Almost Christmas

Where does the time go?  This past fall has absolutely flown by!  It's hard to believe that Christmas is almost upon us.  The Grade 1J's are getting into the holiday spirit:  making crafts... writing their letter to Santa... decorating a tree for the Community Festival of Trees fund raiser... practicing for the Christmas concert... and counting down to Christmas.  It's an exciting time of year.  The Grade 1J's and I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!

Halloween is Coming

Oooooooo!   Oooooooo! The ghosts and goblins will soon be upon us and the Grade 1J's are going to be ready for them.  We are starting our Halloween theme this week.

I've Missed You

Hello, Grade 1J.  I haven't seen you since Friday.  I've been at a Teacher Logic workshop for the last 2 days.  I have learned a lot but I missed you.  I can't wait to get back to school and to see you all again!

Welcome Class of 2012-2013

Welcome to my new class.  I am excited to be working with you this year.  We will have a great year of learning. 

Summer Is Great!

I have only a few days of summer holidays left.  Students still have another week... play hard and enjoy your time off.  It's been a busy summer for me.  I've been to Regina, Moose Jaw, Ogema, Drumheller, Edam, Mervin, and the lake this summer.  It's been great to see parts of Canada I've never been to before.  I just missed the discovery of the newest dinosaur at Drumheller by a matter of days.  I got to spend time with my mom, my nephews and niece, and my brothers and sister-in-laws.  Getting together with aunts, uncles, and cousins was a summer bonus.  I promised that I would say a special "hello" to my little cousin, Meadow.  I hope you have a great end of summer!

Year End and Summer Holidays

It is amazing how fast the school year went.  I would like to thank all the wonderful students who were in my Grade 1J classroom this past year and their parents for a super year!  We worked hard, learned a lot and had so much fun.  Thank you to all of you for the surprise end of the year gift... you were very kind to me.  I hope everyone has a super summer holiday... lots of sleeping in, lots of playing in the sun, lots of visiting and traveling, and lots of fun!  See you all in September.

Grade 1J Celebrates Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee

The Grade 1J's are excited to learn about Queen Elizabeth.  We will join the following CBC clips of information and videos to learn more about her diamond anniversary.  We will continue to practice singing, "God Save the Queen".  We will also work in a booklet about the Queen and England.

Queen Elizabeth's 60 Year Reign

Track and Field

Our Grade K-5 Track and Field Day is on Friday, June 1st.  It promises to be a great day.  The Grade 1J's are excited for the events to begin.

Grade 1J and Grade 8 Options Class

We were excited to have the Grade 8 Options class work with us on our blogs today.  We dictated stories to our grade 8 partners and they did the typing.  Check out our new posts!

Grade 1J Celebrates Victoria Day

Victoria Day is on Monday, May 21, 2012.  We honour this day by having a holiday and spending time with our families.  The Grade 1J's wanted to know who Queen Victoria was and why she was so important.  They have asked me to add our research findings to our blog. We also learned to sing, "God Save the Queen", and found several different versions that we liked.

 Queen Victoria for Kids

A Tour of England

God Save The Queen (at wedding)

God Save The Queen (at her 85th birthday)

God Save The Queen (with lyrics)

Youth Bowling: Nationals

One of our classmates is bowling at the Nationals Youth Bowling Tournament in Newfoundland, Canada, this weekend.  If you would like to follow her team's progress, check this out at the link below.  She is on the Five Pin Alberta Bantam Girl's team.
Youth Bowling

Grade 1J Had Visitors

It was an "inside recess day" today.  The other grade one class spent recess with us.  We showed them our blog and now they are going to have a classroom blog site, too.

Are Giants Friendly or Mean?

We are currently working on a fairy tale theme.  We made a chart of what we know about giants and realized upon reading all our entries that we thought giants were mean and scary.  The question came up:  "Are all giants mean?"  We went straight to the smart board and googled for friendly giants.  We found our answer and the Grade 1J's fell in love with The Friendly Giant and have asked me to link this for them.  When watching the opening of the program, we also noticed that it falls in line with our mapping unit.  I will read parts of the book by Roald Dahl, The BFG, to them as this was the book the CBC tv show was based on.   The links are:

Friendly Giant (winter scene opening)

Friendly Giant (fall scene opening)

Friendly Giant (city scene opening)

Grade 1J is Global!

We are currently working on a unit about maps in Theme (social studies).  One of our activities is to take items in our classroom and using a map, find the country in which they were made.  As an extension to our studies, I have added two map counters to our blog for the Grade 1J's to use as they find where our visitors are from.  We are so excited each morning when we check to see who has visited us.  So far we have been viewed by someone in California, U.S.A.; Paris, France; Ireland; Germany; the United Kingdom; India; Poland; and various places in Canada.  Our Canadian viewers come from Kindersley, Drumheller, Unity, North Battleford, Bonneyville, Saskatoon, Coronation, and Viking.  The Grade 1J's would like to say welcome to everyone!

Grade 2 Visitors

The Grade 2 class came to our room today to see our blog on our smartboard.  They read some of our blogs and were shown how to make comments to what the Grade 1J's have posted.  This evening, I found that several of the Grade 2 girls had left comments on some of our blogs.  Thank you Grade 2 girls!  On Wednesday, the Grade 1J's are going to work with the Grade 2's to help the Grade 2's make their first blog posts on their classroom website.  I am so proud of the Grade 1J's and what they have accomplished so far.  What an amazing and talented group of students.

Another visitor to our classroom has been Miss B. Weinkauf.  She is a university student taking education.  She is home from university for the summer and has offered to volunteer in our classroom when she can. Miss Weinkauf has been working with us in art, reading and on our website.  It's great to have you in our classroom, Miss Weinkauf!

Voicethread

I hope you enjoy this newest addition to our blog. The voicethread is located at the bottom of our blog page. Have fun!

Easter Break

Hello, Grade 1J.  I hope everyone is enjoying the Easter holiday.  I'll see you back at school on Monday.  One of our classmates, Dallas, is sending us messages from his holiday to Disneyland.  Check out what he has written to us in his comment section of his blog, and also what he sent me in my comment section.  Thanks, Dallas.  Before we left for Easter holiday, we enjoyed an Easter egg hunt in our playground.

Time for Castles

The Grade 1J's made castles on Friday.  One boy in our class said it is because "we need to experience how to build castles".  We have been reading a story in our reader about two boys who build their first sandcastle of the season.  We made a text-to-art connection and built our own castles.  A retired teacher in our community saves his scraps of wood for us each year.  Now that the glue is dry, we will paint our castles.   It's so much fun!

Blog Comments

Hello, Grade 1J!  I just want to let you know that I enjoy reading all your blogs.  You are doing an amazing job.  I have been making comments to your blogs.  If you don't have a comment from me, it is because I had a problem opening the comment section to your blog.  I will make a comment to you when I figure this out.  In the meantime, keep blogging!

Grade 1J Writes!

Wow!  The Grade 1J's are very excited about their blogging!  Grade 1J, I like reading what you have been writing in class and at home.  I see you have been commenting on each other's blogs, too.  Keep up the great work!

Grade 1J's Write Blogs

It is a snow day today.  Some Grade 11 students have come to help us learn to write our own blogs.  It's fun!

It's a Snow Day!

We are having a Snow Day in our classroom today.  There are only 9 out of 19 students here, including 2 country children.  (There are even teachers and teacher assistants who were not able to get in to school today.)  We are using our time to do practice, review and corrections.  The students who are here today will not cover any new material.  (This is so that anyone stuck at home will not miss the introduction of new work.)  We will all have so much fun in the new snow at recess.  The Grade 1J's wish everyone a "Happy Snow Day!" 

Happy St. Patrick's Day

We had an exciting early St. Patrick's Day in Grade 1J.  Friday found us all wearing green to school...it was great!  We all became a little bit Irish as we listened to leprechaun stories and did our check for understanding work, toured Ireland, did leprechaun math, and learned Irish step dancing, all with our SmartBoard.  We ended the day with lime flavoured ice-cream floats, green cupcakes, dill pickle and sour cream & onion chips (because they have green flecks of flavour on them), and green candies.  The only negative part of the day...we were having so much fun learning that I forgot to capture the happenings with our camera!   The class asked me if I could post the sites we saw today.  I've added some below and to our classroom links.   You could also use these links to search further for other famous step dancers.  Enjoy and may the luck of the Irish be with you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE1OQAoSWAU  (watch the beautiful scenes and hear the music of Ireland)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGsb199yN-k  (a six year old girl step dancing)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTq2Cew4UmI&feature=related (five and seven year old boy and girl step dancing)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWhxDD2Fy1w (watch this clip from a movie of a leprechaun that would be a good movie to rent or purchase)

New Links and School on Monday

There is school for Macklin students on Monday, February 12.  (This means that the Macklin School calendar is different than the Division calendar for the months of March and June.)  Monday, March 19 is a day off for students and is a P.D. Day for staff.)

Hey, Grade 1J...check out the new links I've added for you.   Have fun!

What a Super Sharing Time Today!

We had an awesome Sharing Time today!  We were excited to hear that one of our classmates won a bowling tournament this weekend in Edmonton and is off to Newfoundland in May for Nationals...congratulations!  Another classmate returned from Disney World with lots of stories to tell and pictures to see.  Thank you to her for sharing the beaded necklaces she got at the Mardi Gras Parade with her fellow classmates and teachers, and for the gift to me of a picture of my favourite character (Winnie the Pooh) and the key chain!  Congratulations to the boys in the class who said they also won their hockey game this weekend.

 This month, in recognition of those tricky little leprechauns that are out and about during the month of March, we are telling jokes for our Sharing Time program.  (What did the ocean say to the sand?  Nothing...it just waved!  - told by a boy in our class today) 

We are presently having a blizzard...it started to snow just after the students got out of school today.  We are in a snow warning area and are expected to get 8-10 cm of snow tonight. There could be another  2-4 cm of snow and drifting snow tomorrow...I wonder if we'll have a "snow day"? 

Hello...I have added a Parent Link section to our classroom blog.  The first features I've added are from a passion of mine...preserving memories, organizing children's memoribilia, scrapbooking and photography.  I hope you feel as inspired from these two leaders in this field as I have been, even if you don't scrapbook.  I am especially fond of Becky Higgins and all that she does and have followed her scrapbooking projects for over ten years.  I find Becky easy to listen to and before I forget, I'm not promoting her product...although it is neat...but her style and words of wisdom!  Stacey Julian is a recent find of mine and so far I've only enjoyed the two links of hers that I've added to my parent link list.  Enjoy!  Let me know what you think.

We are in the process of adding our classroom blog to our school website.  I am hoping to add a few more gadgets to our blog (student work and videos, a map of users, parent links, etc.), so stay tuned for   future posts and changes.  So far the grade 1J's tell me they like feeding our classroom pets and we have all enjoyed the games I've linked so far.

Happy Valentine's Day

We had an exciting Valentine's Day today.  Many students came dressed in red or pink and everyone had Valentine cards to mail in our Valentine mailboxes.  We joined the Grade 1SD class for the first part of our party...we had fun being with our other grade one friends.  After recess, we ate our party treats, played Valentine games, opened our Valentine cards, thanked our friends, and had a class dance.  The Grade 1J's enjoyed their party..."This is my bestest day ever!", exclaimed a little voice amid the excited chatter in the porch at home time.

Welcome to the Grade 1 J blog!  We are looking forward to sharing our classroom with you.  Stay tuned for future entries.