DECEMBER NEWS

 

Christmas Concert

 

December 12, 2013 6:30-7:45 pm

 

Our Christmas Concert this year will be held at Southminster Church located at 1011 4^th Ave. South (across from the Yates Memorial Centre). All the children at MMH will be working with Les Bucherons, which is an artist in residency program to create and perform a selection of songs and dances all with the theme “Vive Le Francophone Culture!” This will be a bit different than the traditional “polished” Christmas concert, but will wonderful just the same!
Each family with students attending MMH will receive TWO tickets, as seating is limited at the church. (Families that require more than two tickets (i.e. a family with more than two parents involved), are asked to submit their request in writing to Mr. Bryant by Tuesday, December 10th.) Tickets should have come home in your child’s agenda TODAY.
Grades K-5 performers are to arrive at Southminster between 6:00-6:15 p.m. and can be dropped off at the east side entrance (on 11th Street on the east side of the building). Students will then be taken to designated spots to get organized to perform. All “ticket holders” will then enter Southminster through the front (main) doors.
The actual performance will take place from 6:30 to 7:45 p.m.
The second option will be to join a “web cast” of the concert! No matter where you are in the world, you will be able to log on and view the concert LIVE from the comfort of your own home! Details of exactly how to join in on this web cast will follow.
As we have done in the past, we will have a silver collection to help offset rental costs. This year we are also asking each family to bring a donation of non-perishable food items that can be donated to a local food bank. These can be dropped off in the main lobby as you enter the church.

 

Children are asked to come dressed in their “Sunday best”.

 

Next week we will be wrapping up our bear unit! We spent a lot of time this past week learning about different types of bears, and each student got to choose a bear to do mini research on! The students are SO PROUD of their bear projects! We will be sending those home next week for you to enjoy.

If you’re looking for stocking stuffer ideas, many students are running low on working markers and some of our crayons and pencil crayons are getting pretty tiny. Just an idea! J

 

Our Christmas party will take place on Thursday, December 19 in the afternoon. If you volunteered to bring a snack on that afternoon I’ll be sending out a reminder note to you shortly.

 

Wednesday, December 18 is GRADE ONE GRINCH DAY! Students are invited to dress up in green or as the Grinch or a Who on this day, and the whole day will be centered around the Grinch Who Stole Christmas! It’s a total blast!! As an extra special addition to our Christmas party the following day, the Grade One teachers would like to show the “Jim Carey version” of the movie. If you have an objections to your child seeing the video, please send me an email or a note in the agenda ASAP.

 

For gym class for the next two weeks, (if the temperature ever goes above -20) we will be snowshoeing! Please be sure to send snow pants and boots with your child if possible for the next while.

 

Your child is bringing home an extra special HOMEWORK project in their agenda today. As a way to encourage the spirit of giving, we are having a SECRET Home Made Card Exchange! It is a personal, inexpensive way for the children to experience the season together. Be creative, use any materials you like! Some ideas are: stickers, stamps, felts, paint, crayons, wrapping paper, construction, cardboard, old cards, fabric, beads, magazine pictures, glitter… Your child is bringing home a brown envelope that the card MUST be returned in. This makes sure everyone gets a card that is approx. the same size. The children may decorate the envelope if they wish. Please do NOT seal the envelope.

 

We have drawn names to see who makes cards for whom. The name of the student you will be making a card for is on a small piece of paper in the envelope. Please stress to your child that this is a SECRET until the day of our card exchange.

 

Cards MUST BE RETURNED TO SCHOOL by Monday, December 16, and will be exchanged on the last day of school. Thanks so much in advance for participating!!

 

 

IMPORTANT DATES:

 

December 9: Les Bucheron arrives at MMH.

 

December 12: Christmas Concert at Southminster United Church

 

December 13: French Canadian Sugar Shack!

 

December 16: Homemade Christmas cards due.

 

December 16-20: Carolling at 8:30-9am in the gym.

 

December 18: GRINCH DAY! Dress up like the Grinch or a Who if you wish! Or… dress like Christmas! Presentation from Westwinds Gymnastics in the pm also.

 

December 19: Christmas party in the pm

 

December 20: Last day of school.

October 
 

Hi everyone! I hope you’re enjoying this fine fall weather!

As our first class party is coming up, I’ve listed the details below so you know what we’ll be up to on that date. I will send a little reminder home for those parents who signed up to send a snack. If you have any questions, you can email me ... rita.johnston@lethsd.ab.ca

 

Show and Share has begun in our classroom. Every Friday your child may bring an item from home that they would like to share with the class. It is helpful if you practice ahead of time so they have an idea of what to talk about when it is their turn to talk.

In Language Arts, we will continue to work on sight words , printing and word families.  A letter was sent home on October 3^rd which listed the sight words we have covered as well as the word families we have learned.

 

Have you heard of the Daily Five? The Daily Five is a framework used to teach Reading and Writing. Here is a link that provides a good summary of the approach. We will begin learning about the first element called “Read to Self” next week.
Click HERE to check out a power-point presentation on the Daily 5.

All grade one classrooms are using this framework to promote independence in language skills. Each day as a class, we will time how long we can “Read to Self” properly and then chart our progress. The students get really excited as we build stamina every day!

 

 

Home Reading
Thanks so much for participating in the Home Reading program.  The children seem excited about Raz-Kids. We will be using the program here at school during computer time and at other times when I may want to listen to a student read so don’t be surprized if you log in and your child has done some extra reading.

We will be working on the "I- PICK" component of Daily Five and students will be practicing choosing "just right" books. "Just right" books are not so challenging that the reader is solely occupied with figuring out the words, but not so easy that they are unlikely to learn anything new.  It is my goal to make sure that the books assigned on Raz-Kids or ones sent home are just right books for your child.
You can tell if your child is reading a "just right" book by listening to your child read a page or two. Here's what to watch for:
1. The reading should be fairly smooth.
2. Your child will have trouble with no more than three words on the first two pages.
3. Your child should be able to tell you what he or she read.
4. Your child should not appear uninterested.
Please continue to let me know in the agenda if the the book is too easy, too hard, or just right.

Remember to have your child take the comprehension at the end of each book on Raz-Kids.

 

In Math we have wrapped up the patterning unit and have started learning about different ways to represent numbers from 1 – 20.  The students have been practicing showing these numbers using pictures, tally marks, 10 frames, and rods and cubes. We have also been practicing saying the number sequence forwards and backwards by 1’s. We will begin skip counting by 2’s in the next few days.

In Social studies we have been learning about the groups that we belong to. We have studied our family, school, classroom, and other groups such as friends, teams, and clubs.  We have now started discussing rights and responsibilities that all children have.  In the next couple weeks we will begin learning about communities and mapping.

In Science, we will wrap up our Colours unit next week and begin a unit on the season of Fall.

Here’s our plan for Halloween Day:
8:45-11:30 am Halloween Centers; Students will travel to each Grade One classroom, participating in a different activity at each stop. These will include, art projects, games, smartboard activities etc. 15 min recess at 10am.
11:30-11:45 am Lunch Recess Break; We are going to switch things up a bit today so we are not rushed to eat and get dressed. Students will play outside early on this day. If you're wanting to take your child home for lunch on this day in order to help them get ready, you can come and get them at this time, and return them by 12:20 pm. Please let me know if this is something you are planning to do.
11:45-12:05 pm Eating Lunch; Students will eat lunch in the classroom PRIOR to putting on their costumes. Hopefully this will help to keep them clean!
12:05-12:25 pm Getting Dressed; Students will change into their costumes at this time and get ready for the Halloween Parade.
12:30-1:25 pm Halloween Parade The entire school takes part in a costume parade so we can see each other's awesome outfits! You’re invited to grab a spot in the hallway and watch all the classes go by!
1:25-1:55 pm Party/ Snack Time!

1:55-2:05 pm Recess

2:15-3:05pm Music/Movie with Ms. Nevels


Important Dates
Monday October 21^st Watch for an important letter coming home regarding Conferences to be held after the November Reporting Period.
Tuesday October 22^nd- Picture Retakes Day

Thursday October 24th – 9:30 am in class presentation from a local Firefighter

Thursday October 24^th – no school in the pm. Staff Retreat

Friday October 25th- No School- Staff Retreat

Tuesday October 29^th- Hot Lunch Day for Grades 1-3

Wednesday October 30^th- Hot Lunch for Grades 4-5

Thursday October 31st - Halloween Party

 

Tuesday November 5^th-“Motivational Magic” assembly @ 1pm

Thursday November 7^th- Remembrance Day Assembly @ 10:30
Friday November 8^th- Remembrance Day Break no school
Monday November 11^th- Remembrance Day No School
Friday November 15^th- Report Cards sent home

    Back to School   2013

 

Dear Parents,

 Welcome to our grade one classroom blog.  It will be an exciting year watching the children grow and learn.  I am looking forward to meeting all of you and working together to make this a year of happy memories and academic success for each child.

 We are fortunate this year to have an intern teacher join our classroom.  Her name is Emily Donnelly and together we will be teaching the grade one curriculum to our students.  I am always happy to open our doors to students from the university because they bring fresh new ideas and knowledge to the classroom.  As an intern teacher, Miss Donnelly will be evaluated by our principal, Mr. Bryant, who will be visiting our classroom regularly.  This is a great chance for the students to get to know Mr. Bryant a little better than they would usually be able to do.

 

Our first topic or theme will be “Colours”.  This is a science unit but we will be reading colour stories and learning colour words in language arts as well.  In math we will begin by learning how to write numbers using numerals and words.  We have a thirty minute Physical Education class everyday.  Sometimes it will be indoors in the gym and sometimes it will be outdoors in the field.  Suitable clothing and running shoes are important for this class.

 

We will begin Library Exchange next week and our class is scheduled for Tuesday.  Students are allowed to sign out one book each week. They may decide to take it home or leave it at school for free reading times.  The choice will be theirs. Students need to return their library book in order to check out another one. The task of remembering to return their borrowed books helps to encourage responsibility.  Please encourage them to be responsible.  It helps to build self-esteem.

 

 

I look forward to meeting you at “Meet the Teacher Night” Sept. 12th.  This will take place in our classroom (room 20) and will be a come and go event between 6 and 7 pm. However, if you are unable to attend, I will be sending home all information discussed in a newsletter the next day.  If you have any questions feel free to call me at the school and we can set up a short meeting.

 

                                                                Sincerely,

                                                                         Mrs. Rita Johnston

 May/June News

Field Trips

Thank you to those parents who are helping us on May 15^th.  We now have enough drivers and will be going to view the “Arts Alive and Well” program at the SAAG.

We have a fieldtrip on May 22 to the Galt Museum which fits our final Social Studies unit called Moving Forward with the Past. Buses are included for our trip, so driver volunteers are not needed. However, if you would like to join us please feel welcome to either ride the bus or meet us at the Galt to enjoy this program about citizens from the past who helped build our community.

Language Learning

We have put spelling on hold these past couple of weeks while the children have been completing social studies homework, but look for a new spelling list this week (May13-17) with ou and oi words.

Daily Five is still going strong and students really enjoy selecting their activity for each session.  It has become very apparent who our “little authors” are as they always chose the “Work on Writing” activity first.  There are some talented grade one writers in our class.

For the last few weeks of May I would like to give our Home Reading Program a little boost.  I am going to challenge the students to try and read for a total of 200 minutes between May 13 and May 31st (this is just a little over ten minutes a day) so look for a note coming home on May 13^th explaining the details.

 Math

We have just finished a unit about measurement and are now into a unit exploring some important mathematical concepts about numbers to 100.  The learning goals for this unit are to

·         Read and record numbers to 100.

·         Count sets in different ways (by grouping them in different ways).

·         Group by 2s, 5s, and 10s.

·         Count large collections of objects(up to 100)

·         Skip count by 2s, 5s, and 10s.

Science

We are continuing to learning about plants and animals. We have already explored what makes things living vs. non living , how seeds travel, parts of a plant and what plants need to grow.  The children planted pea seeds and they are growing quickly as are the “Harry/Hairy Worms” made from a mixture of grass seed and soil. We are also doing experiments to find out what conditions plants thrive in and how both plants and animals adapt to survive. We learn how animals protect themselves and what special characteristics they have. We learn the difference between wild and domesticated animals and how plants and animals support each other in the environment.  

Social

We finished a short unit on the Environment which concluded on Earth Day and have begun our “Moving Forward with the Past” unit.  The children have really enjoyed guessing who was who with the baby photos and we had good discussions about the ways in which they have changed since being a baby.

Dates To Remember
May 12 Happy Mother’s Day!
May 15 FREE Workshop @ Lethbridge Public Library (South)
“Electronics & Your Child’s Developing Brain”
7:00-7:45PM Christie Schipper (SLP)
May 20 Victoria Day-No School

May 22 Field Trip to the Galt 9 – 11 am.
May 22 Hot Lunch Day!May 23 Spirit Assembly 8:30am Beach Day!

June 4 Pancake breakfast in the school gym 7:00-8:15am Everyone Welcome!
June 16 Happy Father’s Day!
June 18 Sports Day 9:00-2:00

June 21 National Aboriginal Day

June 24 Farewell Assembly 9:00am
June 25/26 TBA Year end Picnic (more information to come soon)
June 27 Students last day dismissal at 11:45/Year end Assembly 10:00

June 28 Professional Development Day for teachers

Hello Parents;

Thank you for checking in. This is just a quick post as I've added a few extra details to the calendar below.

So far, I have 4 drivers for our field trip to the Helen Schuler Nature Center on Tuesday April 30th.  If you are able to help us out even by just doing pick- ups and drop- offs, that would be wonderful.  We are scheduled to leave the school by about 8:45, and then leave the nature center at about 10:45.  Send me an email if you can help out.

Just a reminder that our Grade 1 students will be performing at the Family Assembly on May 7th at 12:30.  The Grade 1 team is in the process of planning out the details of this assembly so we will keep you updated.

Special Requests:

We need egg carton containers (just the lid) to help with a project in our upcoming unit on The Needs of Plants and Animals.  The plastic (see-through) ones are ideal but the Styrofoam ones also work well. 

In addition to this we are collecting nylon stockings for the same project.  If you have any to donate please send them to school.

Important dates

Monday April 22nd- Earth Day

Tuesday April 23^rd- May Scholastic order due back

Thursday April 25^th- Spirit Assembly @ 8:30- Crazy Hat / Hair Day

Friday April 26th- Professional Learning Day no school

Tuesday April 30^th- Helen Schuler field trip 8:45 am

Wednesday May 1^st- Math-a-thon Test Day!

May 5th- May 11th: Education Week!

Tuesday May 7^th- Family Assembly Grade 1s perform @12:30

Wednesday May 8th- Hot Lunch

Friday May 10^th- PD Day No School

Monday May 20^th- Victoria Day no school

Thursday May 23^rd- Spirit Assembly @1230

Wednesday May 22^nd - Galt Museum Field Trip (bus provided)

Parents are welcome to come along on the bus with us.  Bus leaves at 9 am.

Hi Everyone!
I hope that you enjoyed your spring break! I sure did! We are now on the home stretch with 12 weeks left of Grade One! WOW! Time really does go by so fast! Now that our major holidays are over, we can get back to regular routines. New spelling went home yesterday as well as five new sight words.

Math
We just wrapped up our unit on Geometry: 2D Shapes and 3D Objects and have started our unit on Measurement! For this unit we will be working on comparing objects by length, mass, volume and area. We will be using measurement words, such as longest, shortest, heaviest, lightest, most, greatest and least. This should be a fairly quick unit and then we will work on Representing Numbers to 100. We will then wrap up the year with our addition and subtraction facts! Even though we aren't doing a unit on addition and subtraction right now, it is still very important that you practice these skills with your child whenever you get the chance.

Language Arts
We continue to work on our reading and writing skills every day! Thank you for the extra support at home!

Science
We are still working on our Building Things unit, but should wrap that up in the next week or two! We have a couple more projects to build and then we will move on to our Plants and Animals unit. One thing that we will be building is a boat from a plastic lid. So, if you have one or two can you please send them with your child for our boats! Thanks!

Social
Earth Day is fast approaching so we will be starting a unit on our Environment and what we can do to take care of it!

Well that covers most of what we will be working on the next little bit in class! Only a couple units left in each subject and that wraps up Grade One!

Field Trip
We will be heading to the Helen Schuler Centre on April 30th! Thank you to the parents who have already volunteered to drive and supervise! We couldn't go without you!! We are still in need of a couple more drivers.

Autism Day
On Thursday, April 11th we will be celebrating World Autism Day at our school! Please have your child wear blue on this day!

Here are some important dates:

Thursday, April 11th: Character Education Assembly

Thursday, April 11th- World Autism Day- Wear Blue

Monday, April 22nd- Earth Day

Thursday, April 25th- Spirit Assembly at 12:30

Friday, April 26th- Professional Learning Day- No school!

Tuesday, April 30th- Helen Schuler Field Trip at 8:40

Tuesday, May 7th- Family Assembly - Grade Ones perform!!

Thursday, May 23rd- Spirit Assembly at 12:30

March  2013

Dear Parents,

Report card time is coming quickly!  They will come home on March 15th. We will be running our conferences a little bit differently again this term.  We will have a “Celebration of Learning” which is similar to what you experienced with last term’s student-led conferences.  This way, each child will have an opportunity to bring their parent(s) into their school lives and “show-off” some of what they have done over the past few months.  This celebration will be less organized and scheduled than the past conference.  The classroom will be open from 5:30 to 7:30 pm on Thursday, March 21st .  You and your child are welcome to drop in to our ‘Open House’ to celebrate their learning!

You can expect to spend at least 20 minutes just for you and your child so that they can have some individualized time to show you what they have accomplished this term.  can It may take less than 20 minutes, but it is nice for you and your child not to feel pressured for time.   

It is my hope that the work that you see at this celebration and the upcoming report card will clarify for you the work that your child is doing and their progress in grade one.  If you wish to schedule an additional private parent-student-teacher interview, please give me a call at the school, email me at rita.johnston@lethsd.ab.ca or send a note in your child’s agenda.  

Sincerely,

 Mrs. R. Johnston

Grade One March News

Thanks to everyone who helped with our 100^th Day Celebration by volunteering or bringing snacks. Also, thanks to those who brought Valentine snacks.   I hope everyone enjoyed the week off.  The children seemed eager to return to school and we are off to a good start after the break.

 Some upcoming dates to remember;

March

8^th  District Staff Learning Day (No classes for children)

14^th Spirit Assembly at 12:30 pm.(Wear Green)

15^th Report Cards go home

21^st Grade One “OPEN HOUSE” from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. I have attached a note to explain what this is all about.

22^nd  Parent/Teacher Interviews  (No classes for children)

29^th  Good Friday

Happy Birthday to Marley on March 7^th

Konyae on March 19^th, Ashlyn on April 5^th and Aiden on April 7^th.

Glance at April

April 1-7 Easter Break

April 8  Classes resume

April 17^th  Parent Council Mtg. 6:30 pm

April 30^th  Field Trip to Nature Center in the am. (Driver’s Needed)

If you are able to help drive and supervise for this field trip please send me an email or call 403-381-2211 or write me a note in your child’s agenda.

Thank You.