School Photos

School photos turned out great! 

Lifetouch School Portrait proofs were distributed today and orders are due on Tuesday, November 3rd. Proofs must also be returned, whether or not you decide to order. 

A Halloween rhyming activity was sent home with the students today. It was completed in class but if you'd like to review, you may read the sentences on the back and have your child point to the word on the witch that rhymes.

Halloween Week Events

Halloween may be a few days away, but we have many Halloween activities happening this week.

Tuesday, October 27th

• Pumpkin Carving Night at Willow Park School, 6:00-7:30
• Bring your pumpkins, carving utensils, and any other material you may need, and enjoy carving your pumpkins in the gym with other families from Willow Park School.

Thursday, October 29th

• 6P Carnival, 10:30-11:00
• The students in 6P have worked very hard to create a fun Halloween Carnival for the students in the school to enjoy!
• 6C Haunted House, 1:00-1:15
• 6C has created a Haunted House in their room. We will first tour through with the lights on, and then if any brave students want to try with lights off, they can choose to do so!

Friday, October 30th

• Division 1 Halloween Stations, Morning
• After assembly, Division 1 students will travel to different Halloween themed stations in small groups made up of students from various grades. 
• Costume Parade and Class Party, Afternoon
• After lunch, students will have from 12:45-1:15 to change into their costumes.
• The costume parade is from 12:45-1:15
• After recess, we will have a class snack and some Halloween games from 2:00-3:00. 

If you would like to volunteer for the whole day, or just the afternoon, I would like to have at least two volunteers. If you would like to send a snack such as a Halloween themed treat, a veggie or fruit tray, or cheese and crackers, please let me know and I will confirm class size and any food allergies. 

What We've Been Up To: October 19-23rd

We have been learning all about Pumpkins in Science! Students are creating pumpkin art, have investigated the characteristics of different pumpkins, are discovering what pumpkins need to live and grow, and are also working on sequencing the life cycle of the pumpkin.

We have been listening to this song: https://youtu.be/tU-GwFHQZI8 and acting out the life cycle of the pumpkin with actions. I have posted the link if you are interested in asking your child to show or teach you the song.

While we've been working with the E-books for a while, we started working on Mathletics Online this week! The program is so engaging, and the students did a great job maneuvering around the website and staying on task. I sent home the username and password for students to access from home if they'd like. Mathletics is available on computers and on tablets. Students cannot access Live Mathletics until they have completed the activities that I have assigned them. Live Mathletics is basic addition and subtraction practice- students will need help from parents if they are doing this, as we will not be focusing on addition and subtraction in class until later on in the year. Interactive Activities are available through Problem Solving and Rainforest Math, which are links available on the main student page. 

We have been working on filling up our 'Warm Fuzzy' jar all year. Ms. Montalvo and I are always keeping our eyes open for 'warm fuzzy moments', when we catch a student doing something to help a classmate, or saying a kind encouraging word- the kinds of things that give you a 'warm fuzzy feeling' in your heart. When we see this, a warm fuzzy creature is placed in our jar. This week, we filled the jar, and as a reward, students get to watch the movie 'Rugrats' during lunch time. 

We continue to work on recognizing beginning, middle, and end sounds, as well as naming, building, and printing letters. Currently, the student's favourite activity is Halloween 'Write the Room'. We have halloween words and pictures hidden all over the classroom, and students must organize the words alphabetically, draw pictures of the words, and print them on the whiteboard. This gives them a chance to move around, put some 'detective' skills to use, and also apply what we've been learning during our language and literacy lessons!

As Halloween approaches, please begin to discuss street safety at home, as well as safe trick or treating procedures. We will be discussing this at school as well, and weather permitting, we may go on a walk around the neighbourhood to practice pedestrian safety. Students may bring their costumes to school on Friday, October 30th. They will have a chance to put their costumes on after lunch, in order to participate in the Halloween Costume Parade. Please practice putting their costumes on at home, so they can do so an independently as possible!

If you are available to volunteer for either the whole day or the afternoon on Friday, October 30th, please let me know. I'd like to have at least two volunteers, particularly for the costume change/parade!

Parents are welcome to send a snack, such as a Halloween themed treat, vegetable tray, fruit platter, or cheese and crackers for our Halloween snack. Please contact me for information on class allergies and class size.

That is all for now. As always, please contact me if you have any further questions or require additional information. Have a safe and happy weekend!

What We're Up to This Week: Book Fair and Parent Teacher Conferences

I hope you had an excellent Thanksgiving long weekend!

Just a few updates on this short week:

Book orders have been submitted.

Parent Teacher Conferences are tonight and tomorrow, your appointment time was sent home last week.

We currently have a Book Fair happening at Willow Park School! Students had the chance to look around today, and will have the opportunity to go back on Friday if there is anything that they would like to purchase. If you choose to send money, please send it in their blue book so that we know it is there! Another option is to shop around during Parent Teacher Conferences. 

We will be starting our Mathletics and RAZ Kids online program this week, and information about how to access these programs at home will be sent home early next week, once each student has had a chance to be introduced to the programs in class!

Under Construction: Building Project Material Donations Needed

It is an exciting time at Willow Park School, as construction on the new hallway to our new portable will begin sometime in the next few months. The reason that this is so exciting for our class in particular is because the hallway is being built through our classroom! While we have construction workers working in and around our classroom, we will also ‘become’ construction workers. Students will build a home, school, pet, and themselves using various materials. Then, they will develop a pathway to connect the house to the school. Their criteria is that the person and the pet must be able to sit or stand on their pathway without destroying the path, the person, or the pet!

In order to make this Building unit successful, we need your help! Please consider collecting the following items, and send them in with your child. We will store them in our classroom to have on hand for when the construction project begins!

Materials needed:

• Tissue boxes
• Cereal boxes
• Fimo Clay
• Salt dough (2 batches)
• Pasta (eg. lasagna noodles, spaghetti noodles, fettuccini noodles)
• Cups (dixie cups, solo cups, clear plastic cups)
• Scrapbook paper
• Cardboard
• Miscellaneous and/or recyclable items such as: bottle caps, buttons, string, sandpaper, straws, sticks, corks

If you are interested in volunteering to help us build, or  know someone who is interested in building, please let me know and I will do my best to provide as much notice as possible for volunteer dates.

Fall Fun in Grade 1!

We read many Thanksgiving books and discussed what we are thankful for this week. One of the things in my life that I am most thankful for is the opportunity to work with your children every day. It is an amazing thing to watch them grow as learners and in their relationships with one another. I look forward to discussing their progress with you during Parent Teacher Conferences on Wednesday and Thursday evening next week. Appointment times were sent home today. Please let me know if you are unable to attend at the time that has been indicated, and we will reschedule.

Special guests came to our classroom to teach us all about bus safety on Monday, and we had so much fun all week working on our balance on the Mission Impossible obstacle course in the gym!

We read the story Leaf Man and then made our own leaf creatures this morning while we waited for our paintings to dry. *Pictures of our paintings to follow*

The letters we have learned about so far are: C, D, A, G, Q, O, S, F, E, L, and T. Our goal as an 'Alphabet Army' is to be able to say the name of each letter, the sound the letter makes, and print the uppercase and lowercase of each letter. We are starting to work on reading and spelling CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words by using the sounds that we have learned. There were Thanksgiving Turkeys holding CVC and sight words hidden all around our room for students to find and practice writing the words this week. 

In math, we are working on different ways to show numbers 0-10, counting backwards from 10 and 20, and during our daily calendar time we work on counting by 10s. 

Students experienced the first fire drill of the year on Thursday. We will continue to practice procedures such as fire drills and lock downs throughout the year. 

Book orders were due today.

There is no school on Monday, October 12th for Thanksgiving or Tuesday, October 13th as it is a day for Staff Planning and Development. 

Enjoy the long weekend!

Reminder: Early Dismissal and Library

Just a reminder that tomorrow is Early Dismissal. Students are dismissed at 2:15. Library is tomorrow, as well. Please return books so that your child can take out a new book. Have a great evening!

23 Questions to Ask Instead of 'How Was Your Day at School?'

I came across this article and thought it might be helpful for some of you! I like to include lots of pictures in my blog not just for parents to look at, but also so that you can share the photos with your children and discuss what they are learning about at school together. Our days in Grade 1 are packed with so many learning activities that by the end of the day even I sometimes have trouble remembering what I did all day!

I like these questions in the article I have provided the link for because they are very specific! Take some time to check it out this weekend.

23 Questions to Ask Instead of 'How Was Your Day at School?":
http://www.familyshare.com/parenting/23-questions-to-ask-instead-of-how-was-your-day-at-school?Gavin100215

What We Were Up to This Week: September 28-Oct.2nd

October is here! Monthly calendars and newsletters were sent home on Wednesday. Please contact me if you require an additional copy. We learned all about fall this week. We sorted summer vs. fall activities, read some fall books like 'Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf', went on a fall scavenger hunt with our Grade 6 buddies, and today we conducted an experiment (we even used the safety goggles!) to find the answer to our question: 

First we collected golden yellow leaves and ripped them into tiny pieces. Then, we combined the leaves and rubbing alcohol in a jar. We took turns mashing the leaves up very well, and then covered the jar with plastic. We put the jar in a glass bowl and poured hot water into the bowl, so the jar was surrounded by hot water. After half an hour, we removed the plastic wrap and inserted filter paper. By the end of the day, we could see that the filter paper had turned green and yellow! 

By using rubbing alcohol and energy (hot water) to separate the colours, we were able to discover that there were always two colours (green and golden yellow) in the leaves. Chlorophyll gives leaves their green colour and is so dominant it hides the other colours in the leaves.  But in the fall, chlorophyll in the leaves breaks down allowing the other colours to finally shine through and show their beautiful reds, yellows, and oranges.

Earlier this week, we had a visit from Minnie the Marvelous Pot-bellied Pig. She is about 120 pounds and is able to do many tricks, like play basketball, walk backwards, fetch, and play the piano! Minnie also brought four little kittens along with her. 

Important Information for Next Week:

• Our Student of the Week Winners spun the wheel at assembly and earned us a PJ Day!!! Students may wear their pajamas to school on Monday, October 5th.
• Early Dismissal is Wednesday, October 7th @ 2:15
• Please send in Parent-Teacher Conference forms as soon as possible. I will notify parents of meeting times by Thursday, October 8th.

Safety-goggle Scientists discovering the answer to our question 
"Why Do Leaves Change Colour?" during our Sci-Fri experiment

Casino Volunteers Still Needed

Due to some last minute volunteer cancellations, volunteers are still needed for the PAWS Casino Night. For more information, click this link: https://drive.google.com/a/gshare.blackgold.ca/file/d/0B2NN8Ur28ocMakl6cWFkcWY3SVU/view