We will be having a Family Kabbalat Shabbat with Dr. Mitzmacher at 1:30pm on Friday (November 30th). We hope to see you there!
Author: Lianna Krantzberg
Prodigy
The Grade 1 students were so excited today when we told them that they can take their Prodigy passwords home!
Prodigy is an online math game that the students can work on at home. This is NOT additional homework! This is simply an extra, fun, educational tool that can be used at home during screen time. Please do not feel obligated to use this program. We are using it weekly in the computer lab and on iPads in the classroom.
You can download the app for your tablet/iPad or go to the website to log in. Each student has their login and password on a piece paper in their note totes (please e-mail Morah Lianna if you lose that paper or need the login information again).
Please feel free to comment below with any questions you may have!
Is It Living or Non-Living?
This afternoon, our Grade 1 students were able to sort their own illustrations into two categories. Once everyone had taped their illustration to the chart, the students explained what characteristics need to be present in order for something to be a living thing. All living things must: eat/drink, move, grow, reproduce, make waste, and breathe.
I encourage you to continue the conversation at home! Pick a ‘thing’ and have your child explain why it’s living or why it’s not! This activity led us a class discussion about Mario. Mario, a who breathes and walks around, is definitely a living thing. However, Mario, the animation in our television screens, is not a living thing.
Birthday Celebrations
We have been receiving some questions about our birthday policy. In grade 1, we will not be letting parents come into the classroom to celebrate birthdays. If you would like to send a special treat to school for your child’s birthday, you are welcome to! If you decide to send a treat, please be mindful of our Kashrut policy and nut free school policy.
Whether you send in a treat or not, we will always sing and celebrate as a class!
Thank you!
-Grade 1 Team
Picture Day Tomorrow!
Hi Grade 1 Families,
Just a friendly reminder that tomorrow is picture day. Please send your child to school in their white uniform shirt.
Have a great evening!
-Grade 1 Team
Social Studies – Roles and Responsibilities
Here is a sneak peak into some of the incredible learning that has been going on in Grade 1 Social Studies.
We had a whole class discussion to create the table below. I asked the students to describe some of their roles as a member of your family at home, as a student at school, and as a member of the community,
We continued to explore our responsibilities by creating a Venn Diagram. The students worked together as a class to sort some of our responsibilities at home and at school. The Venn Diagram helped the students understand that some of their responsibilities can overlap to be the same at home and at school.
Today we experienced our first ‘Think, Pair, Share’. The students were given a question to think about, they discussed their ideas and answers in pairs, and then they shared their ideas in front of the whole class. Here are just a few of the answers we heard today!
“How will my responsibilities change as I get older?”
Curriculum Expectation A1.1 – “describe how and why a person’s roles, relationships, and responsibilities, may change in different places or situations and at different times”
Please feel free to continue the discussion with your child. Comment below to share any thinking and learning that is taking place outside of school!
We are looking forward to even more exploration with roles and responsibilities in Social Studies! Our next focus will be identifying different roles and responsibilities of significant people in our lives and community (i.e. parent, teacher, doctor, firefighter, etc).
Reminder: please send your Media Consent forms in to the office so we can blog about all of the learning going on in the classroom. Please send us (the Morahs) an e-mail as soon as possible if we cannot put your child on the blog.
General Studies Update
Here is a quick update from General Studies.
Math
To begin the year, our focus in Mathematics has been patterning and sorting objects
by their various attributes. Our students
truly enjoyed being pattern detectives as they walked through the halls searching for colour, shape, and size patterns.
They have learned to identify, extend, and describe patterns and their pattern rules. The students have also used various material to translate patterns from one form to another, for example, using words and pictures to demonstrate the same “AB” pattern. One very important lesson was allowing the children to discover that when they are problem solving there can often be more than one correct answer.
They have been given many opportunities to problem solve and persevere when doing so. The students will begin exploring various strategies to use when solving addition and subtraction problems.
Language Arts
In reading, the classroom structure we are using is called Daily 5. The Daily 5 is a literacy structure that teaches independence and gives children the skills needed to create a lifetime love of reading and writing. There are five tasks being introduced.
- Read to Self
- Work on Writing
- Read to Someone
- Listen to Reading
- Word Work
Once all five tasks are introduced and the children are independently completing these tasks, we are able to work with small groups and conference with children one-on-one. The students have be introduced to Read to Self and Word Work so far.
Science
In Science, we had a brainstorm all about the characteristics of living things. This brainstorm session kick started our exploration of living things and is leading us towards a variety of inquiry based learning questions. We look forward exploring the characteristics of living things.
Social Studies
As we begin to explore classroom routines and learning skills, we are integrating our Social Studies unit on ‘Our Changing Roles and Responsibilities’. We have started to learn about our different roles and responsibilities in school, and will start to branch out and learn about our various roles and responsibilities in our homes and communities. The students are very proud of fulfilling their responsibility of returning their note totes each morning and placing any notes for the Morahs on the teacher’s desk.
Reminder: Tomorrow (Friday, September 27th) is Dress Down Day for Terry Fox Day. Please send your child to school with a Toonie for Terry!
September 5th Reminders
Another fantastic day filled with learning! We teamed up with Grade 2 to discuss leadership and the different skills that we should continue to work on in order to be a leader. Stay tuned for a post on our Leadership Skills page for more information on this.
Here are a few reminders:
- Our first snack of the day will be happening during our first learning block (before outdoor recess). Please make this snack easily accessible so your child does not need to bring his/her entire lunch bag into the classroom at the start of the day. It is important that this is a healthy snack in order to sustain your child until lunch time.
- Shofar Patrol has started! Feel free to send your child to school with a shofar tomorrow and/or Friday so they can participate in the shofar blowing around the school.
- Please send your child to school with a shoebox (by September 14th) for a craft in Ivrit class.
Have a wonderful evening!
First Day of First Grade!
What a fantastic first day of Grade 1! The students were so excited to start their day! It is going to be an awesome school year and we cannot wait to learn and grow with your children!
Here are a few reminders:
- Please send a labelled water bottle to school everyday.
- If you haven’t done so already, please send headphones to school.
- Today we sent home navy note totes. Those should come back every morning.
- Please put your signed parent/student handbook form in the note tote.
- Remember to check the classroom blog regularly, as this will be our main form of communication. However, please feel free to contact us at anytime through our OJCS e-mails. We will respond to you within 24 hours (with the exception of Shabbat, Jewish Holidays, and Statutory Holidays, etc.)
Have a wonderful evening!
– The Grade 1 Team