Week One in Grade One

What a great first week of school! I am so impressed with how quickly the students have begun to adapt to our classroom routines, procedures, and expectations. It is going to be a great year. 

This week, we focused on names. Printing our names, counting the letters in our names, making name crafts, and most importantly, learning our classmates' names!

On the first day of grade one, we celebrated the number one, and looked at the different ways to show one. Students practiced printing the numeral one, and learned the rhyme 'Straight line down, and then you're done. That's the way to make a one!'. We read the story Amelia Bedelia's First Day of School, as well as Hello First Grade to learn that 'first' means number one in line, grade, or day of school. On the second day of school we explored the number two and how to show two. 'Half a heart, then back to you, that's the way to make a two!' On the third day of school, we learned all about the number three, and different ways to show three. 'Around the tree, around the tree, that's the way to make a three!' We will continue these activities until numbers 1-10 are reviewed. 

We made a craft for each number as well. These crafts were not only to learn the numbers, but to reinforce proper scissor and pencil grip, and how to roll a glue stick up and down properly. Students are unpacking and getting used to managing their own personal school supplies a little bit at a time. After number review time, we played 'Chester Number Bingo', with Chester from the story 'The Kissing Hand'. We also made Chester faces to put on our 'What We're Reading' board. 

Today we had our first assembly of the school year. Whole school assemblies are on Friday mornings right after attendance, and Division 1 assemblies are on Tuesday mornings right after attendance. 

On Fridays, we do art after assembly. I like to connect art to what we are learning about in class. Because part of Grade One is learning about the needs of animals, we will be focusing on a new animal every week or two. This is a short week, so we will spend this week and next week learning about owls. Today, we watched some videos about owls, and created owls out of cardboard rolls, paint, fabric, glue, and of course, googly eyes! We also painted some branches to hang them on. We sang a song about 10 Little Owls.Here is the link: https://youtu.be/Ke6xc1bnC_0 I have also included it on the Links & Resources page.

While I always add soap to the paint we use, you may also send a paint shirt that we will store in the classroom. Many of the students do already have a paint shirt in the classroom.

Just a few reminders:

• Please send water bottles back on Monday
• Our line-up zone is at the main entrance of the school. I will greet students at the doors in the morning, and lead them out after school.
• There is no school on Monday, September 7th. Enjoy your long weekend!

As always, if you have any further questions or require additional information, please do not hesitate to contact me. 

Have a safe and happy long weekend!

Mrs. Jenna Haugan

Grade One Teacher

Willow Park Elementary School

Phone: 780-986-8456

Email: jenna.haugan@gshare.blackgold.ca

Classroom Blog: http://mrsjennahaugan.blogspot.ca/