Community Helper Wall Story

We've been very busy in grade one the past few days.  Here are some learning highlights from our classroom.

In Social Studies, we continue to explore and investigate what makes our community special. We have discovered that  community helpers are very important. Community helpers work hard to keep everyone in our community  happy and safe.

In Language Arts, we continue to work on reading, comprehension and developing our oral language.In October, the learners were introduced to the pattern book Brown Bear, Brown Bear,What Do You See.  The students loved reading this book aloud together as a class.   They were all very engaged with retelling this story.  The learners are now confidently able to retell Eric Carl's Brown Bear story.

We are now working on learning a new story.  We followed the pattern from the Brown Bear Book,  and created our own story called Community Helpers, Community Helpers, What Do You See?  The learners were all actively engaged in learning and retelling our new story.  The learners loved working as a team to create illustrations for our wall story.

We have been reading the story together as a class.  The story is posted on the wall in our classroom to promote daily reading and retelling of this story.  In addition to the students looking more confident as readers, it has also been a great community building activity for our classroom.  Please enjoy some pictures from our Community Helper Wall Story.

Just a friendly reminder, Popcorn Days will be happening on November 28 & 29.

Counting by 10's

We had lots of fun exploring counting with cubes at school last week.  The learners began building long trains with the cubes.  The students were very curious how long they could make their cube "train". The students were very excited when they discovered the train they created was so very long, and stretched over the entire classroom floor.  We began to wonder, how many cubes are in the train?

As a class we decided to gently take the train apart by 10's.  The learners placed the cube trains on the table.  We counted the trains to ensure they were all 10 cubes long. The learners then counted by 10's till we got to the number 100.  As a class, we then repeated counting by 10's until we got to the number 200.  We continued counting by 10's until we had counted all of the cubes.  Also, separating the 10's pile every time we reached 100 helped us with our counting mystery.

The learners were very excited when they realized the train they created was 441 cubes long !!!  It was a fun and fantastic number adventure.

At home: Ask your child to explain how grouping by 10s helps to count large number of objects.  

Poinsettias

Dear Parents and Guardians,

Last week, The Fundraising Association sent home our latest fundraiser. Until November 23rd we will be selling beautiful poinsettias, Christmas wreaths and arrangements. Last year this fundraiser was a great success!  For each item sold the school receives $7-9.  These funds will be used for such things as the playground, technology for the school, books, school presentations and other school items for the classrooms.

Please see the attached colour order forms.  Plant order 2017.pdf 

Thank you for you continued support. Any question can be sent to councils.kennethdtaylor@gmail.com

Kenneth D Taylor Fundraising Association

Literacy Centers

We had an awesome day together :)  This morning all of the learners participated in Guided Reading and Literacy Centers.  Our Literacy centers today were :

• guided reading with Mrs. Lai
• iPad center , reading practice with Raz Kids
• cvc station - practice sounding out and spelling cvc words
• popcorn word center - practice reading and writing out popcorn words
• white board center - where learners could either work on their drawing skills or  practice writing on the white boards
• snack center

Please enjoy some pictures from our center time this morning.  

If you are interested in volunteering in Literacy Centers on Monday (Nov 20th) please send me an email to mllai@cbe.ab.ca Thanks for you help and support.

Keep reading and writing ! 

Warm Regards,

Mrs. Lai

Marvelous Monday

What a great day we had today!  We started our day with Zahra sharing Bowser Jr. travel journal with us.  The learners are really fond of our new class pet.   We love hearing about all of his adventures and taking him for "sleep overs".  Our class pet has also been very helpful to us when someone is feeling tired or blue.  The students are really good at sharing, and have been kindly offering it to classmates who need an extra cuddle during the day.

Tonight Bowser Jr. is going home with Alex.  

This morning all of the students participated in Guided Reading & Literacy Centers.  Please ask your child what literacy centers they participated in today.  

The weather is so much warmer out this week, which is wonderful.  We all really enjoyed recess break this morning and playing in the snow with our classmates.  

This afternoon we had calendar time.  The learners are really demonstrating their understanding of patterns by predicting what color comes next on our calendar.  We have been talking about the patterns of the teen numbers and guessing what numbers come next. We have also been doing a lot of counting.  Today we counted forward to 13, and the we counted backward from 13 to 0. In our math journals, the learners represented the number 13 in different ways.  

Math Homework:  Please ask your child to count forward to 20.  Please also have your child count backward from 20 to 0.  

The learners enjoyed gym and music class today.  

A big thank you to Rita (Ajay's mom) for being our Scholastic Volunteer :)  Book orders will be coming home with your child tomorrow night.  

Have a great night!  

Warm Regards,

Mrs. Lai

Remembrance Day

Dear Parents and Guardians, 

This morning we read The Peace Book by Todd Parr.  We talked about what peace means to us.  The learners created pictures and sentences to illustrate how we can be peace makers at school.  Please ask your child what peace means to them.  

We also attended a special Remembrance Day assembly. Thank you to all the families who were able to join us for the assembly.  

Have a great weekend!  

Warm Regards, 
Mrs. Lai

Fun Lunch

Wonderful Wednesday

This morning, Emma shared  Bowser Jr. travel journal with us  We love hearing about our class pet and all of his adventures so far. Last night Emma and "Bowser Jr. went to the store and bot cheese".Tonight  Bowser Jr.  is going home with Abigail.

The learners are all very excited for their turn to take our class pet home for a "sleep over". Thank you so much for your help and support with our class pet ;)  Thank you also for encouraging all of the learners to put their best work into the travel journal.  The learners are all working hard to develop their writing skills and need lots of opportunity to read and write.

This morning, all of the learners participated in literacy centers and guided reading.  Please ask your child which literacy center they participated in today.

This afternoon, our grade 3 buddies came down to our classroom and we listened to Todd Parr read us his story "The Peace Book" on our learning tv.  Then the grade one learners together with their grade 3 buddies created poppies for our Remembrance Day wreath.

This afternoon, the learners also worked in their math journals.  The students also enjoyed going to gym and music class.

We will be having a special Remembrance Day assembly on Friday at 10:30a.m. Families are welcome to attend.

Marvelous Monday

Highlights of the Day

In Social Studies, we have been focusing on the concept of belonging.  All of the students belong to a family.  In addition, some of the students belong to hockey teams, some of the students belong to soccer teams, some of the children belong to a mosque, some of the children belong to a church and all the children belong to Kenneth D. Taylor School.

As we have been focusing on the concept of belonging.  The students are also learning that individuals have rights and responsibilities when they belong to a group.  We have been working on including everyone in our classroom and treating everyone with respect in our learning community.  We have also been learning that as active members of our learning community we can contribute to our learning community.

This morning we welcome a new friend to our learning community.  Senye arrived in Canada a few months ago.  Senye and his family, have just moved into the community of Evanston.  The children did a wonderful job  introducing themselves to Senye and welcoming Senye to our learning community. I am very proud of the learners for being so welcoming and inclusive.  Kenneth D. Taylor students are known for having heart .  The students in our learning community were all excellent ambassadors for our school today.  Kenneth Taylor would be so very proud of our learners.

In our journals today, the students reflected on their weekends.  The students are starting to look more confident during journal time and are starting to see themselves as writers.  Most students are writing 2 to 3 sentences now about their weekend which is so very exciting.  The students are doing a fantastic job leaving spaces now between their words.  We are working on spelling our sight words accurately and stretching out the sounds we hear and doing our best bubble gum writing.

This afternoon, we worked in our math journals.  We had fun thinking of all the different ways we could use to represent the number six.  The learners are very enthusiastic about exploring numbers.
The students also enjoyed going to gym and music class.

Just a friendly reminder, we go to the library tomorrow.  Please make sure your child returns their library book to school tomorrow so they can sign out a new book.

Warm Regards,
Mrs. Lai