Wow, can you believe it is December 14th already?  We have been a very busy group of students here in grade 1.

On December 5th a special ‘elf’ joined our classroom.  The children seem to really be enjoying our special visitor.

As part of writing, the students have had a lot of opportunity to write about what our elf, Pepper Mint, has been up to and what they would do if they were an elf.  Our mischievious elf gave us LOTS to write about on Tuesday (see below!).

As part of reading buddies with Mrs. Sage’s grade 4 class, we wrote letters to Santa at the end of November.  We were very lucky to receive a special delivery from the North Pole last night.  Our buddies joined us this morning, so that we could share our special letters from Santa with them:)

As part of our holiday celebrations at Minesing, each classroom decorated their classroom door.  Our door looks fantastic!

Next week will be a very exciting time at school.  Here is a reminder of the special activities happening at Minesing:

Tuesday, December 19th – Holiday Sweater Day

Wednesday, December 20th – Holiday Hat Day

Thursday, December 21st – Red and Green Day

Friday, December 22nd – Holiday Accessory Day

In math we have been learning about data management.  In this unit, the children have been sorting, making bar graphs and pictographs, surveying our friends, tallying our survey results, and interpreting the data presented on graphs.

The children seem to be really enjoying this unit and are doing an excellent job.  Yesterday they worked in small groups to describe the data they saw in either a pictograph or bar graphs.

As part of describing the information found in graphs, we are working hard to not only state the basic data (e.g. 1 person likes pizza), but to make some comparisons (e.g. 17 more people like ice cream than french fries or Altogether 19 people were surveyed).

Today each child created their own survey question and got to ask 10 of their peers.  Following the completion of their survey, the students created a graph of their data.

Thank you to everyone for coming to the school last week for our parent-teacher conferences.  It was a pleasure to meet with each family and discuss your child’s progress.  It truly is amazing to see how far each and every child has developed, each in their own unique way!

Below, please find some very important upcoming dates:

December 8th – Crazy Hair Spirit Day

December 19th – Christmas Sweater Day

December 20th – Holiday Hat Day

December 21st – Red and Green Day

December 22nd – Holiday Accessory Day

In addition to our upcoming spirit days, Minesing Central participates in Christmas Cheer.  As a school, we do the “12 Days of Giving for Christmas Cheer” and ask for a variety of different items.  Of course, we will gladly collect any new, unused item during this time!

November 28 – Macaroni and Cheese

November 29 – Canned Veggies and Fruit

November 30 – Boxed Cereal

December 1 – Canned Meat

December 4 – Pasta and Rice (Boxed only please)

December 5 – Canned Tomatoes and Pasta Sauces

December 6 – Canned Dinners, Stews, and Brown Beans

December 7 – Canned Soups

December 8 – Cookie, Cake, Muffin, Jello, and Pudding Mixes

December 11 – New Books

December 12 – Canadian Tire Money

December 13 – Unwrapped Toy

Nature truly is amazing!  When we left school on Friday afternoon our chrysalis was a beautiful green.  I decided to bring it home over the weekend because typically butterflies emerge from their chrysalis anywhere between 8-14 days.  On Saturday evening, I could see some orange and black wings through the green chrysalis.  When I woke up this morning the chrysalis was transparent and I could clearly see the beautiful Monarch wings through it.  Within 45 minutes I noticed that the butterfly had emerged from the chrysalis.  When butterflies first come out their wings are very wet and crumpled up.  Within a few hours our butterfly was ready to fly away.  I even got to see it’s proboscis stretching out, looking for some nectar(I wish all of this had happened during school hours for all of the students to see firsthand).

  

Our butterfly is a girl.  I will be teaching the students how to determine boy Monarchs vs. girls Monarchs tomorrow.  I wonder if your child will be able to teach you?

The great news is that we have one more Monarch caterpillar joining our classroom tomorrow.  I wonder how long it will be before he/she forms a chrysalis?

Upcoming/Important Dates:

September 23 – Orange shirt day

September 28 – Terry Fox Run in the afternoon

October 4 – Pizza Q / Meet The Teacher

October 6 – Elmvale Fall Fair

 

Hello!

Welcome to our grade one class blog.  I am so happy to have your child in my classroom this year.  It is going to be a great year!

Today was a busy and exciting day!  We got to know lots of new friends (we have 19 students in our classroom) and some new teachers.  We read a story called “First Day Jitters” and learned that even teachers get nervous to go to school on the first day!  We wrote about our first day at school and then read a poem called “Jitter Juice”.  As a special treat, each child got to try some of our own ‘jitter juice’ to get rid of our first day jitters!

    

Now that your child is in grade one, he/she has an agenda.  This is a very exciting part of grade one.  Each child wrote in their agendas at the end of the day and are to share it with you tonight.  Many different notes went home today and there is lots of important information for you.  Our class newsletter is on a blue piece of paper.  I will be using the Remind App as one piece of communication between home and school this year and there are instructions for you to join my Remind class on the back of the blue class newsletter.

Did your child tell you about our special ‘guest’?  We have a Monarch caterpillar in our class!  When we arrived at school this morning our caterpillar was curled up in a ‘J’ formation getting ready to create a chrysalis.  By 12:10 that sneaky caterpillar had transformed into a beautiful green chrysalis.  We are excited to watch our chrysalis turn into a Monarch butterfly!  If anyone spots a Monarch caterpillar we would love to have another in our classroom:)

I hope your child had a fantastic first day of school!

S. Hall