Half-way through the Year!

In literacy this week we honed our sentence writing skills and continued to learn how to get super smart about nonfiction topics:

In Unit of Inquiry we tracked how things like toys and dance changed over time using timelines:

We hit our 90th day in school this week!

In arts we looked at the collages of French artist Henri Matisse and began creating our own:

In maths we are talking about time, introducing the concepts of whole, half, and a fourth (or quarter) and always practicing our number sense. 

Of course, we always make time for a brain break to dance!

In preparation for conferences we took some time to reflect on our skills and make goals for the second term.

Please take a minute to review our updated Coronavirus Health & Safety Policy. 

Please also read the Scholastic Book Club Letter and browse to order books here. This order closes February 12th and is a great opportunity to support your child's development while supporting your school! DSKI earns books for our collection while you add to yours!

Reminders:

Monday: 

• Turn in Word Study books (remember to not only sort and paste, but practice writing/using your words!)
• Reading Log check
• Swimming

Tuesday 

• Library

Next week: 3-Way Conferences 

Thank you for booking your conference. As mentioned, these will be with the parent this time due to the state of emergency and all held online. I will send a Zoom invitation to you. 

Each conference is 20 minutes so please be prompt and understand that I have to end at the scheduled time due to the next conference beginning. If there is something further to discuss we will have to make an appointment to meet the following week. 

We are Flexible Risk-Takers!

Grade 1 didn't miss a beat this week even when we found out the evening before that we had to move to remote learning the very next day. The learning didn't stop and we were all risk-takers trying out a new video conferencing software and using breakout rooms for our small group sharing. 

Conferences

They will be a bit different this year. Usually it is a time for parents, teachers and students to sit down together and reflect on the year so far and work together on goal setting for the coming months.

But due to the current state of emergency, we will have the conferences online this year. To make it easier to schedule, it will be only teachers and parents together. Students are of course in class in the day and after school are traveling home.

Teachers though will meet with students before the conference to talk about progress and goals they would like to set, which can be discussed at the conference. We would like to ask you as parents to also have this conversation at home.

Please book your time here. Each conference is 20 minutes so please be prompt and understand that I have to end at the scheduled time due to the next conference beginning. If there is something further to discuss we will have to make an appointment to meet the following week.

Upcoming:

Monday: 

• Turn in Word Study books (remember to not only sort and paste, but practice writing/using your words!)
• Reading Log check
• NO Swimming lesson - Regular PE - COVID-19 related closure

Tuesday:  Library

Have a great weekend!

Where We Are in Place and Time: Past and Present

Where We Are in Place and Time: Inquiry into orientation in place and time; personal histories; homes and journeys; the discoveries, explorations and migrations of humankind; the relationship between and the interconnectedness of individuals and civilizations, from local and global perspectives. 

Central Idea: Children in the past lived differently from how we live today.

Lines of Inquiry:
Daily life then and now
School then and now
Factors influencing lifestyle change

Concepts: Change, Perspective 

Approaches to Learning: Thinking, Research

Learner Profile: Knowledgeable, Inquirer, Reflective

Learning Goals/Success Criteria:   

• learners can give 2-3 examples of how daily life has changed from the recent past to now and 
• learners can give reasonable ideas as to why those changes have occurred
• learners can give examples of what is the same and different in schools between then and now
• learners can place items on a timeline in order from past to present or present to past

How to support your child at home

The curiosity about histories of their families and how things were done in the past will likely come naturally to you child so be prepared for questions and discussions about it. One of the activities from this unit will be to interview a grandparent (if possible) or elder friend or relative to find out more about the difference between daily life in the past and now. Possibly have a couple ideas of who and give them a heads up so they might provide photographs to share. 

In the class:

This week we began tuning-in and seeing what we knew about the past and present. 

Reminders:

Monday: 

• Turn in Word Study books (remember to not only sort and paste, but practice writing/using your words!)
• Reading Log check
• NO Swimming lesson January 18th - we have just been notified of a COVID-19 related closure

Tuesday Library

February 1st-5th: 3-Way Conferences (I will be sending out more details soon) 

Happy Holidays!

First Grade worked hard in the last couple of weeks to learn the classic Christmas carol, Deck the Halls. We all tried playing on keyboard first, then split into a bell group, and keyboards. We put it all together (almost!) at the end! Also, 4 students decided to learn all of the old lyrics and sing the song! Enjoy!

Luckily we learned this song because when the Grinch came to our classroom, it was the only thing that calmed him down! 

Then, Santa heard how we were all trying our best in First Grade and got our emailed book wishes, so he came and delivered those to us. We were all so happy! 

Thank you to the PTA for organizing such a wonderful Holiday celebration day and we wish you all a very warm and happy holiday! 

Why do we need forces?

Now that we have a better understanding of forces and motion through our investigations and using that knowledge to build a marble run, students looked back through their wonderings on the wonder wall and found that many of them wondered why we even needed forces at all:

So we started to think about ways we saw forces working in our lives to make things easier. 

We also did an investigation into magnetic forces looking around our classroom for things that were magnetic. We noticed that some things magnetic force were stronger than others.

Reminders:

Monday, December 14th

• Swimming!
• Turn in Word Study books.

Friday, December 18th

• Santa's visit!
• The Grinch will visit!

Have a Great Weekend!

Decorating the Tree

Grade 1 put "We Can Do Hard Things" to the test last week by making origami stars to decorate our school tree with. In the last few months we studied 2D and 3D shapes and this origami used pentagon shaped paper and the repetition of 5 folds to create. 

Please don't forget you can order the plate your child made here!

Plates Order - Custom Made By Grade 1

Hello Parents! Please use this form to purchase the plate your child decorated. Also use the form to suggest any charity for the funds to be donated to!

Pictures of the beautiful plates are here.

Thank you for getting into the giving spirit of the season and your child will be tickled too!

Handling of plates:

-all stickers except gold/silver colors: microwave OK, dishwashing machine OK

-if they use gold/silver color stickers: microwave NO, dishwashing machine NO

-crayon stickers: microwave OK, dishwashing machine: Not Recommended