A-M-A.....ZING Grade Ones!

The Grade One students never cease to amaze me.  They are such keen learners.  Last week they went on the Hooda Math games site and made it past level 17.  On Friday, one student told me he will show me how to beat level 17 next Monday.  I am looking forward to learning his strategy behind beating the level.  If you have some time this evening, try this out!

Make Ten!

Here are some quick ways to make ten!

Wordle about our Skyping Buddies

Here is our wordle from our Skype conversation with our buddies in Ontario.  We learned so much from them!

The Grade 1 Tipi

Here is our amazing tipi! 

The Big Rock

We walked to the "Big Rock" today and learned that there was a time when lots of places were all ice.   When the ice went away, it left this big rock.  The ice actually carried the rock and dropped it off here!  We think that is pretty amazing!  That must be a big sheet of ice!

The Life Cycle of Frogs by Grade 1

DomoNation.com: The Life cycle of frogs by iambeamer


Like it? Create your own at DomoNation.com. It's free and fun!

What's the difference between frogs and toads?

DomoNation.com: What is the diference between frogs and toads? by iambeamer


Like it? Create your own at DomoNation.com. It's free and fun!

Wish on a Wall

Using the Internet in Our Classroom

Alberta Bound Snap Quiz!

Mr. Blarney is one tricky Leprechaun!

We tried so hard to catch the little tricky Leprechaun, Mr. Blarney. The Grade Ones made beautiful traps and made sure they had shiny objects to attract Mr. Blarney. When the Grade Ones came into class this morning, they did not find a leprechaun, but did find lots of gold! Mr. Blarney escaped their traps and gold must have fallen out of his pocket as he raced through our classroom!

Guess the wordle!

Virtual Trip to Edmonton

We rode our "motorbikes" to Edmonton and sang Paul Brandt's song titled "Alberta Bound" as we headed north today to see the Legislative Assembly in Edmonton.  We took a really cool virtual tour to see what the building looks like inside.

We learned that it is a really big building and it reminds us of a really big hotel!  We saw a room where people make decisions and we loved the sounds of the beautiful fountain when you walk into the building.

Konnichiwa!

The Grade Ones participated in our school Olympics last Friday. We represented Japan and learned a little bit about the Japanese language and culture. They learned that "konnichiwa" is "hello" and "arigato" is "thank-you" in Japanese. They saw a sumo wrestler, kimonos, made fans and drank some tea (iced-tea).

Though we loved learning about Japan and waving their flag, we were overjoyed and cheered our hearts out, when the class that represented Canada came into the gym!

After the opening ceremonies, we went outside and worked hard at bobsledding, the luge, ice hockey and many other Olympic events.  It was super fun day being an Olympian! 

Here is a link to a wiki we used to learn about Japan.

Japanwiki

A word cloud for you!

Hi Grade Ones,

I am playing around with some other kinds of word clouds. I hope we can try them in class. Here is one I made for you!

Rural and Urban Cmmunities

Before we begin our virtual trip across Alberta, we need to define some terms and begin to understand what rural and urban communities look like.  To help students understand these concepts, we created a glog on glogster and categorized pictures based on whether they would belong in a rural or urban community.  We had valuable discussions including how paved roads could be in both types of communities.  

Here is our glog:

Math Wordle

Ten Million Fireflies

For Literacy Day, the Grade Ones performed a karaoke song "Fireflies" (by Owl City) during our assembly this month.   With the Kindergarten students dancing around with flashlights and the disco ball spinning, the Grade Ones sang their hearts out to one of their favorite songs about those magical bugs that light up the open air!  We also sang "Old MacDonald" with the karaoke to celebrate literacy.  If you would like to download some free songs, you can go to the "Karaoke Channel" and use the promo code supplied on the abc Canada site. 


There is a firefly math site here: Fun with Fireflies

Beautiful Patterns!

The Grade Ones have expanded their knowledge and understanding of patterns and can create very interesting and beautiful patterns.

Though we made many patterns, here are two pictures created by different groups of students to show you what these powerful mathematicians can do.

I love observing the teamwork, as they share the tiles and discuss what they are going to make together, and the celebration at the end of centers when they have achieved their goals!  Way to go, Grade Ones!  You made beautiful patterns this week.

  I am excited to see what you will create next week!

Welcome Chocolate Chip and Munsch!

The Grade Ones were pretty excited to meet our new classroom pets.  We have 2 "Fire-Bellied-Toads" named Chocolate Chip (the brown one) and Munsch (the green one named after our favorite author Robert Munsch).  Fire Bellied Toads have a red stomach which looks like a flame.  The students watched as we fed Chip and Munsch crickets this morning.  Munsch was quick to snag one into his mouth, bur for some reason he quickly spit it out. We wondered if it was not a tasty enough treat!  Hopefully, we can watch them feed tomorrow.

We made a chart of what we already know about toads and what we would like to learn.  Here are a couple questions that we will explore over the next couple of weeks:

What is a toad?

What is the difference between a frog and toad?

How much do they eat?

Where are they from?

How do we care for them?

What do they like to do for fun?

How big are their brains?

What are their predators and prey?


We will certainly enjoy learning more about Chip and Munsch!

Our Amazing Brain!

We began a new Science unit this week about "Our 5 Senses." We know that our 5 senses include : seeing, smelling, tasting, touching and hearing. We began by learning about our brain and how our 5 senses are connected to our brains. We looked at pictures of the brain and read different books about how our brain works.

We loved learning that our brain is about the size of both of our fists put together. We also learned that our brain is a muscle and that we all have "multiple intelligences." We practice different things to work our brain and to help it make new connections and create new ideas.


The 8 Multiple Intelligences are:

Body Smart

Group Smart

Math/Logic Smart

Music Smart

Nature Smart

Picture Smart

Self Smart

Word Smart


We made the "connection" about our brains and learning to skate. (Skating is our body intelligence). We are all learning to skate and with lots of practice we all improve. This is the same with with all of our learning! We can all get to where we want to be with hard work and practice!

(Photo Courtesy of google)