Happy To Be Me

Happy To Be Me

________ is my hair

_______ are my eyes.

I’m __ years old

and just the right size.

My name is ___________ and

As you can see

I’m very happy to be

Me!

We are learning our colour words this week! (blond is a very hard colour to understand). (the first 2 blanks in the poem are colours).

Words of the Week

This week the Grade 1s are working on sight words and the grade 2s are working on words that have "st" in them

Grade 1 

is

me

my

to

can

bonus word (our star word) - and

Grade 2 

fast

just

star

list

stop

our star word -  stand

We are learning about ourselves and each other this week. Does your child know all of the names in our class? There are 20 of us -- 11 girls and 9 boys. If they get stuck, ask them who sits in the table group:

Laser Snakes

Ninja Monsters

Baby Penguins

 
Science Cats

 Super Bulldogs

  

(they came up with the names themselves!)

Glue

Our Poem this week is called Glue!
We're trying to remember to use dots and  not to use lakes of glue -- 

Glue

Glue, glue,
A little dab will do.
Dot, dot,

It does a lot!
Glue.

Our Words of the Week for Grade 1 are:
dot
lot
not
got
hot
bonus word: spot

Our Words of the Week for Grade 2 are:
spot
plot
shot
trot
knot
bonus word: forgot

Source: teacherspayteachers.com via Martha on Pinterest

Tying our shoes

By Grade 1 and 2 I hope that the children are learning / have learned to tie their own shoes (if not, please send them to school with slip on or velcro shoes! I don't have time to tie and retie shoes multiple times during the day!

I found this website, Tying is a Snap online today.
They sell shoelaces that are half one colour and half another. Genius!

Source: tyingisasnap.com via Martha on Pinterest

I never thought to do this -- but of course it makes learning to tie so much easier to explain.

Of course, you could make your own by buying 2 pairs of different laces, then cutting them in half tying them together  -- but still go and have a look at the video on the website.

There are also lots of instructional videos on youtube about tying your shoes, if you need help explaining it to your child. My daughter learned how to tie her shoes at daycare -- and to this day I look at her in confusion because she doesn't do it the way that I do.....

Homework

Some parents have emailed me to ask about homework.



This year, our homework consists of:
1. Reading each night -- Your child can read out loud to you,  silently to themselves, or you can read to your child. In the homework book, there is a reading log. Parents -- at this point, you can write the books down for your child. I don't want the children to have to struggle and make the reading turn in to a negative experience. However, if your child wants to write it down -- by all means have him/her do it! (if you need a larger reading log, I can provide you with one).
2. Math question calendar -- there is a small question for each night. If it says "count" that means orally -- your child doesn't need to write anything down. The math space in the homework book is for "showing your work" if they need a place to figure something out.
3. Word practice. The words that we practice each week are common sight words that we need to know while we are learning to read and write(or to improve our reading or writing). They may also be "word families" -- words that have the same endings (cat, sat, fat, rat, mat, etc.). Your child has written the words that we are practicing this week in his/ her Homework book. If you can't read his/ her printing, please check the blog. We are working really hard to improve our printing (so it is legible). We are currently focusing on proper pencil grip and proper letter formation of lower case letters.



This is a link to the 2008 TDSB homework policy. 
The homework that we do in Room 15 is considered PRACTICE.
Research suggests that students should get about 10 minutes of homework each night for each grade (i.e. 10 minutes for Grade 1, 20 for Grade 2, etc.). This amount of time should be adjusted upward if the assignments are mostly reading.

The Fat Cat Made the Hat Flat

This is our Poem of the Week this week! We use our poems to learn new sight words and word families to read and write. In class we use the poems for shared read alouds, and we illustrate the poems on a page which will be put in personal poetry books to review and practice throughout the year.

The Fat Cat Made the Hat Flat

I wish that I

could take the cat

to school every day.

But if he sat

on Luca’s hat,

Ms. Brown

would take him away.

The Grade 1s are working on the "at" family of words and the Grade 2s are working on the "th" digraph this week.

Words of the Week

Grade 1
at
sat
cat
hat
bat
bonus word: that

Grade 2
the
that
than
then
them
bonus word: there

(the poems come from a variety of sources. If I know the authors I will credit them! If you know the original author of an uncredited poem, please let me know. Sometimes, if I can't find a poem that works with our word study, I will create or adapt a poem)

The font that I used for this poem is called Hello Firstie and is available from Jennifer Jones at Hello Literacy. Thanks Jennifer! You make the BEST fonts and borders!

Lunchroom Expectations

We made the cutest little lunchboxes. 

Inside are our lunchroom expectations.

(this activity was adapted from Kathryn's idea on her blog)

Welcome Back!

It's back to school time! I am teaching  Grade 1 / 2 again this year.

If you are a new parent visiting the blog this year, have a look back through our archives to see what we did last year. We had a lot of fun!

I'll be meeting all of the parents at curriculum night on September 27. See you then!