News for November 22

The children were busy this week measuring out the 27 metre length of a blue whale, writing about and drawing their foil people to create posters and, at the end of the week, beginning to make a classroom advent calendar!

Writing: The students were challenged to write a first person narrative (story) about her/his foil person that was made last week. This helps the children to learn about character development, by creating a back story for a character. After writing and editing their rough drafts, the children were introduced to the idea of revising their writing or adding words to make their good writing even better. Finally, the children wrote the good copy of their stories on loooonnng paper....

Reading: The students are now listening to the read aloud chapter book, The Hundred Dresses. This award-wining book was written 75 years ago and is based on a real event in the life of the author. It is a story that helps the children reflect on how to treat others with respect and how "teasing" is a form of bullying. In guided reading, the small groups read aloud the book, The Special Day. We talked about how the reader knows that the story is not set in Toronto, but is set in a tropical country. We collected different words other than "said" when writing dialog (e.g., replied). We also discussed the role of a title for a story and how to write an appropriate title.

Math: In the hall outside of our classroom, the children used metre sticks to measure out 27 metres or the length of a blue whale, the largest animal on Earth. Markers were put on the floor every 5 metres to help with the count. Then the children took the 10 metre piece of pink plastic ribbon we used to measure the height of the school and we found that the blue whale measures the same as the height of almost 3 of our school buildings stacked on top!

The students also reviewed the standard units of gram (g) and kilogram (kg) and how to choose an appropriate unit to determine the mass (or weight) of a given object.

On Thursday, the children reviewed the features of analog clocks and digital clocks. The class reviewed how to write the numbers on an analog clock and how to write digital time using a colon (:). We practised reading the time on an analog clock and writing the digital time and drawing the hour hand and minute hand appropriately on a clock face, given the digital time. (Curriculum expectations are: Grade 1 - to read and write the time to the half-hour; Grade 2 - to read and write time to the quarter-hour.)

Science: The class practised how to read a non-fiction text and how to understand, remember and apply what was read. This week the children read information about liquids and solids used in everyday life. Then they were asked to give examples of liquids or solids, given various clues (e.g., a solid you can see through = glass).

Social Studies: As we slowly move through the unit on Traditions and Celebrations, the class learned about how a tradition can be important to a small group of people and isn't necessarily observed by a lot of people. For example, in my classroom there is a tradition at this time of year to create a classroom "advent calendar". The origin of the advent calendar is to count down the days to the Christian holy day of Christmas (the word "advent" means "arrival" in Latin). Often, commercial advent calendars have small treats like chocolates each day of the count. In my class, we use this idea to make our own version by counting down the days to the beginning of the winter holidays. This week, each child was given a day number to design an envelope and the students collected various trinkets like plastic snowflakes and pencils to put in each envelope. Starting next week, each day one child will be randomly selected to receive one of the envelopes. By the end, all children will have received an envelope.

Art: The students learned some strategies on how to improve their drawing skills. One way, if the object is small enough, is to trace the object. Another strategy is to imagine drawing a line around the outside of the object. The children drew 4 different versions of his/her foil person and then experimented with different drawing mediums: woodless graphite pencils, thin sharpie marker, tempera paint and charcoal.

Finally, each student created a large poster using their drawings, foil person and their foil person stories. These are now on display in the hall outside of our classroom.

Books read aloud this week:

The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes (chapter book - to be continued)

The Blue Whale by Jenni Desmond

A Special Day by Judy Bagshaw