Today we went to Lester's Farm on Brookfield Road.  We had an awesome time!!! The people at Lester's were wonderful, the day was warm and beautiful and the children were a pleasure to be with.  The children's manners were amazing!!  They represented their school beautifully.  I am going to stop typing and post some pictures of our day.  As one student told me, he was "livin' the life today, Mrs. Murphy!!"

 
 
 

Hi, this past week has been a busy one!!  Our color experiment finally worked!! We learned that
red + blue = purple, red + yellow = orange and blue + yellow = green.

 

 

September is childhood cancer awareness month.  We learned about Terry Fox and why we walked on Friday.  Here are a couple pictures of us on our walk.

 

We had a great time!!

 



 

We are going to begin studying apples this week.  Later in the week I am going to ask for each student to bring in their favorite apple.  We are going to do some cool things with our apples!! 

 

Tomorrow each student will be getting a baggy book to begin their at home reading practice.  I have assigned a book based on their Kindergarten level and what I have assessed so far this year in Grade One.  Try it for a couple of nights.  Please record each night as you read. If you find the level to easy or too difficult for your child please let me know in the comment section.  Return the reading log each Friday.  As well sight words will be going home tomorrow too.  I have checked all the children to see what words they know and what they still need to learn.  As a result not everyone is beginning at the same place. It is important for each child to begin where they need to begin as an individual.  I believe in teaching each student at their own stage of readiness and pace. The children and I do a lot of talking about this in class. Not every child has the same need at the same time. Please practice the words at home.  When you and your child feel they are ready for me to check their words please have them ask me to check them.  I will and I sticker or stamp the words they know and the words they still need work on I will leave blank.  Once the booklet is finished they will move on to the next set of words.

 

 



Today we learned about eagle eye as a decoding strategy. We look at the pictures to help us figure out the words. We began an inquiry process in science. We learned to ask a question and develop a plan to figure out how to test our question, record our results and then present our findings. To day our inquiry question was:  Is the field warmer in the sun or shade? We took a thermometer outside and recorded our measurement in shade and in sun.  We have discussed our results and tomorrow we will journal our scientific findings in our science notebooks.

We also set up a color experiment to find out if red and blue will make purple, red and yellow will make orange and blue and yellow will make green. Stay tuned to find out!!

Hello,  Thank you to everyone who came out to Curriculum Night.  All the handouts were sent home the next day. The small flyer for the magazine subscription can be filled out and returned if you are interested in getting the chickadee magazine for your child.  But even if you are not interested please sign and return it where it says no because we are able to get something for our classroom even if no one ordered.  Pease return these to me by Tuesday.  I am looking forward to working with all of you; parents, caregivers and students this year!!

 

On Friday we began and completed an art project.  It was a fun day!! The project is called Swirling Cool and Warm Leaves.  We discussed primary and secondary colors, how some colors make you feel warm or cool.  We discusses lines and how they can show movement. We learned how to properly hold a paint brush and how to take our time when we are using it.  It was so much fun!!



                        


The leaf project was so much fun and we learned about leaves too!!  Here is our finished work!

Today we went to the Library for the first time.  How exciting!!  We talked about how to care for our books, what it means to borrow a book and that a good place to keep our library book is in our book bag.  A new book can't be checked out until the previous book has been returned.  The children were so excited to visit the library!!  We have been reviewing the alphabet this week.  We are practicing our uppercase and lowercase letters, letter sounds, vowels and consonants.  Next week we will begin some sight words and picking baggie books to practice during Daily 5.  In Math today we played with our domino parking lots, lots of fun!!At the end of the day we went outside to the playground for extra playtime to enjoy being able to be outdoors and to learn about playground safety!.

I look forward to meeting everyone tonight at Curriculum night!!  See you there!!

Hello, today was a great day!! We had our first Grade One choir and the children really enjoyed it. We began our Daily 5 today. We have built our stamina to 1 minute and 4 seconds. Pretty amazing for six year olds and their first day!! The students picked their Favorite season and then dressed a paper doll to show what they boy should wear in that season.

We had our first meeting with our Grade Four Buddies! Everyone got a partner and had the opportunity to get to know each other better! We all can't wait to get together with Mrs. Peddle's Grade Four class again!!

Today was another great day!!  We practiced for a fire drill.  We now know how to exit the classroom properly and where to go!!  The children were greeted this morning by a new class pet... it is an African Dwarf frog names Finn. He is so cute!  The children love him!! We are all very excited to find out how to care for Finn. Tomorrow we get to feed him his food pellet.  We also learned that Finn is going to shed his skin every week and that he usually eats it and there are nutrients in it so it is ok for him to do this.  Very cool and gross!!

The students printed in their agendas today for the first time.  They did an amazing job!!  Please check the agendas nightly and sign them too, it helps validate that print carries a message.  They realize that what they are printing is important.  Also please check the blog for homework because there may be extra things added there too.

The calendar will be going home tomorrow.  It can also be found on the home page of my blog.  As well our first book order will go home tomorrow too!  Please have it back by Thursday of this week. 

Until tomorrow!!

 
We are about to start an exciting new unit in science where we will be exploring daily and seasonal changes.  Through a variety of hands-on explorations and investigations, your child will be developing an understanding of the seasons, the importance of the sun, and the daily and seasonal cycles of people and animals.

Also, you can talk to your child at home about why seasonal-related clothes and other items are appropriate for certain seasons, and about what your family does to prepare for each season.

We have also been learning about asking questions to help us better understand the world around us. The more questions the better!!  

Day 2

Today was another great day!  We read " The Kissing Hand", definitely a favorite! We represented the number two and I got some awesome creepers drawn!!

We went outside after lunch to explore and investigate like scientists!  We had so much fun!! We looked around the outdoor classroom for interesting things. here are some of the things we found.

 



We asked some interesting I wonder questions too, like "Why does a spider make a web?" and "What does sap do?". We are planning on investigating these questions to see if we can find some answers.  Tomorrow we are going to investigate using a magnifying glass!!

Hello everyone!  What a wonderful first day we had today in Grade One!  I am so excited to have met your children.  I collected all their supplies, they learned a lot of our routines, they even had Gym and Music!  I will have the September calendar going home on Friday. 

I can't wait for tomorrow!!