Fantastic Firsties: December 16th

We have been working so hard on our Gruffalo project, which started way back in November. After reading the story and studying the characters, setting, problem and solution, we created our own Gruffalos and learned how to write a descriptive paragraph about it. Through teacher modelling of each step, the students did an absolutely fantastic job on their very first writing project of the year. I am so incredibly proud of them all.

Step 1: Draw a picture of your Gruffalo and label
the parts using descriptive words

Drawing and labelling - the planning page

Drawing and labelling - the planning page

Step 2: Guided Writing using sentence starters

Step 3: Use the sentences starters and planning page to write a
descriptive paragraph about your Gruffalo

Step 4: The Finished Product

Step 5: Read your description to a buddy

Step 6: Read your description to another class

In Math this week we met Even Steven and Odd Todd. These two buddies helped us understand which numbers are even and which numbers are odd. We read some other stories to help reinforce the concept. As an introductory activities, students were given a number on a sticky and they had to stick it to either Odd Todd or Even Steven to show their understanding. We also played some fun partner games.

The student wrote their Christmas Wish Lists to Santa

on a cool "techy" Santa template.

After reading "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", the students wrote about how they would make the Grinch grin. Some cute ideas here! Then they made some terrific Grinchy Grinches!

In Social Studies, we have begun our journey around the world to learn about Christmas celebrations in different countries. We began by reading The Polar Express and boarded our own train, with ticket, suitcase and passport in tow, to our first destination - Canada. We learned about some Christmas traditions celebrated in Canada, including singing "A Porcupine in a Pine Tree" (a Canadian version of the 12 Days of Christmas) and made candy canes as our Canadian craft. We completed pages in our travel books about each country. We then went on to the USA - Hawaii - where we learned that Santa arrives in Hawaii wearing shorts and in a canoe that is pulled by dolphins! We made a Christmas lei as our Hawaii craft. We will be visiting 8 more countries before we end at the North Pole.

We have completed our Creating Colour unit in Science. The last concept we learned was how to tint and shade a colour. If you add white to a colour, that is called a TINT. If you add black to a colour, that is called a SHADE. We practiced sorting paint chips from lightest to darkest and then had practice tinting our own paint by creating an ice cream cone.

We certainly had some shining stars at the Christmas concert!

Fabulous singing, Grade One!

Our cute Santa Stars added a festive spirit to the walls of the gym for the concert and then can be an addition to your tree when the students bring them home.

We have been working on our Body Alphabet since September and it is finally done! It turned out amazingly and the students love looking for themselves in their very own body alphabet that is displayed on the wall in their classroom.