Happy Holidays!

Greetings,

Enjoy a wonderful holiday with family and friends. Looking forward to our continued adventures in 2012!

Lise Fellbaum

A Rainbow Christmas

Greetings,

Be prepared to be amazed. 1F students did a brilliant job today making our first movie. Students worked very hard to memorize their lines and work together in their groups to put on a spectacular performance.

Enjoy!





Lise Fellbaum

The Gingerbread Man

Greetings,

We have been having a great deal of fun reading different retellings of the Gingerbread Man and 1F students were making some fantastic text to text connections between the different stories. We are now in the process of doing our own retelling and making individual books. Tomorrow we are excited to read our final version, The Gingerbread Cowboy.

Today we each got to make our own gingerbread cookie under the guidance of Clairissa's mom. They turned out great and were a delicious treat this afternoon.

Gingerbread Baking on PhotoPeach



We also made a giant class Gingerbread Man which we were all going to share afterwards. However, while we were at the assembly listening to the Essex High School Band perform in the gym our class Gingerbread Man escaped as Clairissa's mom was trying to get him out of the oven. Apparently he ran over Jessica`s keyboard during her performance.



Throughout the day he then emailed us pictures of all of the GNPS staff that he managed to run past.

He ran past Mrs. Woodruff in the library while she was reading to her grade five class.




He ran right through the Kindergarten classroom and scared Mrs. Colenutt and Mrs. St. Pierre. They couldn`t even eat their chocolates afterwards.



Mr. McElwain screamed and even though he ran as fast as he could he was no match for the Gingerbread Man. I am sure Mr. McElwain will be looking for him when track season rolls around.



We left at the end of the day with no sign from our class Gingerbread Man.

Apparently Mr. Wilkens caught a glimpse of him at the end of the day in the gym before he ran back outside.




We have asked our caretaker, Mr. Devine to keep an eye out for him tonight.

It was a crazy day!

Ms. Fellbaum

Jib Jab Holiday Greetings

Greetings,

I was first introduced to this website three years ago when I recieved a card from a friend. It is so fun that I have been using it in the classroom every year since. Be prepared to giggle.
At the end of each video you are provided with a link if you would like to make a video with your own families. It is very easy to do. Please note that these videos will expire mid January and will no longer be available after that.

Enjoy
Lise Fellbaum

Feliz Navidad

Greetings,

North Point's iBand performs some popular Christmas carols for us, using the instruments on their iPads. Amazing! Please Santa, bring Ms. Fellbaum an iPad for Christmas.......
Enjoy!



Lise Fellbaum

Two Vowels Go Walking

Greetings,

I am so impressed with the progress students are making during the "word study" portion of our literacy block. Thanks so much for your continued support at home as well. Please remember to be sure your child can say the word independently before they practice the spelling. Giving students an extended opportunity to rehearse the spellings of their individual word lists has allowed more students to be successful so we will continue rehearsing these spellings for a two week period.

Now that we have become experts with the magic, silent e we are going to move on to a new long vowel, phonetic concept, and have a chant that we sing to help us remember, thanks to the Electric Company.



Don't be surprised if you find yourself singing this afterwards. It is a catchy tune!

Lise Fellbaum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five Little Pumpkins

Enjoy!!

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

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

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

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

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.....

What's happening this week.... September 26th - September 30th

Greetings,
Last week we began discussing what learning skills are and together we developed our learning goals for three of these skills; responsibility, collaboration,and initiative.
Responsibility
*I can take care of myself.
*I am responsible for my things.
Collaboration
*I treat everyone with respect.
*I use my words to solve problems.
Initiative
*I will always try my best.
*I am excited to learn new things.
We spent last week reviewing short "a" word families and will move on this week to a review of short "e" word families. We continue to spend time discussing our predictions during the read aloud portion of our literacy block and have been having a lot of fun with a series of books by Doreen Cronin about the adventures of some animals on a farm. Students are getting really good making predictions based on information they knew or have gathered from the pictures and details in the story.


In math we will finish up our Sorting and Patterning unit and will be concentrating on identifying the pattern core in a pattern and extending the pattern according to the pattern rule.
In Social Studies we have been discussing the importance of rules and how they are established to keep us safe.
On Monday we will be having our first Student of the Month Assembly @10:35 in the gym. Two students are selected each month. I will let parents' know the details ahead of time when your child has been chosen. This month's topic is "Caring."
Have a good week.
Lise Fellbaum