Monday, November 28, 2011

Sand Dollars

Greetings,



Last week Clairissa returned from a California vacation with a special surprise for everyone. She had spent an afternoon collecting sand dollars and brought one home for each student in the class. This led to some interesting discoveries for us as we later researched these mysterious sea creatures.

Here are some facts we found interesting.
Did you know that sand dollars use their spines to move along the sand?
On the upper half of the sand dollar’s body, spines also serve as gills.
In quiet waters, they stand on end, partially buried in the sand as you can see in the octopus video below.
When the water is rough, sand dollars hold their ground by lying flat—or burrowing under. Young sand dollars swallow heavy sand grains to weigh themselves down.

Here are some cool you tube videos that we really liked.





Lise Fellbaum

Scholastic Book Fair



Greetings,

On behalf of Ms. Woodruff thank you for your support of this year's Scholastic Book Fair. It was another successful event and our library will soon be receiving some new books!


Lise Fellbaum

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Bullying Prevention Week


Greetings,

This week is Bullying Prevention Week at GNPS. Today we read a story about a bully named Sid who actually learned how to become a friend by the end of the story. Afterwards we discussed how a bully makes us feel and how important it is to stand up to people when they are doing something that does not make us feel good. We also discussed how important it is not to stand by and be a bystander while someone else is being bullied.

Throughout the week we will continue to discuss bullying issues.


Lise Fellbaum


Sunday, November 13, 2011

Remembrance Day at GNPS

Greetings,

Remembrance Day can be a difficult concept for students in grade 1, who, for the most part, have grown up without first hand experience with war. On Friday, 1F students attended their first Remembrance Day assembly. We listened as our school band and choir performed and students from each class read a poem or letter about Remembrance Day. Each class also had two representatives carry a class wreath to the cross at the front of the gym. It was an emotional assembly and all of the 1F students did a fantastic job paying respect to those that have fought to keep our country safe and free.

Ms. Fellbaum


Thursday, November 10, 2011

Greetings,
Some students are continuing to have some difficulty with b, d, and p reversals. I have found a great website for students to practice with these letters.

Fish Bowl Game

Whenever a student makes a reversal in class, letters or numbers I have them correct it with the proper number or letter formation. By making this correction we are trying to "train our brains" to form numbers and letters properly.

Thanks for your continued support.

Lise Fellbaum

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Magic Silent E

Greetings,

This week in word study we are looking at the magic silent e. These are some of our favourite Electric Company You Tubes that we are enjoying viewing.





This is a game we played together on the SMART board. It does have some challenging words but we worked through them together.

Magic Silent E Game


Enjoy
Lise Fellbaum

Friday, November 4, 2011

Random Acts of Kindness Day



Greetings,

Today we read a perfect book for Random Acts of Kindness Day called Ordinary Mary's Extraordinary Deed. The book discussed how one simple act of kindness starts a chain reaction of kindness around the world. We spent some time discussing how easy it is to do and students shared some great stories of kindness that they have displayed as well.

Have a great weekend. Thanks for your continued support.

Lise Fellbaum

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Train the Brain




Greetings,

This week we added a word study component to our literacy block and we have decided to call this time, "Train your Brain." Each student has chosen five words from the Top 100 Fry Word List of Commom Words that they need to practice spelling based on a diagnostic test we did at the beginning of the week. These words have been recorded in their agenda. Throughout the week students will have an opportunity to "train their brains" and practice spelling these words properly. The majority of these words are rule breakers, or words that do not follow the phonetic rules. We have set up various activities where students can practice saying the word and then spelling it. We will also focus on a different spelling pattern each week, with this week's focus being on the "ing" rime. Throughout the week we see how many words we can make just by changing the onset, eg. adding the onset s makes "sing" and then we can change it to "sling" by adding an l. Please take a few mintues to review these words at home throughout the week. Before moving on to five new words students will have an opportunity to check and see if they can successfully spell their words independently.

Lise Fellbaum

Q-Tips and Water on the Chalk Board



Using the Mini Chalk Boards



Illustrating the words with Markers



Using the Alphabet Stamps



Web 2.0 Tools on the Laptops



Using the SMART Board Software

Tuesday, November 1, 2011