Week 2 - Beginning our Who We Are Unit

This week in First Grade we started to tune-in to our Who We Are Unit of Inquiry on Senses.

Here are the things we connected to the unit in our chalk talk after watching this video. 

Central Idea
Our senses help us to learn about and interpret the world around us.

Lines of Inquiry

• how we use our five senses
• how people can live without one or more of the senses
• keeping our sensory organs healthy 

Concepts

• function
• causation
• responsibility

Approaches to Learning

• Communication Skills
• Self Management Skills

Learner Profile

• Caring
• Open-minded
• Communicator

Learning Goals/Success Criteria

• Understand how we get information from outside and make sense of it
• Child can empathize with others who don't have all their senses - songs using sign language as an example
• Be able to explain how to take care of our senses and keep ourselves healthy
• Grade 1 one - two senses
• Grade 2 three or more senses

Action 

Actions are best when student-initiated but some actions we have seen before are:

• students creating a model of the sense they are interested in
• students learning some sign language 
• students writing books about the senses

If you child takes action at home, please be sure to record it (writing, video, or photo) so we can share it with the class!

How to support your child at home. 

• Noticing what senses you are using during a particular activity.
• Talk about ways things taste, smell, feel, sound and look to build their vocabulary in these areas.
• Note any questions they have and encourage them to bring those questions to add to the wonder wall!
• English language learners basic vocabulary video.

Drawing What We Know about the Senses:

Beginning to generate questions about our senses:

Home learning:

We began our Readers Workshop this week and students should begin to bring home books to read independently and/or with someone else nightly. 

This week we talked about the -at family of words and students will bring home their Word Work book to practice reading a poem for fluency. Ask them what words rhyme! Then they can draw a picture of what image they visualize when they read the poem.

Show and Tell

First grade is ready to get back into Show and Tell. Due to health precautions I won't be sending home a bag like last year, it will be the student's responsibility to bring something the next day when it is their turn. At home please practice with them three clues about how it LOOKS, SMELLS, TASTES, FEELS, or SOUNDS. 

Looks	Sound	Taste	Feel	Smell
Round, Square...	Loud	Sweet	Hot / Cold	sweet
Red, Green...	Quiet	Sour	Rough / Smooth	strong
Colorful	Squeaky	Bitter	Soft / Hard	fresh
Like a...	Musical	Salty	Dry / Wet	fruity
See-through (transparent)	Rings	Spicy	Slimy	spicy

First Week Report

We had a wonderful week (and 2 days) in First Grade!

We began the year learning, practicing, and filming The School Cone Tree to welcome the incoming Preschool class upstairs!

In literacy, we have begun our Reader's Workshop routine and built our stamina with a ten minute independent reading time. We also got to tour and explore the new and improved library organization thanks greatly to a Grade 1 parent giving a lot of her time over the summer. Please remember to return the books borrowed on Monday.

In maths, we began exploring the manipulatives we will be using and have been reviewing some of the maths concepts taught in first grade like: counting, skip-counting, addition, and story problems. We also investigated what exactly a meter is as the students are being asked to keep a meter apart from each other. 

In Unit of Inquiry, we started exploring How We Express Ourselves by creating self-portraits.

See you next week!

Welcome to First Grade!

It is my pleasure to be taking our class up to first grade! I am looking forward to welcoming you all back at 8:45am on Thursday, August 20th!

As we are still maintaining a COVID-19 safety protocol, please review the Coronavirus Health and Safety Policy August 2020 (attached in today's email). Grade 1 will be lining up outside of the yard gate (same place as in June) with the other lower primary students:
 

Please arrive at 8:45am when we will begin temperature checks to avoid a lot of time spent milling around outside. Remember students need hats and plenty of liquids to drink during the day so please send adequately sized water bottles. I would recommend a 1-1.5L bottle. They have ones with straps that are easy for the student to carry along with their backpack like this. Also, our school is not centrally air conditioned, so please have your child dress in cool, loose clothing so they will be comfortable.

SUPPLIES
Also very important is due to the safety protocols for COVID-19, students should not be using shared resources. Please make sure your student comes to school with the following supplies:

• colored pencil set
• 2 pencils
• 1 eraser
• 1 glue stick
• marker set

Sometimes it is helpful to have a box for them to keep their things organized in their cubby like this cardboard box or this plastic box.

Parent Night! Friday, August 28th at 6pm. 

Please mark your calendars for our online class parent meeting at 6pm Friday, August 28th at 6pm. At this time I will go over what you can expect this year, answer any questions, and we will decide our Class Representative and Deputy Representative for the PTA! The Class Representative is the liaison between our classroom and the PTA and would attend the 1-hour, monthly meetings. If they were not able to attend any meeting, they would then call on the Deputy Representative to fill-in. We will first ask for volunteers and if everyone is too shy, we will draw lottery style.

I am so excited to learn with you all!