Week 9

- October 30, 2016

Reminders

Please remember to fill out the reading log EACH TIME you read a book with your child. Our classroom's goal is reading 5 books per week. Each time they read 5 books in a week I will put their name in for the draw for 2 tickets to Laser City. **Please bring back R.E.D. folders every Monday so that your child can get their home reading book exchanged.

Congratulations to Hudson for winning two tickets to Laser City in the first draw of the year!

October 31 - Halloween Parade begins at 9am in the Gym

November 1 - NO SCHOOL

Congratulations to our Student of the Week!

Language Arts

This week, our class continued to expand on the story of Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman. It is about a witch that has grown the biggest pumpkin ever. She wants to make herself a pumpkin pie but the pumpkin is too big for her to get it off the vine. It is so big that her a ghost, vampire, mummy can't help her move it, until a bat comes up with an idea to get the pumpkin off the vine. The students learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin, various uses for a pumpkin, and the parts of a pumpkin. On Halloween, the students will be taking part in a shared writing activity to write down the steps of carving a pumpkin.

1C received new Orange Rainbow Words this week. They worked on Rainbow Writing in their Word Work folders. The students used this week's Red Rainbow Words during this activity and wrote each of the words in all the colours of the rainbow. It is nice to see that the students are increasingly recognizing some of their Rainbow Words in books that they are reading in the classroom or at home. Please be sure to practice these Rainbow Words at home because I do a weekly assessment on Fridays.

Math

Grade 1C completed their first math unit (Numbers 1 to 10) this week. They completed a unit assessment by completing a Math About Me activity. They look great!

We will begin our new math unit (Numbers 11 to 20) on Wednesday, November 2, 2016.

Science

Grade 1C already knows that when they mix certain primary colours they create secondary colours. This week, the class discovered how they can use various items from their kitchen to make an alternative to paint. Together we created an underwater scene using the technique of "stain" painting. Previous to Science class: five tea bags steeped in water, coffee dissolved in water, curry powder was combined with hot water, and spinach was boiled for a couple of minutes in water. Each of these liquids created a different stain.

tea = brown

coffee = dark brown

curry powder = yellow

spinach = yellow-green

beet juice = pink/red

lemon juice = white

The tea stain was used to paint a turtle. The coffee stain was used to create spots on the turtle. Lemon juice was used to create white spots on the turtle. The curry powder was used to paint the sand. The kids thought it looked like sand because some of the undissolved particles of curry looked like actual sand! The spinach water was used to create seaweed. The beet juice was used to paint pink fish swimming in our underwater scene.

Social Studies

Grade 1C was introduced to the world of mapping last week. Since they enjoyed the book My Map Book by Sara Fanelli they created their very own map, A Map Of My Day, similar to the one in the book. They drew pictures and/or chose words that best described their morning, afternoon, and evening routines and activities.