Students are feeling a little stir crazy due to the cold weather! We make sure to have many body breaks to use up some of our energy and to give our minds a rest. The weather is supposed to be MUCH warmer next week, so we are all looking forward to that... Speaking of the word MUCH, grade 1 students practiced finding how much more again today. In order to grasp this, students must first understand that as we count in order, numbers are actually becoming larger. That, for example, as a quantity four is bigger than three - there's more in four than there is three. We tried using more concrete materials to work through these concept today - goldfish crackers! Students were given different amounts of crackers and asked if this was fair? Their answer was of course no, but why not? And that's because someone had more than them! Then, we practiced making pairs to find out how much more some people had than others. We also used our bodies and our giant number lines to find out more. One student would be instructed to stand on a number, say 5, and another student was instructed to count on from 5 to find number that is four more than 5. That would student would take four steps and land on 9, meaning 9 is four more than 5! Practice the below questions with your student: Grade 2s but their ability of measuring lengths to the test today and have begun practicing determining the distance between two objects. Using various units, students determined the distance between objects within the classroom.
Students also worked on the inferencing skills today. We know that to make a good inference, we need to pair clues and background knowledge together. We practiced this skill by reading "The Caterpillar Woman". Because reading, students predicted what the book would be about and what the main character would do. Many students guessed that the book was about a woman turning into a caterpillar; however, they would be reminded that when we make an inference, we are not guessing WHAT happens in the story but instead WHY the story was written. What lessons is the story trying to teach us? For example, The Three Little Pigs is not a story about three pigs building three different houses. It is actually about the value of hard work. With this in mind, we read our new story and discussed why the story was written after we were done. Together, we determined that The Caterpillar Woman is actually a story about kindness and seeing a person's inner beauty!
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Today started with music. Grade 1 and 2 had requested a new song with new chords to begin practicing on their ukuleles. Today we started You Are My Sunshine! Students already are pros at the C chord, the F chord is brand new and we worked on that for most of the class! After library, students moved on to math. Grade 1s are working on the concept of finding out how much more a number is. Students are learning that number rules do not change, even if I use different shapes to represent numbers. For example, If I draw 4 triangles and 3 circles, I have 1 more triangle than circles because 4 is ALWAYS 1 more than 3. Then, if I draw 4 hearts and 3 squares I have 1 more heart than squares 4 is ALWAYS 1 more than 3, even though now I used different shapes than before. Practice the below activities with your student: Grade twos practiced measuring and ensuring we are measuring something correctly. We know how to select good units to measure length, students now need to remember that the unit has to be used correctly: we must keep units in straight line, with no over laps or gaps. To decide if a measurement has been taken correctly, students should ask themselves these questions: 1. Are the units all the same length? (need yes) 2. Are the units placed the same way? (need yes) 3. Are the units overlapping? (need no) 4. Are there gaps between the units? (need no) Take a look at the example below: We also need to make sure that if we're measuring with a unit that can be stretched, that it is fully stretched BEFORE we measure with it. String is a good example of this. If the string is curled up when we measure, we won't get a correct measurement because once the string is stretched out/straightened it actually is longer than it looks when curled.
After lunch, students worked on building things in science. Room 9 directed me how to draw a house, advising what parts I needed to draw first (walls) and adding more detail as we went a long (a roof, some windows, a door). Then, we read the three little pigs and talked about what all the houses had in common - walls, a roof, a door. We also talked about what the straw house and stick house were missing, which made them easy to blow down - fasteners! Students then had to recreate these houses: a house of paper (with no fasteners), a house of sticks (with no fasteners), and a house of blocks (with the lego connectors acting as fasteners). Some of their creations are below! Students learned that without fasteners, it was impossible to try to build a house with all three parts (Walls, door, and roof). Families, please remember to return all swimming forms ASAP. If a child does not have completed permission forms they are unable to attend swimming lessons. Additionally, we require more volunteers in order for swimming to happen. If you are available during the dates of January 27-30th, please come visit the office to order your police clearance as soon as possible! On Friday, students brought home their weekly reflection journals for the first time. Every Friday, students will write a short entry reflecting on their week. They are required to outline two things they did well and one thing they would like to improve on. They will bring their journals home for the weekend. Families, please read your student's weekly entry and provide them with written feedback. You can write directly on the week's page. Feedback should be in the form of two stars and one stair. This means you will highlight two things in your student's writing that is done well...for example, they may spell their sight words correctly or have good spacing in between their words. You will also highlight one thing you believe your student should work on in their writing, for example perhaps your student used some capital letters in the middle of their words. Journals will be returned every Monday and reviewed by Mrs. Berg. Thank you for you support! Today, Grade 1 and 2 were introduced to the Circle of Courage as we explore they ways Indigenous cultures contribute to the diversity of our home. The Circle of Courage is an Indigenous Way of Knowing that highlights four key teachings: Belonging, Mastery, Generosity, and Independence. Student's explored their developing understanding of these teachings by watching Josh's story (link below) and identifying moments where Josh felt like he belonged, where Josh worked hard to try something new, where Josh helped others, and where Josh made safe choices for himself. If a student is missing any of the four parts, their circle is broken leaving them feeling sad. At the beginning of Josh's story, it's clear he does not have a sense of belonging, learning him feeling hurt and alone. If we worked to keep our circles whole, we are leading happier and healthier lives. We began our novel study during Reader's Workshop today! Students were introduced The Land of Stories, The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer. Students practiced pairing clues from the book's cover (see picture below) with their existing background knowledge to make an inference about what will happen in the book. We had many good guesses including:
- Two children will go to a fairy land where the wolf will try to destroy it - The kids will climb the bean stalk and fall - The kids will meet two princesses and try to save them Let's see if any of our inferences where correct at the end of our novel! Families, Rosscarrock is in need of volunteers for swimming January 27-30. In order to volunteer, you MUST have an updated police clearance. Without an appropriate amount of volunteers, we cannot go swimming. Please visit the office if you're able to help out!
Reminder as well that swimming forms need to be returned ASAP. Without completed permission forms students will not be allowed to go to the pool. Another reminder that our breakfast program starts Monday, January 13th. See you at 8:40 am! please be aware that all forms required for swim week have been sent home. Grade 1 and 2 will be swimming January 27-30. Please complete and return the Swimming Ability and Acknowledgment of Risk forms as soon as possible. Students require these forms completed if they are to participate in swimming lessons. Rosscarrock School is extremely fortunate to have been chosen as one of five Calgary schools that will participate in Alberta Education’s School Nutrition Pilot Program from January 13-June 19, 2020. The program will provide students the opportunity to receive all or part of a daily breakfast consisting of the four food groups. This will be provided at no cost. The program follows the Alberta Nutrition Guidelines for Children and Youth, and will provide food choices such as cereal, muffins, milk, fresh fruit and eggs. Calgary Meals on Wheels will provide the food choices offered. Every student can participate. If they are hungry, they can eat! Parents and staff members are also welcome to join them for a meal. The program not only provides opportunities for students to try new foods, it will also provide an opportunity for social interaction outside of the classroom. To learn more about the school nutrition program, please visit, Alberta School Nutrition Plan or contact Somer Gotmy, Breakfast Supervisor and Lead Lunch Supervisor: [email protected] Our breakfast program runs daily from 8:40 AM to 9:00 AM, and is free for all students. Students are to come to the lunchroom doors at 8:40 AM. They will have up to 20 minutes to eat, followed by 10 minutes of supervised play outside. Students who arrive at school after 9:00 AM may ‘grab and go’. This means they are permitted to take certain food items (excluding milk) into the classroom to start their day. We look forward to seeing you on January 13, 2020. In Language Arts, students were introduced to another reading strategy: making inferences. Students are learning this so that they may better understand the things they read. Making inferences requires gathering clues from the words and pictures within a book and using our existing background knowledge to "read between the lines". Inferencing is less about WHAT is happening in a story and more about WHY the story was written. As in, what message is the story trying to teach us? Students are still working on summarizing stories too. Today was our final group practice of retelling the story "Giraffes Can't Dance" before we act it out for our classmates tomorrow! In math, grade twos continued their exploration of measurement. Today, we learned about "units of measurement", a unit of measurement is something we can use to measure over and over again. We learned that when we use something to measure an object(s), we have to ensure we use the same unit; otherwise, we make incorrect measurements. Grade ones worked on determining how much more of one object they had. Through pairing, students are able to count extras to find out how many more. Try the below to determine how many more: Students also started the Building Things unit in science today! Before we could build, we had to learn the difference between a fastener and a building material. Together we read The Three Little Pigs and talked about their houses. For each house we identified the building material (straw, sticks, bricks), the building material is what gives an object is shape, structure, and purpose. We then talked about what types of things we could use to hold those materials together. The things that hold building materials are our fasteners and these include things like tape, glue, and clay! Afterwards, we were able to explore with a variety of materials to determine what could be a building material and what could be a fastener. Students will be bringing their creations home today!
Families,
please be aware that all forms required for swim week have been sent home today. Grade 1 and 2 will be swimming January 27-30. Please complete and return the Swimming Ability and Acknowledgment of Risk forms as soon as possible. Students require these forms completed if they are to participate in swimming lessons. Rosscarrock School is extremely fortunate to have been chosen as one of five Calgary schools that will participate in Alberta Education’s School Nutrition Pilot Program from January 13-June 19, 2020. The program will provide students the opportunity to receive all or part of a daily breakfast consisting of the four food groups. This will be provided at no cost. The program follows the Alberta Nutrition Guidelines for Children and Youth, and will provide food choices such as cereal, muffins, milk, fresh fruit and eggs. Calgary Meals on Wheels will provide the food choices offered. Every student can participate. If they are hungry, they can eat! Parents and staff members are also welcome to join them for a meal. The program not only provides opportunities for students to try new foods, it will also provide an opportunity for social interaction outside of the classroom. To learn more about the school nutrition program, please visit, Alberta School Nutrition Plan or contact Somer Gotmy, Breakfast Supervisor and Lead Lunch Supervisor: [email protected] Our breakfast program runs daily from 8:40 AM to 9:00 AM, and is free for all students. Students are to come to the lunchroom doors at 8:40 AM. They will have up to 20 minutes to eat, followed by 10 minutes of supervised play outside. Students who arrive at school after 9:00 AM may ‘grab and go’. This means they are permitted to take certain food items (excluding milk) into the classroom to start their day. We look forward to seeing you on January 13, 2020. Today, students took a closer look at the city of Iqaluit. We learned that the majority of the people living there are Inuit and have a very unique culture. After looking at the weather, we found out that tomorrow, Iqaluit will feel like -37 degrees celsius! If we were to take a trip there, would we be prepared for such cold weather? How, then, do the Inuit peoples of Nunavut withstand such cold temperatures. Grade one and two learned that clothing and what clothing is made from is extremely important. After exploring this link: http://archive.is/YtdUC (copy and paste into search bar), students then designed their own clothing for an Arctic adventure! We also finished up our Ted Harrison inspired landscapes today! Please see some examples of student work below: Rosscarrock School is extremely fortunate to have been chosen as one of five Calgary schools that will participate in Alberta Education’s School Nutrition Pilot Program from January 13-June 19, 2020. The program will provide students the opportunity to receive all or part of a daily breakfast consisting of the four food groups. This will be provided at no cost. The program follows the Alberta Nutrition Guidelines for Children and Youth, and will provide food choices such as cereal, muffins, milk, fresh fruit and eggs. Calgary Meals on Wheels will provide the food choices offered. Every student can participate. If they are hungry, they can eat! Parents and staff members are also welcome to join them for a meal. The program not only provides opportunities for students to try new foods, it will also provide an opportunity for social interaction outside of the classroom. To learn more about the school nutrition program, please visit, Alberta School Nutrition Plan or contact Somer Gotmy, Breakfast Supervisor and Lead Lunch Supervisor: [email protected] Our breakfast program runs daily from 8:40 AM to 9:00 AM, and is free for all students. Students are to come to the lunchroom doors at 8:40 AM. They will have up to 20 minutes to eat, followed by 10 minutes of supervised play outside. Students who arrive at school after 9:00 AM may ‘grab and go’. This means they are permitted to take certain food items (excluding milk) into the classroom to start their day. We look forward to seeing you on January 13, 2020. We picked up right where we left off with " Row Row Row Your Boat" played on the ukulele in music class today. The chords the students are practicing are posted below: In Math, grade twos started their Unit 4: Measurement. We learned that when we measure something, we assign a number to an object - making it different than simply comparing sizes. Students were introduced to measuring length today, using blocks as a unit of measurement. We learned new vocabulary too: shortest and longest. The below letter was sent home today with some ideas to practice measuring at home: Grade 1 began their Unit 4 today, too. We are now studying counting strategies. Students are practicing counting both forwards and backwards within 10. We learned that when we count forward, we read numbers from left to right and our numbers get bigger. However, when we count backwards, we would read ordered numbers from right to left and our numbers get smaller. There are a lot of fun games and songs students can practice at home so that they are fully comfortable with counting forwards and backwards within 10. Here are some examples below: In Social Studies, students where introduced to the city of Iqaluit. We will be exploring this city over the next few weeks to determine what makes this community unique from our own. This exploration will also allow students to appreciate how connections to a community contribute to person's personal identity. Ask your student what territory the city of Iqaluit is located in tonight!
Families, please also remember that tomorrow is Book Club, I look forward to seeing everyone at lunch hour. Rosscarrock School is extremely fortunate to have been chosen as one of five Calgary schools that will participate in Alberta Education’s School Nutrition Pilot Program from January 13-June 19, 2020. The program will provide students the opportunity to receive all or part of a daily breakfast consisting of the four food groups. This will be provided at no cost.
The program follows the Alberta Nutrition Guidelines for Children and Youth, and will provide food choices such as cereal, muffins, milk, fresh fruit and eggs. Calgary Meals on Wheels will provide the food choices offered. Every student can participate. If they are hungry, they can eat! Parents and staff members are also welcome to join them for a meal. The program not only provides opportunities for students to try new foods, it will also provide an opportunity for social interaction outside of the classroom. To learn more about the school nutrition program, please visit, Alberta School Nutrition Plan or contact Somer Gotmy, Breakfast Supervisor and Lead Lunch Supervisor: [email protected] Our breakfast program runs daily from 8:40 AM to 9:00 AM, and is free for all students. Students are to come to the lunchroom doors at 8:40 AM. They will have up to 20 minutes to eat, followed by 10 minutes of supervised play outside. Students who arrive at school after 9:00 AM may ‘grab and go’. This means they are permitted to take certain food items (excluding milk) into the classroom to start their day. We look forward to seeing you on January 13, 2020. We had a wonderful day back to normal routines and schedule in Room 9! Students now have a new morning work routine, allowing them to independently complete the day's calendar and work on number sense. We will continue to practice this new routine this week, and soon students will not require any direction when they start their school day. After we shared about our Winter Break with our class mascot, John Cena, students reviewed the math skills they develop during math centre rotations. Students played their math games and worked on their counting on, subitizing, number recognition, pattern creation, and number facts skills. Afterwards, students broke down their Best Day Ever from their winter break into three parts: beginning, middle, and end. Students illustrated what happened during each part of their day in order to tell a story. Then they used words to describe each section of their Best Day Ever. The ability to retell stories or events aides in comprehension, enhancing our literacy skills. After lunch, students moved on to their Daily 5 activities. Working on writing, using new words, practicing their rainbow words, developing comprehension, and working on their reading. We then started a new art project based on the creations of Ted Harrison. Ted Harrison's depiction of landscapes shows how organically shapes can depicted within art pieces. As a way to wrap up our study of arctic animals, students began their arctic landscapes today, inspired by Ted Harrison's work in his book "Oh, Canada". Another routine started today is our daily "Readers Workshop". During this time, students are welcome to enjoy their snack. Students have been reminded that a snack should take no longer than ten minutes to eat and should be a healthy choice. Students have reviewed what items of our lunch we should eat during lunch hour and what items we should save for snack. These might include a piece of fruit, a yogurt, or a granola bar. Student's should not be saving their larger lunch items such as sandwiches for snack time as we simply do not have the time required to eat these items. As snack time has the potential to take away from learning, then 10 minute mark is a strict reminder that snack should be cleaned up. As for Readers Workshop, students will be working on a novel study of the Land of Stories, but for this week we are practicing this new routine by studying the book "Giraffes Can't Dance". Today, students listened to the book and then broke up into groups in order to practice retelling this story based on the beginning, middle, and end! Finally, a reminder to all families to please return the envelop you received with your student's report card after you have signed it. This indicates that you have received the report card. |
Mrs. BergHi! Welcome to our class blog. Our blog celebrates student success in Room 9 at Rosscarrock School. Archives
March 2020
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