We had a very busy day today (as always). This morning we worked on 2 addend addition by playing a dice game called high rollers. Students rolled two dice and recorded the number on each dice. They then crossed out the smaller of the two numbers and tried to roll again to make a larger number. Their partner then did the same. They competed this activity 6 times to try and see who could roll the larger sum. In Language Arts, we took a look at our new levelled and categorized library, and talked about how books can be sorted by category, as well as fiction and non-fiction. We had a great time looking through some new books that Miss Soa and I have introduced. We also read a book called 'A Seed is Sleepy.' It had beautiful illustrations. During our UOI time, we sequenced the life cycle of a plant through a cut and paste activity. We also went outside to use our shadows to learn about how leaves get light from the sun. We pretended our hands were leaves, and placed them many different ways to see which way we would get the most light to produce food (chlorophyll) through photo synthesis. We also watched some time lapse videos of plants growing. We also learned about the 5 different ways that seeds are dispersed (move). Please ask your child to tell you at home.
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Today we learned about subtracting from 10 by building a bowling alley in our learning space. Students took turns rolling the ball, counting how many 'pins' they knocked over. They then went to the white board to write down their subtraction equation. In Language Arts, we continued to work with adjectives. In groups, students took turns rolling two dice, adding them up, and finding a picture of a noun beside the number they rolled. They took turns rolling, and coming up with adjectives for each noun. We also reviewed the work that we did with grade 2 yesterday. Furthermore, we wrote our rough drafts about our favourite books. We will be working on the editing and revising process this week. During our UOI time we did a mini assessment where students were asked to label the parts of the plant. I am happy to tell you that each and every student in our class was able to do this. I love watching our students master skills. This made us very happy. Later this week Soa and I will be asking students to tell us the function or each part of the plant. We also finished planting our hanging baskets. Our classroom is beginning to look like a jungle. Additionally, we answered the question how do plants breath. This morning we put some leaves under water with a paper weight on top of them. We put them out in the sun and checked on them before lunch. We noticed that tiny oxygen bubbles had formed on the leaf. We discussed how when we breath under water, we can see bubbles too. We learned that even though plants do not have lungs like us, they still breath. We had a very happy Monday. We started our day by practicing learnt math skills on our road to mastery. We also played an addition game and graphed the activities that we did on the weekend. In Language Arts, we began to learn about the writing process. We learned about how pre-writing is about gathering ideas. The class spent time mapping out ideas about their favourite book by drawing pictures and writing titles of books they enjoy. They will pick on story to write their first draft about. We will be publishing a class book about our favourite stories/books in the upcoming week. For the second half of our English language learning, we wrote adjectives that describe ourselves (photo above), by accordion folding paper, and attaching a picture of our faces, arms and legs. We then worked with the grade 2s on coming up with many different adjectives that describe pictures of things from our life cycles unit. During ELL, we used magazines to work with environmental text. We will be continuing with this throughout the week. I will post some pictures of students great work later in the week. During our UOI time, we looked at our plant seeds that we planted in the window two weeks ago and found that they have sprouted into seedlings. We are continuing to chart their progress. Today we planted them in water bottles (thanks for sending them in). We planted some right side up, and some upside down. We cant wait to see how they grow. If you have any more large water bottles at home, we are still short a few. Parents, It was lovely seeing you yesterday afternoon to be able to discuss your child's progress with you. They really are showing such amazing signs of improvement and are so eager to learn. We are very lucky. In Math this week we have began to work with single digit subtraction. We are working towards mastery of this skill before moving on to two digit addition. We began to do single digit addition with missing addends today, and used subtraction, counting on, and our fingers to help us find the solutions to our problems. In Language Arts, we have been working on writing complete sentences using adjectives to make our sentences more exciting. We have also been using the word 'because' to answer the question of 'why?' when we write a sentence. During our UOI time, we have been learning about how plants 'eat' and 'drink'. We talked about how plants get their 'food' from the sun through a process called photosynthesis, and that it produces energy or 'food' called chlorophyll. We did an experiment where we hammered and roller the chlorophyll out of some leaves and are watching it change from green to brown on our classroom windows. Today we also did an experiment with napa cabbage on how plants drink. We are watching the food dye slowly creep up the leaves, and have made predictions about what they will look like on Monday when we return to school. |
ASA First GradersWe are caring, balanced , reflective, openminded, risk-taking, knowledgeable, principled, thinkers, communicators, inquirers, explorers and learners. Mr. Mason McCormickI am: a husband, teacher, friend, researcher, grad student, mulitliteracies specialist, designer, social media fanatic, lover of all things tech, creative, and progressive. I am an energetic, life-loving, no-nonsense person; passionate about respectful, rigorous, and relevant teaching and learning in the 21st century.
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