Classroom Visitor

Today we had a special visitor to our classroom.

Our friend Copper made a visit to the classroom today.  The boys and girls of class 1A earned 10 Copper points and  earned the visit.  Every time they earn 10 points, Copper will come in for a visit.  

Copper absolutely loves being in the classroom and around the students.  The students absolutely adored Copper during his time here, getting to hear some of the sounds that he makes, watching him eat, and learning all sorts of neat things about him. It was a great day.

Spelling:

Our spelling words for this week are as follows:

his   this   look   have   friend

Language Arts:

Last week, and continuing this week for writing, the students have been learning to do what is called an "Inform and Explain".  This is a guided writing activity in which we explain to someone how to perform a specific activity as if they have never done it before.  It is a step by step description of the activity in which we follow a picture plan.  The students are learning ordinals (First, second, third..., then, and finally) and using them to explain steps.  Last week we explained how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  The picture plan that each student creates is the guide for their writing.  We create the picture plan and our writing follows that plan.  This week our activity is explaining how to brush your teeth.  We go into specific details on the steps about these activities and we do not cut any corners.  Feel free asking your children the steps involved in brushing your teeth, (and how not to do it, like in my demonstration).

In phonics, we learned 7 new sounds.  The long e vowel sound, the "or" blend, the "z" sound as in buzz, the "w" sound as in wind, the "ng" sound as in sing and long, and the two different sounds the double "oo" make, as in look and moon.

This week we will be learning about the -ot word family.  

Friday afternoon as well, we will be writing letters to Santa with some Grade 4 helpers.  We are getting these letters finished so all the students will get a reply before Christmas.

Math:

Our continuing unit on representing numbers 0-20, last week took us into estimating numbers to 20.  We talked about why it is important to be able to estimate (ie: numbers are too big to count, you don't have time to count).  The students should now be able to reasonably estimate numbers up to 20, use references of 5 and 10 when estimating, and estimate by choosing between two possible choices.  We will be finishing up with estimating tomorrow and moving onto recognizing more/fewer/the same.

We also continued our unit on showing equal sets this week.  Our lessons revolved around Boo the monkey who knew nothing about equal and unequal sets, and we had to teach him what it meant when something was equal, and when something was not equal.  The students should now be able to fulfill all the "I can's" listed on the previous blog.

Social Studies:

This week in social, we are starting our geography unit.  Some of the things the students will be able to identify by the end of this unit are:

What are some familiar landmarks and places in my community?

Why are these landmarks and places significant to my community?

What are some differences between rural and urban communities??

Where is my community on a map or globe?

The students will be learning how to read maps as well as identify our country and province on a map.  This unit will take us up to Christmas break.  During this time though we will be looking at how different communities and different groups may celebrate the holidays differently.

Science:

This week we will be looking at birds and what makes a bird a bird.  We will also talk about adaptations different birds have (different feet, different beaks, feathers) and figuring out why they have made these adaptation to have different shaped feet and beaks.

All in all, another exciting week in grade 1!