Happy Halloween

Do you recognize us in our costumes? We wrote Halloween stories, added pictures and pumpkins, did some Frankenstein math, squeezed in some printing "e", and read a Not-too-scary story. We joined in the school wide parade and saw some really fun and interesting costumes. We played Bingo and ended the day with sorting (and eating) smarties. We were really excited today and hope the rain doesn't ruin our evening fun. 

We will be back on schedule tomorrow with Music and thinking about our reflection page for our shape projects and Nose hill posters.

Welcome back Monday

We are changing our jobs to be every week instead of every day so we can work at getting better at all of them! This week NAVY (Logan, Gavin, Samantha and Emmaline) will be on Doorbell, Lights, Line Leader, Calendar and helping with the Blog. "Tea with Teach" will be on Thursdays.
RED group is cleaning floors/carpet, TURQUOISE is organizing the book shelves, GREEN group is cleaning desks. We are learning how to work together as a group!

Today was different for Journals because we wrote and drew pictures of our Nose Hill hike. Some of us drew Goldenrod and Rose hips. We used different sentence starters like "I discovered..." or "I saw..." We talked about a TOPIC sentence (the first sentence), the DETAIL sentences (adding extra details about the topic, and the CLOSING sentence (to complete our idea). Did you know if you find Buck brushes they are crumbly and you can easily see their seeds. Samantha's group saw a wasp nest.

Today we learned about "good fit" books. A good fit book is when I can read a page without getting stuck on 5 or less words.We looked for two "good fit" books we can keep in our desks to practice reading. Next month we will start our guided reading groups and home reading. We can't wait!

We learned about being a "reflective learner." Reflecting is like looking in the mirror and seeing something we need to change. We don't get upset, we just go back and make it better! We had a page with fill in the blanks to name our shapes (grade twos) and number how many different shapes we had on our project.

We are very excited about tomorrow. Remind us to have a healthy dinner and a good rest tonight!

REMINDER: LIBRARY day Tuesday. Remind us to bring back our books so we can check out new ones.

Tomorrow is Halloween. Please remind us to come in our regular clothes. We will change into our costumes at lunch before our Halloween Parade. Face paint can be put on at home.

Nose Hill Hike

What a beautiful day for a hike to Nose Hill! It was so nice to have all our parent volunteers and student teachers join us so we had smaller groups to search and observe our things in nature. Each group had a clip board with a list of plants to find, and iPad to take a picture and a pencil to record. Mrs. Boyer told us our volunteers were like computers - they could record information but they couldn't think for us - that was our job!

It was exciting to find all of the plants we have been studying like the Rose hip, Buck brush and Goldenrod. We also had to search for sage plants, Canadian thistle, and something called Yarrow. We found a nice sunny spot with our group to have a snack, and talk about our discoveries. Ask us what we discovered and what we enjoyed most about our hike. 

When we got back we rated the hike from 1-5 and did some coloring and puzzles. Some of us were pretty tired and decided it was a little long but most of gave the day a 5! Mrs Hamby and Mrs. Boyer helped with managing the whole group and took lots of pictures, Mrs. Armour was busy with her group and didn't take pictures, so please check Room 1 and 2's blog. 

Have a great weekend!!

PJ and Stuffy Day

Today was fun because we got to wear our PJ's and bring our stuffy! It was interesting to hear about everyone's stuffy and where and when they got them. It was our final full day with these quiet centres, so some of us tried to do something we hadn't tried before.

Today in Gym, we practiced rolling balls with our scoops with a buddy.

We worked some more on our Leaf Study and tried to add details to the description, do another rubbing, or add some colour. The 4 things we checked we had interesting descriptions for were
1. colour
2. size
3. shape
4. edge

Today was our last day to work on our Shape projects. We have been working hard to add details and get to the center of the Target. Mrs. Armour will work on getting some pictures of the Target and our Shape projects on the blog, so you can see some of our hard work. We will be looking carefully at our own projects on Monday and let Mrs. Armour know where on the Target we think we hit.

We always look forward to our Music days! Today in Music we started filming for our project for Mr. O'Reilly. We realized we only have a few more days and need to focus and work hard.

We are looking forward to Fresh Air Friday and our HIKE to NOSE HILL. We will have our guest practice teachers from the University come along to help us search for Rose Hips, Goldenrod, Buck brush. We will try and record our learning on iPads in our group to share.

Windy Wednesday!

Today Turquoise group (Lily, Tessa, Jared, Colin) helped with the blog. Mr. O came to help again this morning so Mrs Armour could read with the rest of the grade ones. He helped us with our Leaf study - he knows so much about the different kinds of leaves! He taught us some more about the leaves how you turn them upside down to make a rubbing easier, because the veins come out. We had to label all the parts of our leaves.

In gym after running our 4 laps for warm up, we used the scoops and balls with partners. Some of our balls went almost to the roof and then we caught them! Jared said that Mr. O was his partner and helped teach him how to scoop the ball and catch it.

The grade twos have been working on writing and ordering the days of the week and months of the year. This afternoon we all helped to print them on cards and decorate them for our Word Wall.

In Music today Mr. O'Reilly played the electric piano for us! Different colors of buttons made different sounds. He also taught us how to "scat."At the end of music we played "freeze dance."

Please remind us to leave all our toys and cards at home when we come to school. Some of us are being distracted by them instead of thinking about our learning. Thank you!

REMINDER: TOMORROW IS PJ and STUFFY day. Wear your favorite PJ's and bring your favorite stuffy. 
We are excited about our hike to Nose Hill on FRIDAY. If you can volunteer and have police clearance, please email Mrs. Armour at hjarmour@cbe.ab.ca

Treat Tuesday!

Today was treat day! Room 1 brought the treats. Cupcakes, mini cinnamon buns, brownies, cookies, bags of chips and goldfish crackers. There was so much choice and some left over to buy at lunch! Thanks Room 1.

In the gym while we were skipping we noticed there were decorations for Halloween today. Millennium Kids decorated with Wendy.

During Library, Mr. O came to visit so Mrs. Armour could read with the grade ones. We went to Room 1 and 2 to look at their shape projects and saw a big city, like a really big city. We all saw something that gave us more ideas to come back and work on our own shape projects.

After lunch we wrote our Buck Brush facts. We found out that the Buck Bush can be used for a lot of different things. A body wash and soap for our clothes, help for sore throats, asthma and also a refreshing tea!

We had free choice after our bathroom and outside break if we had finished our printing, months of the year and Buck brush facts. Green group (Ingmar, Max, Malik and Georgia) helped with Blog today!

REMINDERS: 

Thursday is PJ and stuffy day. 

Friday we need volunteers for each classroom, so we can hike to Nose Hill. It is Fresh Air Friday, so we will aim to be back to the school by 12:00pm (so if you need to be back to pick up a Kindergarten student, we would still love to have you, but you would have to leave early to be back by 11:30am)

Monday, actually.

Hello! Today we actually did our Journal pictures and stories on a Monday, instead of a Tuesday like the last couple of weeks. We found 11 mistakes on Mrs. Armour's note on the smart board! There were a lot of capitals and periods missing so we looked for words at the beginning of the sentence and also names, like Jack and Egert's park.

In gym we are still skipping and practicing together with the big rope and two people turning. There are different stations we can go to and do different kinds of jumping.

The grade one's worked on the carpet with little white boards and tried to figure out which day of the week was scrambled. Then we unscrambled the letters and wrote them on the boards to spell Sunday.
The grade two's are working on spelling and ordering the days of the week and months of the year.

We talked about our targets for our Shape building and it really helped to focus us on our next steps. To get in the middle of the target, we need to have at least 4 different kind of shapes and they need to have colour and design on them. Then we need to have a plan to arrange them and make sure we follow the plan.

We worked on our Buckbrush painting and title in our art journals. Tomorrow we will find some facts about the Buckbrush, like we have done with the Rose-hip and Goldenrod plant.

On Mondays and Tuesdays when we don't have Music, we are taking a bathroom break and quick game outside around 2:15pm if it is nice to get our wiggles out and get ready for our jobs and blog time at the end of the day. Today we played Toilet Tag and Fruit Basket.

Navy group (Logan, Samantha, Gavin and Emmaline) helped with the blog today and had "Tea with Teach."

REMINDERS: Tuesday is our LIBRARY day and also TREAT DAY. Room 1 will be bringing Treats, so please remind us to bring a quarter so we can buy a treat. (There will be nut-free options).

Thursday is P.J. and Stuffie day.

Friday we hope to go to Nose Hill to look for the plants we have been studying. If you have police clearance and can volunteer, we would love to have 4 or more per classroom. Please send a note with your child if you are available. THANK YOU!

Fresh Air Friday

Today we went to Room 1/2 and listened to a story called, "Solomon's Tree." Then Mrs. Armour shared some of her leaves and nuts she collected when she was in Vancouver. There was a big maple leaf that reminded us of Canada, some chestnuts that reminded us of the song, "Toe-knee chest-nut nose eye love you!"

Then we did our Leaf study. We drew 4 leaves and did 4 "rubbings" with crayons. Then we brainstormed some words to describe the stems and leaves.

We did mapping outside for Fresh Air Friday. We looked for rose hip, buckbrush, willow and aspen trees and then drew where they were on a map using a legend. It was cold and windy but we found a lot of interesting extras like a big wasp nest!

Today was "Rainbow Day" so all table groups help and work together. Red group (Tessa, Madalynn, Carmen, Lucas and Arthur) helped with Blog and had "Tea with Teach."

Have a great weekend!

Reminders for next week: Tuesday is Room 1's TREAT DAY. Please bring a quarter so you can    buy a treat! 
Thursday is PJ day so remember to choose your favorite PJ's to wear to school.

Vegetable, Garden, Harvest Recipe Books

Today was Turquoise group's (Colin, Tess, Lily and Jared) turn to help with all the special jobs (doorbell, lights, calendar, line leader and lunch bin) and have "Tea with Teach," and help with the blog. Colin wanted to write that he found his missing water bottle and was very happy!

We had a fire drill practice and Mrs. Polski said we all got out in less time than our first fire drill last month. We were very quiet waiting in line while Mrs. Armour counted to make sure all 18 of us were there. Some of us thought we did so well, we should do it more often!

It was Fun Lunch today and some of us had leftovers, but we couldn't keep them because our food had chicken in it, so we needed to be safe and put it in the compost.

Mr. O'Reilly has started a guitar club and the first one was today after we ate our lunch. It will be every Thursday after we eat. In Music today we learned had to use Sticks to keep a beat and watched a music video.

Today we worked hard to finish our Recipe books. We had to make sure we had all our sheets organized, then we helped Mrs. Armour hole punch, then chose our favorite colour yarn to tie all of our pages together. Most of us finished and are bringing them home. Which recipe will you try first?

If we were all done our recipe books and had at least 3 shapes on our project "land" we were able to have free choice. We really like the iPads.

Tomorrow is Fresh Air Friday - we hope the warm weather stays around!

Un-BEET-able Day!

This morning everyone was looking wonderful ready for Picture Day! We started with our quiet centres - more of us are trying to create stories and build sentences with the word dominoes. After some skipping in the gym, we lined up from tallest to shortest to get ready for our class picture. The photographer told us to say, "Happy!" so we would all remember to smile!

After recess, all the grade 1/2's met in Room 1 to watch a demonstration of how to make "Unbeetable Hummus." Ask me what ingredients Ms. Boyer put into the food processor and what colour we guessed it might end up. We then split up into our own classes to work on recipes and our last Beet art page.

After lunch, we were busy organizing our folders to make sure we had 4 recipes and 4 art pictures and putting our finishing touches on them. Those of us who showed Mrs. Armour we had complete folders started on our Recipe cover page.

We were so busy organizing, we almost forgot about Music! Ask us what Mr. O'Reilly was showing us today about a seating plan.

After Music, we continued to work on our Recipes until it was time to try the "Unbeetable Hummus" Most of us were brave and tried some with carrot sticks, rice crackers, or pita chips. A reminder not to worry when we go to the bathroom and we see pink! It's just the beets!

Have a great evening.

                                             Painting our Buck brush with water colours.

Warm and Windy

This morning we had 2 guests in the Clubhouse; students from University of Calgary observing some of our learning. They will be visiting all the classrooms this week. We started the morning with journal pictures showing details of our weekend. Some of us have a lot of ideas and get started right away. Others need a little time to think, remember and talk about what we did. Mrs. Armour reminded us to think about not only the what we did, but who and where we were. That helps to fill in some details.

We had gym and did some practice skipping activities today. We first practiced standing behind a line and then jumping over and back with two feet and then hopping with one foot. Mrs. Armour called out "Red light, green light, yellow light!" so we had to listen carefully. We then spread out all over the gym and used skipping ropes. We are trying to get a little better every day and not worry about how fast we go.

We had Library today. Some of us forgot our books again, it is hard to remember when we aren't at school on Monday, but Mrs. Kidd says if we return our books Wednesday or Thursday, we will try and find a time that we can take out a new book.

While the grade 2's had some printing work with the Days of the Week (scrambled and out of order), the grade 1's had little white boards and practiced printing our "magic c's." We all started with a "c" then Mrs. Armour tried to trick us with the sound first, then the letter to turn our "c" into a "g, d, a or o."

After lunch, we painted our Buck brush with water colours. Mrs. Armour put some pictures up on the Smart board to help us remember the green leaves, brown stems and white berries.

Next, we worked on our Net building. We chose our "land" (large piece of construction paper) and thought about how we will place our shapes to create something new.

During Finish up, or Free time the Green Group had "Tea with Teach" to chat about our day and what we should write in the blog. We had a choice of Cranberry or Red (Rooibos) Tea. Each table group will get a turn in the next couple of weeks.

REMINDER: TOMORROW IS PICTURE DAY! WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17TH. Wear your best smile!

New Centres

Enjoy some "Before" and "After" pictures of our Yarn Art and Net/Shapes. Sorry, we were too excited when we got our Carrot Cookies that we ate them all up except for this one!

Thursday, October 14th

We had another full day at the Clubhouse! We worked on our new quiet centres again this morning; some of us tried some letter and sentence games or wrote a story. Others found some Hidden Pictures by coloring by number and some of us finished our yarn stick art or started a new one!

We are learning to walk quietly in the hallways when we head to the gym to practice our soccer skills. Our feet are controlling the soccer balls by doing small kicks and playing "red light, green light" Ask me what "Black light" means.

After gym we went straight to Room 2 to start our "Zucchini Day" We used pastels and black paper for the Art station, before recess then decorated our Recipe page with Mrs. Armour and helped Ms. Boyer get the zucchini bread ready for baking. It sure smelled great at lunch time but we had to wait until the end of the day to taste it! Yum!

Today was our Music day right after lunch with Mr. O'Reilly. On Thursdays, he is going to come right to the Clubhouse to pick us up so we can take our coats and boots off first!

After Music, we worked hard on our Net building. Some of us are starting to create a town, city or arena with all of our shapes. We decided the cylinder was the trickiest because the two ends are hard to put on. Mrs. Boyer gave us a tip to try and keep the cylinder wider so the ends fit better!

Our last hour was a bit crazy with a few different jobs to do it was hard for some of us to focus, but we settled down quickly when the zucchini bread arrived. What a great way to finish our day!

Mrs. Armour is flying to Vancouver tomorrow, but we are excited to have Mr. O'Reilly here for the morning.

A reminder there is no school Monday. (Please remember to vote!) We will have Library on Tuesday, so don't forget to read those books and put them in your backpack so you check out new ones!

Welcome!

Welcome to the Clubhouse!

We are excited to have our new blog online so we can share our great learning with our families! Thank you for your patience while we are sorting out routines and getting familiar with our new schedules.

Tuesday mornings after Gym will be our Library time. Thank you for reminders to return our books so we can check out new ones each week!

We always look forward to Music with Mr. O'Reilly; we now have it on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons after lunch.

It was fun to show "The Clubhouse" to some of our families who stopped by on Tuesday after school. We were able to show them our desks and some of the centres we have been working on.

Ask us about the new centres we started today - a lot of us created some interesting yarn art using sticks!

Mrs. Armour has written all our names on apples and chooses 6 each day. These are the special helpers who have different responsibilities (listening for the doorbell, turning off the lights and cleaning up the classroom) and privileges (sitting on the pillows and stools at carpet time).

We will do our best to write an update each day so please check often for important messages and information about our classroom.


Thank you!
Mrs. Armour