Fabulous Fun Friday!

You know you've had a fabulous day when it's time to go home and the students are complaining that the day went by so fast!!!

On Friday morning we started the day with reviewing  our blends, sight words, counting and calendar time together.  Then the  learners each did a great job putting excellent effort and detail into their Letter Home Books.  They are very excited to read their special journals to you this weekend.  They just love reading over your messages in class and look forward each week to your response.  Thank you for your help and participation.

Friday was also Flex Friday.  The learners were very excited for the opportunity to spend time with another teacher for an hour and learn a special lesson.  They also love getting the opportunity to spend an hour with others learners from different classes and grades.  Flex Friday is really providing a wonderful opportunity for our learners to feel more connected to each other, and creates a wonderful sense of community in our school.

We ended our day together with Fun Lunch.  It was a very busy morning, filled with learning, cooperation and school spirit.

Hope you're having a great weekend.

Warm Regards,
Mrs. Lai

Classroom Updates

It was wonderful meeting with so many of you during Student-Led Conferences last week.  I hope you enjoyed your time with your child as you looked through their work.  You should be proud of how much your child has grown this year.  And we still have two more months of learning together :)

We've had a wonderful week so far, filled with lots learning.  We were very excited to have a special guest speaker into our classroom on Monday.  Ms. Anna works at Passion for Glass, and she came into our classroom to teach the learners a beautiful art project that focused on shapes and gave the learners the opportunity to create a beautiful self portraits.  Please enjoy some pictures of our learning with Ms. Anna.  

In Literacy, when two consonants are blended together to make a sound this is called a blend.  In class this week, we have been reviewing the blends, CR, CL, FR and FL.  We have been singing lots of blend songs to help us remember the different sounds blends make.  Today we practiced reading different blends and sorting real and nonsense words.  Blends homework,  please ask your child tonight to read each word to you.  Please also ask your child whether it is a real work for a nonsense word.  

• sent
• snell
• flin
• prud
• flip
• bump
• stack
• skip
• clap
• swist 

In Social Studies we have been focusing on the past and present of our community.  We have been learning about some familiar landmarks in Calgary.  The learners all identified the Calgary Tower, The Peace Bridge, The Science Center and the Scotiabank Saddledome as important landmarks in Calgary.  So together with our friends from next door, we have been thinking about what makes these building and structures special to our community.  The learners spent some time carefully looking at these important landmarks and drawing them as well.  

In Science, we have been learning about buildings.  We have also been constructing objects.  So we decided to extend our learning by constructing some of the important Calgary landmarks in class using a variety of material and shapes.  The learners compared the two buildings, examining 3-D objects and 2-D shapes. The learners then used a Venn Diagram to compare how the two buildings are alike and how the two buildings are different. 

Please ask your child at home, which important Calgary landmark they constructed with their team. 

In Social Studies, we have also been learning to appreciate stories and events from the past.  This week, we have been  learning an awesome song called the Ballad of Deerfoot.  Deerfoot was a long distance runner who belonged to the Siksika Nation.  He was well know for being exceptionally fast. Deerfoot Trail was named in his honor.  

We continue to build our understanding of Numbers.  The learners are now modeling subtraction, using a variety of concrete and visual representations.  The learners are also creating and solving simple subtraction sentences.  We ended the day with our new favorite math song, Counting to 100!

Have a great night!  

Warm Regards,

Mrs. Lai

Swimming Lessons & Student Led Conferences

First of all, I want to send a big thank you out to all the parent volunteers who were able to help us out this week.  Thank you so very much for volunteering your time with us.  Without your help, we would not have been able to attend swimming lessons.

The learners were very excited to participate in swimming lessons.  Water safety for young children is so very important.  It is also an excellent form of exercise.  There has been a lot of research on the importance of exercise and learning. "Kids are better able to learn when they feel better and are in a good mood".

Thank you  also to all the families who were able to come into the school this week for Student Led Conferences. The learners were so excited to show you around our classroom and share their work with you.   If you weren't able to come into the school for conferences this week, please send me an email and we can find anther day to sit down together.

Thank you so much for all of your help and support.

Warm Regards,
Mrs. Lai

Friday the 13th

Well it might have been Friday the 13th, but this not impact our classroom routine or our learners.  We had a great day :)

We started the day with a school meeting, where Mr. Dyck & Mrs. Tuttle introduced the learners to Open Entry.  Starting on Monday April 16, students will be able to come into the building starting at 7:45a.m.  The goal of this new school routine is to allow the learners to have a more peaceful and calm start to the school day.

After our school meeting, our grade 3 buddies came over to our classroom.  We were excited to teach our friends a new math game called Double Bump.  The learners are also excited to show you their Doubles Bump board game and are looking forward to teaching you this new math game next week at Student Led Conferences.

The learners spent some time reflecting on their boat design.   Each of the learners wrote about what went well and what they would try differently next time.

The learners also enjoyed snack time, going to gym class and writing to you in their Letter Home book.  It was a busy and productive morning.

Just a friendly reminder, to please book your conference time for next week.  The learners are excited to show you around the classroom and share their work with you.


Warm Regards,
Mrs. Lai

Thinking Thursday

What a great day today!  We started our day reviewing some phonics.  We focused on reviewing the SL, BL, and PL blends.  We sang some blend songs together. Then each of the learners did a word sort.   We pretended to be word detectives looking for patterns in spelling in order to categorize the words.

We have also been reading an amazing book called "The Best Part of Me". Wendy Ewald, An award-winning photographer, asked several children " What is the best part  of you?", and  she shares their responses along with her beautiful photographs of the children.  We have been very inspired by this wonderful book. Each learner in our classroom has reflected on the best part of themselves.  We have been using this writing prompt to create our own book.  The student responses are all so personal and unique.  We are very excited to share our work with you next week at Student Led Conferences.

This afternoon we did some mindful breathing to get us all in the green zone for learning.  Once we were all in the green zone, we focused our math lesson on building our understanding of subtraction and creating subtraction sentences.

We were very excited to get together with Ms. Petrie's grade one classroom,  and test our boats.  The learners were very keen to see if their boat creations could float.  Tomorrow, we will be spending some time writing down our observations.  All of the leaners will be encouraged to write about what went well and what they would do differently next time.  Please enjoy some pictures of our learning.

Warm Regards,
Mrs. Lai

Letters to Home Book

Dear Parents,

Tonight in your child's backpack you will see your child's Letters to Home book.

On the last day of the week, your child will be writing a letter to you.  I ask that you write them a letter back in this book.  Please read it to your child before returning the book to school.  If you can please return the book to school on Monday that would be great.

Your child will enjoy hearing your response and see that everyone is a writer.

Thank you so much for all of your help and support.

Warm Regards,
Mrs. Lai

Welcome Back!

Welcome Back!  I hope everyone had a wonderful Spring Break :)

We had a great day together.  This morning the learners were happy and excited to see their classmates.  In small groups, the learners were able to share with each other about their Spring Break.  Then, each student had an opportunity to draw and write about their Spring Break in their journals. The students were all in the "green zone" and very focused on their writing.  Please enjoy some pictures of their learning. 

At this point in the year, students are expected to write at least 3 simple sentences connected to the topic.   The students are also expected to spell many familiar words accurately.  Students may use both phonetic and conventional spelling for unknown words.  I am also encouraging the students to also  include "juicy words" (descriptive words) in their work.  For example, instead of good use: great, wonderful, excellent, or amazing.  

We also reviewed some songs this morning about the Bossy Letter E.  Bossy e can reach across one sound and bonk a vowel on its head to tell that vowel to say it's own name.  For example, cap becomes cape and dim becomes dime.  

At home tonight please ask your child to read the following short vowel words to you. Please also ask your child to read the new long vowel words to you to help us review the Bossy e rule.  

con                    cone

tub                     tube

tap                     tape

pin                     pine

rob                     robe

cut                     cute

Just a heads up, the grade one students have the opportunity to participate in swimming lessons.  The swimming classes are an important part of physical education and are also an important life skill.  Permission forms will be coming home tomorrow.  We will be looking for parents who have their police check and volunteer process forms up to date, to join us on the field trip.  We would warmly welcome these volunteers to help us at the pool.  We would especially appreciate to have a few dads or grandpa's helping us in the boys changing room.  Our class will be taking part in this swimming field trip April 16, 17, 18 & 19.

Have a great night!  

Warm Regards

Mrs. Lai