Monkey business...

We're gearing up for a busy February with so many special days ahead. From Valentine's Day and Lunar New Year to our 100th day in first grade, Family Day and Pink Day!

2016 is the year of the MoNkEY! Here is a sneak peek at our black water coloured monkeys. More to come....

Family Glyph

Who lives in your home? We used the chart below to add coloured squares in our house to represent who lives in our home. Can you figure out which house is yours?

Mittens

After reading Jan Brett's, The Mitten, students used oil pastels to draw and design their own colourful mitten using different lines, patterns and colours. Aren't they beautiful?

Building number sense with math games

It's easy to partner up and play the Hand Game. We were working on all the ways to make six, essentially all seven ways to divide six into two groups. 

0+6

1+5

2+4

3+3

4+2

5+1

6+0

To play the Hand Game, partner up and take six little cubes. One person discretely divides the cubes between their two hands. The other partner chooses one of the hands to reveal how many cubes are hiding inside. 

Once the cubes are revealed the person says how many cubes are hiding in the closed fist to make six. 

If there is one cube in this hand, there are five hiding in the other. 

One and five is six! Then the partners switch roles. 

We also played 'shake and spill' with double sided counters. Students recorded their results by colouring counters and writing number sentences to math. Then they graphed their results. 

Later during the week, we were working on number seven. Here are some different ways students were exploring seven at the math table with a variety of materials. 

These are the seven trains we made with unifix cubes. 

Happy New Year - Fireworks!

To ring in the new year we created these bright and colourful nighttime cityscapes. The fireworks capture the excitement and anticipation the new year brings. 

After looking at many images of fireworks on the iPads, the children set off with oil pastels to create their own colour lit skies on blue paper. 

The following day, the children drew a skyline of the city, highlighting the tall skyscrapers. The buildings were brought to life by adding bright yellow windows with oil pastels. Happy New Year!!!

Holiday News!

Extra extra! Read all about it!!! We spent Monday and Tuesday writing stories for our holiday newspapers. The children loved being reporters and working under pressure! Deadlines to meet, stories to complete before sharing day on Wednesday. We had lots of fun coming up with topics; some popular storylines included the earthquake and favourite gifts under the tree. Then there were snow sports, trips to local mountains, parties, ice fishing and even camping!

On Wednesday morning, after the newspapers were 'published' it was time to sit back and read each other's news, with a tim bit or two for good measure. 

I think there might just be a future reporter or two amidst this group of youngsters.