Welcome to the BLOG!

Welcome to the class blog!  I am delighted to be teaching first grade this year at CHA.  The blog will be a great way for your child to share and showcase the learning they're doing in the classroom with you at home! Talking about their what is happening at school helps children develop a positive sense of self especially as they begin to identify themselves as readers, writers, artists and mathematicians.  Such a wonderful age!  Publishing student work also helps to foster a sense of community within the classroom.  My hope is that this blog will act as a springboard for conversations with your child about their school days. I will share special events, writing, projects, artwork and more through photography and hopefully video too.  I hope you enjoy this special lens into our classroom this year and invite you to come along for the ride.  It's going to be a great year! Please take a moment to bookmark this page and feel free to share it with family and friends, near and far.

Here's a peek at some of the activities we were busy doing the first week back to school.  We worked on our All About Me pages a little each day.  Children drew and labeled their families and home.  They added their birthdays, which tied nicely into the birthday graphing we were working on in Math.

We spent a lot of time gathering, recording and analyzing data.  This was a great way for us to get to know each other a little more!  We created a boy/girl graph, a siblings graph and a birthday graph.  The children practiced representing numbers in different ways, like using tally marks.  We used a Venn Diagram, a bar graph and a t-chart.

The class created the most amazing set of self portraits.  I was so impressed with their attention to detail and the patience they showed as they worked their way through all of the steps.  They loved having the mirrors out to study themselves, when we worked on adding facial features.  We watched a short video on 'line', one of the seven elements of art.  It was interesting for them to see how different a self portrait could be from artist to artist and that every piece of art evokes feelings in the viewer.  What mood or feeling did they want their own portrait to portray?

   

It's no surprise that Centres has been a favourite back to school activity.  I introduced and opened a few new play centres each day.  And, what a creative bunch!  They've been building with lego, zoob, magformers, gears and k'nex.  I've seen some elaborate marble runs and structures built.  A few intense playmobil scenarios have unfolded and our farmers have been busy harvesting vegetables and tending to the animals in the farm set.  The ever popular house centre has seen a lot of traffic.  The children have been cooking up a storm, from sandwiches to cookies to pizza and even ice cream!  I always like an afternoon snack and cup of tea!  Some kids were working on developing a 'cars mat' for our cars centre.  It's a well thought out neighbourhood with parks, a lake, an amusement park, grocery store and gas station!  It's a pretty special thing to have a group of first graders playing together so cooperatively.  Centres time is a well deserved end to a busy school day!  Here is a peek at a few of the favourites...