Posted in General Studies, Jewish Studies, Ruach

A Week full of Ruach

What a week in Grade One! The students loved celebrating the 100th day of school on Monday. They wrote 100 words in Hebrew and French words. They even counted by 10s to 100 in all three languages. The children visited different stations throughout the day. They built a tower with 100 cups, made a 100th-day hat, and created 100th monsters. The day ended with 100th-day stories and a freezie treat.

On Tuesday, Let’s Talk Science visited Grade One for a workshop on structures. The children learnt about natural and man-made structures. They were challenged to make houses for the Three Little Pigs with straws, sticks, and wooden blocks. The workshop had all the students engaged and building.

 

JNF visited on Wednesday morning, and the children had the opportunity to learn about different parts of Israel with a beautiful parachute. The children played a collaborative parachute game while reviewing different places in Israel.

Winter Fun ended the week perfectly. The children were so excited to ride a school bus for the first time and go tubing. The location was perfect, the weather was great and everyone had fun.

Posted in General Studies, Jewish Studies, Ruach

A peek into Grade One

On Tuesday, the Grade One classes took part in a Let’s Talk Science workshop called the Tree of Life. Science students from the University of Ottawa taught us about the different characteristics of animals. We then had fun sorting and classifying the plastic animals. This was the perfect introduction to an upcoming research project about animals in the winter.

We also had the chance to make our own Tree of Life.

In a unit on Data Management we have been making graphs and interpreting the data. Corn seems to be the favourite vegetable in Grade One. Cherries are a favourite fruit in 1B while 1A seems to prefer peaches.

 

 

The children are very excited to visit the Scholastic Book Fair next week. The flyer with some of the featured books came home in the note totes yesterday. 1A and 1B will visit the Book Fair on Thursday December 7th.

Save the date for our Family Chanukah Celebration. We have already started to practice the song we will be singing. It is a terrific one.

Posted in General Studies, Jewish Studies, Ruach

Yom Ha’atzmaut!

It was a special week at school. On Yom Hazikaron, we remembered the brave Israeli soldiers who fought for Israel.
Yom Ha’atzmaut was a day full of celebration on Israel’s 75th birthday. We started by decorating our classroom doors and lockers in blue and white. We think we did a pretty good job, don’t you?

All the classes had the opportunity to visit different stations. We learned a special dance, played Twister with JNF, sang karaoke, played musical chairs, and did Israeli Just Dance.

At lunch, we ate delicious falafel. Special Thanks to the parents for helping make the falafel!

We finished the day with the whole school in the gym doing the special dance we learned in the morning. A birthday cupcake was the special treat we got to eat. It was such a fun day!

 

JNF Art Contest

The Jewish National Fund has created an art contest that students and families may participate in. Check out the pamphlet below to learn more about it!

Contest:

  • Draw or paint a picture (8-1/2” X 11” and suitable for framing) following the story A Tree in the Desert by Avirama Golan.
  • Watch the story on YouTube (https://youtu.be/FbevCoM9_2U).
  • The artwork can be of the Negev, Ben Gurion, or a tree in the desert.

 

Posted in 1B, Jewish Studies, Ruach

A Model Seder to Remember

Kitah Alef’s Model Seder took place this past Monday. It was a memorable day: many children said it was their favourite day of the school year. Moreh Saar and Morah Ada were so proud of the children. They read and sang so beautifully. We hope the children sing beautifully as they celebrate together with family at the Seder tonight.

 

Wishing everyone a Chag Pesach Sameach!

The Grade One Team

 

 

 

We found the afikomen!

 

Posted in 1A, General Studies, Jewish Studies, Ruach

The latest from 1A

The latest from 1A

This past week we celebrated the 100th day of school. In General Studies, we read 100 words, worked on 100 math problems, and wrote the 100th-day news. We counted to 100 en français and wrote 100 words in Hebrew. The highlight was making Fruit Loop necklaces with 100 Fruit Loops. The students had fun snacking as they counted and made their necklaces.

100 Hebrew words

 

In Social Studies, the students worked on personal timelines. Seeing all the beautiful pictures of children of different ages made everyone smile.

 

Friday was our kickoff for the love of reading. We made reading forts in class. Reading in forts was a big hit. It was our surprise for our homework bingos. One of the students said, “It is a dream come true!” He had wished only a month ago that we could make forts in school.

 

A few children also enjoyed some quiet reading after story time in the library today.

 

Hebrew with Moreh Saar

Hey there Grade 1,

It’s almost Pesach and I figured a bit of showing off our conversational skills is in order.

As a part of my methodology I find it extremely important to anchor the learning in real life, as language is a “use it or lose it” skill. That’s why I decided to connect Hebrew studies with Israeli culture. As you might know, the students surely realized it by now, Israelis are loving, passionate and welcoming, however they are also loud and full of Chutzpah!!

Taking this into consideration I decided to teach the kids several different ways to ask and answer people “how are you doing?”, some are formal, some are good old fashion cheeky!! Please feel free to listen to them answer about their day and ask me how I’m doing. It was a calculated risk, but boy am I bad at math, the kids can definitely talk, but now I got a classroom full of cheeky Israeli sounding kids.

Have a great Pesach vacation,

Saar

Posted in 1A, 1B, Jewish Studies, Jewish Studies Reading, Ruach

Where did my flag go?!

Hello everyone, it’s another interesting week here in the first grade.

As a part of our morning routine, we take notes about the weather, debating whether it’s rainy, sunny, cloudy, etc. outside… One of the different weather conditions we talk about is windy (רוח). Unfortunately, 2 weeks ago, a big storm tore away the flag from one of the businesses situated across the 417, leaving us completely lost when it comes to determining the level of wind outside.

That is why the first grade decided to spring into action and use their hard earned vocabulary into use. We sat down and wrote a stern, yet firm, letter to the Customs and Immigration Union (look it up, this is the real deal), asking them to bring their flag back. We also took the liberty of drawing some nice depictions of how the loss of the flag makes us feel, and these are some of the results:

 

Now we just have to hope that if they don’t bring the flag back for their own national pride, at the least they’ll do it for the children!

I hope that there will be updates to follow,

Saar.

Posted in French, General Studies, Jewish Studies, Ruach

Yom Ha’atzmaut

Tomorrow we will be celebrating Yom Ha’atzmaut. The day will be filled with RUACH and special activities. Take a peek at what’s been added to the schedule. Please wear blue and white tomorrow. You can add blue and white ribbons to your hair or add a flag to your cheeks with face paint. Be creative and show us RUACH!!

Bitmoji Image