Sunday, October 30, 2011

Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins



Greetings,
A special thanks to Clairissa and her family for the generous donation of pumpkins. We had a great deal of fun painting faces on them and students were thrilled to take them home.
Lise Fellbaum

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Puppet Shows

Greetings,
Last week we were treated to two puppet shows. The first presenation was on safety from the Kids on Block. The second show was called "Rabbit and Bear Paws", a humorous story of how "Turtle Island" (aka North America) was formed, performed by Chad Solomon. Afterwards we got to touch the puppets and look at the stuffed bear up close.
Enjoy a quick glimpse of the show.
Lise Fellbaum




Monday, October 17, 2011

What's Happening this Week .... October 17th - 21st


Greetings,

The cooler fall weather is upon us and it is that time of year again when we start to get out the warmer fall clothing. Please label all of your child's items so they can be retrieved easily if they get lost. It is a good idea to dress your child in layers as our playground has little shelter from the wind.

This week I will begin using a diagnostic reading assessment tool, DRA, to determine your child's reading level and the strategies they use to decode words and understand what they have read. The information gathered from this assessment allows me to provide explicit instruction in small group and/or individual sessions based on the needs of each student. Students are independently using Raz Kids at school and are more than welcome to use this program at home as well.

We have spent the past five weeks reviewing the short vowel sounds and are working on our last short vowel, u. We have developed a repertoire of sentences in our agendas with words from the short vowel word families we generate together each morning. This has also provided us with a meaningful way to reinforce proper letter formation. Rereading these sentences together would be a great review for your child.

In Math we are moving on to our next unit with a focus on number relationships. On our class website there are many games that will assist your child in reinforcing these numeracy skills.

We have two special presentations this week as well. On Tuesday we will be watching a puppet presentation by Kids on Block on personal safety & on Thursday we have another puppet presentation entitled Rabbit and Bear Paws which presents a comical retelling of how North America was created.

Have a great week!
Lise Fellbaum

Friday, October 14, 2011

Fire Safety











Dear Parents,
This week was Fire Safety Week in Ontario and we were very lucky to get a visit from our local fire department. This visit provided students with a great opportunity to review some important fire safety rules. These are some of the rules we reviewed;
* If your clothes ever catch on fire; Stop, Drop and Roll!

* Never go back inside a burning building, not even for your favourite toy or pet.

* Make sure your family has picked a meeting place for everyone to meet outside and you have reviewed your escape plan if there is a fire.

* If you see smoke in your house, crawl under the smoke.

* If you think there is a fire, feel a door first with the back of your hand, to see if it is hot. If it is hot do not open the door.

* If you hear a voice calling be sure to answer because it could be a fireman looking for you.

* Never hide inside during a fire.

* Do not be afraid of a fireman when he is in his protective gear.

* Never play with lighters, matches, the stove, fireplaces or candles.

* Never dial 911 unless it is an emergency.

* If you cannot get out of your door then go out a window.

Lise Fellbaum

Monday, October 3, 2011

Bucket Fillers


Greetings,
We have finished reading a great book about happiness, called Have you Filled A Bucket Today - A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids. This book encourages positive behavior as children see how rewarding it is to express daily kindness and appreciation. We all carry an invisible bucket in which we keep our feelings about ourselves. When our buckets are full, we are happy; when they are empty, we are sad. It is important to know that we can fill our own bucket and so can others. We fill buckets by saying nice things to the people around us and by doing nice things for people. When we make others feel good we are also filling our own buckets at the same time. Bucket dippers are people who say mean things to others and hurt other people`s feelings. Our goal this year is have a room with overflowing buckets.
Thanks for your continued support.
Lise Fellbaum

What's happening this week .... October 3rd - 7th



Greetings,
During the month of October students will be asked to share something that they are thankful for. They can bring in pictures, illustrations or props to support their presentation if they would like.
This week we will be finishing up our sorting and patterning unit in math. Students are becoming so good at identifying a pattern core, extending the pattern and labelling it with letters we have moved on to pattern cores with four and five parts, eg. ABACC Impressive work grade one! Later this week we will be recording some action and sound patterns.
During our literacy block this week we will work on extending our independent reading time and adding a new component called ``Read to Someone`` We have also added the laptops to this portion of our day and had some grade six students come and teach us how to log on to the laptops. Our Raz Kids online reading program is up and running and students are excited to start using the program.
We have some fun Thanksgiving songs to learn and will add them to our poetry books.
This week we will be reviewing the short vowel i during the word study portion of our literacy block.
We have a busy week ahead as we prepare to finish up some of our units before our first long weekend.
Enjoy a good week!
Lise Fellbaum

Can you guess our sorting rules?

Greetings,
Last week we had lots of fun making up sorting rules with our clothing. Let's put our parents to work 1F and see if they are able to figure out how we sorted our groups.











Good luck!
Lise Fellbaum

September 1F Birthdays

Happy Birthday to our newest group of six year olds.....