we did a lovely Earth drawing on twice recycled paper, to prove (as we have again and again this year) that you can make cool stuff by reusing what would otherwise be thrown away.

Here are the prints from a couple weeks ago. They came home Friday.

Photo retakes are May 3rd. I haven't had any information so I suspect this is all done online now and that you have already received the first set of pictures. If you would like me to make sure your child goes for retakes, just let me know.

Joyeuses Pâques!

Dear families,

We had fun celebrating Easter yesterday by dyeing eggs! I really hope they all made it home in one piece (they are hard-boiled, but not for eating). I also had fun making a little Easter egg/toy hunt for the kids. They were so excited!

Everyone looked so nice for picture day on Tuesday. Unfortunately, a class picture was not included, so Mme Potor kindly took our picture outside. I have linked it on Google Classroom. 

This week, I started meeting with each student individually to review some of what we have been working on in math. While I do this, other students are playing a variety of math games I've created. There are too many to explain, but they include assembling a popsicle stick puzzle by matching addition/subtraction questions up with their answer on the next stick, simple Sudoku games, Bingo, building math sentences with number blocks and matching easter egg halves which have a number and a picture. I will introduce even more little math games next week. The mathematicians went between centres and tried as many as they wished. Ask your student which math game they liked the best!

We've also had mini introductions to division (through sharing food equally) and algebra. I gave students a challenge where they had a bunch of (pretty tough) addition/subtraction problems to solve, but with letters rather than numbers. They first had to replace the letters with the corresponding numbers using the guide, and then try to solve the problem by tackling it piece by piece, and using counters. Despite my questions being a bit too advanced for grade 1, students focused very well on this for as long as we had to work on it. They understood the concept of the letters representing numbers, which is a great start! Many students did solve a few of the equations, and they contributed to helping us solve some together. I've always loved a good math puzzle!

We have finished up our energy unit by talking about conserving energy and helping the environment. We learned the word "renouvelable" and played a little fishing game to sort our energy sources into renewable and non-renewable. We've also sorted waste items into the bins they go in, compost, recycling or garbage. A good conversation to continue at home (I always learn a lot when I read through my yearly garbage collection calendar)!

We had a fun addition to our class this week. We haven't had carpets in grade 1-3 classrooms in 2 years and I've really missed having everyone gather together to read the message or listen to a story. We still don't have a carpet, but I've brought back my cushions and a blanket that we can gather on for reading individually or together. It's new and exciting right now, so we are still learning how to focus in this new space, but I really the feeling of holding a book up and knowing everyone can see it!

Our art project last week was printmaking! Students got to plan a drawing that they then carved into a styrofoam sheet. They used a roller to spread speedball ink on their stencil and pressed it onto a variety of papers. They worked perfectly! Students already brought their stencil home and can use it over and over again (though I warned that the paint has to be quite thick). They can make additional styrofoam stencils using the trays that meat and veggies are sold on, or styrofoam plates with the curved sides cut off. 

As you know, Tuesday the 19th (right after this long weekend) we have an instructor visiting from Forest Valley Outdoor Ed. Centre to lead us for the day. Since sending my note home, I've learned that we will be returning to school for regular lunch before heading back to the park for the afternoon, but that doesn't change how students should prepare for the day. Please ensure that they are prepared for the weather (layers are recommended) and have their water bottle!

We have another field trip in the works for May, so if you had hoped to volunteer, there will be another opportunity. In addition, it seems that parents are now able to enter the school building. Therefore, I would love to start having some helpers for activities now and then, or to help with some of the tasks that are easy but time-consuming. One thing I can think of right now is repairing some of our books that have loose pages. If you have time and don't mind this kind of work, please email me. No pressure!

Finally, I want to invite you to a special event happening on May 14th! You may know that in my other life, I am a musician. One of the things I do is sing in a little doo-wop group called 'The Redeemers'. Our last live gig was over 2 years ago at Hugh's Room. We are SO excited to be back for a show at the Gladstone Hotel's Melody Bar. There is no cover, I think you can book a table in advance, and we will sing from 7-9. I know it goes past bedtime, so no need to stay the whole time, but it should be a fun show for the whole fam. OK, please forgive that shameless bit of self-promotion!

Wishing you all a happy Easter, Passover, Ramadan and long weekend!

Tamara