Grade 1/2 room 3: Overview of Our Week

Dear Parents/Guardians,

Wow, what a fantastic week it has been - a perfect way to end the month of September and step right into October. I cannot express how happy this class makes me. The boys and girls are so helpful and responsible - they even compete for who will be first to clean, organize, put down chairs or tidy up our library. They are a dream class and I feel so blessed to be facilitating their learning this year.

This week was a busy week full of many different lessons/activities. Below you can see the boys and girls of room 3 engaged in their work. Unfortunately, not all of the pictures made it to my email, so I will add another post next Monday to update you from our Fun Friday.

In the pictures you will see two separate math lessons. One is an example of independent math work, and the other includes shared math and partner math. Grade 1 students and Grade 2 students were separated during problem solving work. While I work with one group on the carpet, the other is off working on their own task. Hopefully this gives you a glimpse into what our math program looks like. Next Monday will be our final task for Patterning before moving on to Number Sense and Numeration. This is the biggest and most important math strand, as it provides the foundation for all future math to come. I focus heavily on this strand and do not rush it, as I want to ensure that most students have a strong grasp of it. It will be the longest unit this year, but also one that is woven into every other strand.

We also started a beautiful art activity. The particular curriculum expectation is almost identical for both grades for this type of art, therefore the whole class worked on this. In art we learned about different types of lines (e.g., straight, horizontal, vertical, zig zag, wavy, swirly lines). The students traced different leaves and then created different patterns within the leaves that included an array of lines. They then went over their work with a black crayon. Next week we will paint our leaves and then paint the background blue. The effect will be fallen leaves in a pond. Stay tuned for pics - these are already looking very beautiful. I'm so impressed with the students' artistic abilities.

In Language we are still working on our stamina and trying to work on sustained independent reading to 15 minutes. They are doing a great job so far. This is extremely important, as it gives me time to work with students one on one, and in the weeks to come, work with guided reading groups.
Additionally, we have looked at the difference between fiction vs. nonfiction books.
We are also looking at the different parts to a story: beginning, middle, end; characters; setting; problem/solution. This week we focused on beginning, middle and end. Next week the students will be writing about these in their retells from books that we read aloud in class.
For writing, we talked about reasons that we write and came up with a list of different things we can write about. We also talked about trying to sound out words on our own and to use our personal word wall. The focus is not on spelling, but rather on getting ideas out. I tell them not to worry about spelling, as the preoccupation of spelling words accurately stalls their creativity and thoughts. The results were great. They did a fantastic job writing on their own.

In Science the Grade 2 students learned about insects and their characteristics. Next we have reptiles, amphibians and fish. In the weeks to come they will be creating a make believe animal, and then for their final project, they will create a diorama on an animal of their choice.

Since we are learning about animals, Ms. Ritsakis' and our class decided to take a nature walk around the school to observe different animals in their natural habitats. We looked at birds flying south, insects under rocks, on trees and in the soil.
To add to our nature walk, we had the students from both classes collect 5 different types of leaves for a future art activity. We couldn't have asked for a better time to pick leaves - leaves of every colour were found on our school playgrounds. It was truly a blast.

Another important event this week was Picture Day - wow, how cute was this class? They are adorable. Below you will see our own class picture.

Thank you for logging on to the blog to take the time to read and view the pictures of your children working away.
I would also like to thank some parents for sending in boxes of tissue and hand sanitizer - I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it. It definitely gets quite costly to supply these items (especially during our winter months), therefore any assistance is appreciated.
For the winter months, I think a good idea would be to have each child have their own box of tissue inside their desk. It is certainly not mandatory, as I never leave the classroom without hand sanitizer, hand soap, baby wipes and tissue, but I think it would be a nice idea. Hygiene is very important in our class.

I hope you all have a great weekend. If you have any questions/comments, please don't hesitate to ask.

Sincerely,

Ms. Nikoletopoulos