We Completed our First Whole Week Together!

We have now spent our first whole week together! What a kind and gentle
class they are:)

This was our toothpaste challenge from last week. From it, we thought about how words and deeds can stain other people's hearts and it is hard to make them shiny again. We all want to try really hard to be kind to each other in our class.

We came up with these ideas about what a respectful classmate looks like, sounds like, is and is not. The class came up with some great ideas!

We talked about snack time and how that when Mrs. Njie was a child, a juice box was considered to be really healthy and count as one portion of fruit. Now the experts say that it is not so healthy as it is processed. We found there was 23g of sugar in the boxes we look at! This is another reason why drinks in the class have to be water! Treats are fine but it is important to recognize they are treats. The class thought that companies try to convince us that treats are fruits, such as fruit gummies and fruit roll ups. We decided that if something comes off a plant, it is a fruit or vegetable and if something is made in a factory, it is a treat. Treats don't make the best brain food:(

 WE are using the Super Sentence framework to help us remember that sentences begin with upper cases and end with punctuation, such as a period. We are also editing our sentences carefully for extra upper case letters in the middle of sentences. By brainstorming alternative adjectives, nouns we are able to make our sentences more interesting than the original one. By thinking more deeply about where and when the event occurred, we are able to stretch our sentence out. These anchor charts will be used over the next few weeks when the students complete independent word work. You can make up a similar chart at home, to help your child, if you think they need more sentence writing practice.

Practice is needed to get better at anything. In read to self time, students have to quickly choose a spot to read and get going with their reading until the end of the time. Eyes need to be on the books and students need to be reading the words. By being independent, the teacher is free to work intensely with a student, or group of students. We are slowly building up our reading stamina!

Through this art task, students can easily see the benefits of practice. The first picture is a self portrait taken at the start of the week. We then went on to look really closely at facial features and practiced over and over. On Friday, we used our new knowledge to draw a new self portrait. The change is stunning! (Although the initial portraits were very sweet).

Before:

 Same student, after:

Here are some more:

As we are looking at calendars in math, we are using the vocabulary around this. We have been using  ordinal numbers:

We pretended there had been a race and used visual language people to practice using our ordinal numbers and symbols, such as 1st, 2nd:

We are looking forward to another great week of learning.

Please kindly remember to send a pair of indoor shoes and warm clothing with your child. We want to keep our floors shiny and clean and we want to stay warm and dry during recess time.

Looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible at this week's Open House (Thursday evening)

5:45 – 6:15 pm Parent Information Session - #1
6:30 – 7:00 pm Parent Information Session - #2 

You pick which of the two sessions you want to attend. Remember, this is not a time to discuss individual progress. We are still getting to know your child, their strengths and challenges. We will have this opportunity at the upcoming Conference night.

No School on Friday.