Great Grade 1's

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

2010-05-08T16:41:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-04-15T18:25:00.000-07:00

Here are some quick ways to make ten!

Wordle about our Skyping Buddies

2010-04-15T18:22:00.000-07:00

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

The Grade 1 Tipi

2010-04-15T17:30:00.000-07:00

Here is our amazing tipi!

The Big Rock

2010-04-14T21:08:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-08T15:04:00.000-07:00

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?

2010-04-08T15:02:00.001-07:00

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

2010-04-05T18:53:00.001-07:00

Using the Internet in Our Classroom

2010-04-02T11:12:00.001-07:00

Alberta Bound Snap Quiz!

2010-03-21T10:39:00.001-07:00

Mr. Blarney is one tricky Leprechaun!

2010-03-17T16:24:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-03-11T22:41:00.001-08:00

Virtual Trip to Edmonton

2010-03-09T17:21:00.000-08:00

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.

2010-03-07T08:23:00.001-08:00

Konnichiwa!

2010-03-01T18:28:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-02-14T16:31:00.001-08:00

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

2010-02-04T22:39:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-30T12:51:00.001-08:00

Ten Million Fireflies

2010-01-27T19:49:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-01-23T14:15:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-01-11T17:47:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-01-10T14:59:00.000-08:00

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)

Hola!

2009-12-08T21:28:00.000-08:00

The Grade Ones are on a great adventure around the world. They will be answering the big question: How are our traditions the same and different than other families around the world?We began our trip by traveling south to Mexico on our Polar Express "sleigh." While it was really hot in Mexico today and we really wished to hit the beach, we decided to read about the "Legend of the Poinsettia." Though

there are different variations of this story, we read one by Tomi dePaola. Students made a craft and retold the story in a mini book. They also made beautiful poinsettias at the art center today.

Are there really crabs in Winter?

2009-12-07T22:08:00.000-08:00

Are there really crabs in Winter? There sure are! (At least pet hermit crabs) One of our friends brought his hermit crabs to school and the Grade Ones were keen scientists, as they observed the crabs' habitat, how they move and how the play. They also learned how to care for the crabs and know that crabs need water, food, space, care and little bits of water sprayed in their habitat throughout the day (even in winter!). A big thank you to our friend who shared his pets with us! *high five*

Marvelous Mathematicians

2009-11-23T17:11:00.000-08:00

Grade Ones are becoming marvelous Mathematicians. After working with numbers and making number equations that equal to 23, they were engaged in a number of learning centers to practice their Math skills. Using the "Power of Ten" visual tools such as playing cards and place value cards, the students played games to learn and retain patterns. They played card games including: "Zap," and "The Squeeze," with the Power of Ten cards, subitized different objects on the smartboard and made puppet plays with frogs, titled "A Day at the Pond."

Weird-Bird by Shel Silverstein

2009-11-11T06:29:00.001-08:00

Birds are flyin' south for winter.
Here's the Weird-Bird headin' north,
Wings a-flappin', beak a-chatterin',
Cold head bobbin' back 'n' forth.
He says, "It's not that I like ice
Or freezin' winds and snowy ground.
It's just sometimes it's kind of nice
To be the only bird in town."

The Seasons

2009-11-11T06:10:00.000-08:00

We have been learning about the four seasons. We use our senses to describe Fall. We can see that the trees have changed colour and are starting to lose their leaves. Animals prepare for winter and some animals, including bats, will hibernate. While bats hibernate, some birds like geese are migrating south for the winter and will be back in spring.

Students are beginning to see that it gets darker sooner and it is still dark when they wake up, unlike summer when it seems bright when they fall asleep at night and when they wake up.

We also know that we need to dress warmer in the Fall since it feels cooler than it was in the summer. We wear jackets to play outside at recess and running shoes. Some Fall days have been especially chilly and we needed to wear our toques and mitts!

I wonder what winter will look like?

Skip Counting

2009-11-07T06:47:00.000-08:00

The Grade Ones have been using number lines, counters, cubes and money to learn how to skip count. They especially enjoy using dimes to count by 10s, nickels to count by 5s and pennies to count by ones. Here Grade Ones, look closely at the coins and practice skip counting.

Task 1:

Task 2:

Task 3:

Practice Skip Counting on this this cool site!

Grade One Theatre

2009-10-23T21:54:00.000-07:00

Last week we read a story called, "The Little Old Lady Who was not Afraid of Anything," by Linda Williams and the students found this story to be pretty funny. They were so into it, we decided to turn it into a play. We performed our play to one Kindergarten class and we were a total hit! To take their learning to a higher level each student will make their own puppet play, using a variety of puppets and will use very different characters than the ones in the book. It will be really fun to see what they come up with!

We are also very excited to perform our poetry next week. We have been working hard with the other Grade One classes and we are almost ready for our big performance.

Echolocation and Cliffhangers

2009-10-21T19:14:00.000-07:00

Echo, echo, echo....location!

This song has been in my head for the last hour or so. The students loved this little video clip that we watched as we are getting into our mini unit on bats. (They actually started singing it when they began writing their own stories today! They have broken out into different songs for a minute or two, a couple times already this month, which is kind of exciting because that tells me they are having fun, blossoming into a learning community and simply enjoying learning!)

Students have been learning about adaptations and are learning how to identify and describe animal changes that occur on a seasonal basis, especially since winter is approaching quickly. We are also learning about different groups of animals (bats are mammals) and the difference between a wild and a domesticated animal.

They also LOVE video clips from "Between the Lions" that we use when learning new words and letter sounds. So I thought I could put one on here for you all to enjoy! I can hear the Grade Ones telling you right now that this is the one they LOVE! This tune is especially catchy and I will often catch myself humming it throughout my day! But boy, do animations, video clips, the smartboard and other technologies provide a great addition to any lesson. This one we used with the smartboard when learning about words with the sound 'sh' in it.

I can see the student's smiles now as they got to watch those ones again!

See you soon!

Zero the Hero dropped by today...

2009-10-16T15:21:00.000-07:00

It was our 30th day of school today and the Grade Ones received a note from "Zero the Hero" and gave students "Timbits." We think he gave timbits because they look like zeros! Last time he visited he left life savers. "Zero the Hero" seems pretty cool. The students then worked with lots of different Math manipulatives including base ten blocks, ten frames, pennies, dimes and nickels and worked through an interactive smartboard lesson designed by the mysterious heroic Zero. After shaking "virtual" dice and counting to 30 in a number of ways, students had to prove which number is greater: 19 or 30? They had to decide how they would prove which one they thought was the greater number and explain their thinking. One student commented that they would much rather eat 30 Timbits, instead of 19. Unfortunately, Zero the Hero only bought a box of 15 so the students had to show me their reasoning with counters. I wonder when Zero comes next?

Welcome to our blog!

2009-10-09T07:52:00.000-07:00

What is a blog and why are we here?

Our world has certainly changed since we went to school, hasn't it? We never had cell phones, DS's, texting, the internet, etc. Our children are growing up in a different world and are "digital natives." A "digital native is a person for whom digital technologies already existed when they were born, and hence have grown up with digital technology" (wikipedia). Since they are the digital natives, what are we? We are digital immigrants, which means we need to adapt to our new place: a world where we are connected with just one click.

What is a blog?

So, here we are on a blog. A blog is just another type of website, like the wiki that we have as our class webpage. With this website, I will communicate with you and your child and you can send comments back through the blog. (To always respect privacy and identity of each individual no names will be used in this blog).

Why a blog?

This is another way to teach students how to use the internet and read information in this digital landscape. Grade Ones learn quickly about fiction and non-fiction books and know that authors write books. But what about all of the different websites online? What is fiction and non-fiction online? Who are the authors?

I will try to update this blog as much as possible. I am hoping to update daily, but this is my first time blogging, so I am not too sure how much time or energy I will have left in my day when I sit down to blog. So, please be patient with me!

"See" you soon!