December 12-16

 Upcoming Important Dates: 

• Monday Dec 19: Christmas Bling Day! 
• Tuesday Dec 20: Ugly Sweater Day 
• Wednesday Dec 21: Green Day/Grinch Day 
• Thursday Dec 22: PJ Day! 
• December 23-January 8: Christmas Holiday 
• Monday January 9: Classes Back 

Social Studies:

As part of our Social Studies curriculum and Indigenous ways of knowing, we have been exploring the 7 Sacred Teachings. Through stories, sharing circles, class discussions, videos and follow up activities, students have developed an understanding of each teaching and the impact they have on our daily lives in school, at home, with friends, with family and within ourselves. 

Through this learning, we will continue to work on the follow Social Studies outcomes: 

Grade 1: 

• I can describe the connections we have to Indigenous and diverse cultures found in our communities 
• I can explore ways in which Indigenous peoples and diverse cultural groups contributed to the origins and evolutions of our community over time 

Grade 2: 

• I can describe how the presence of Indigenous origins is reflected in the community today
• I can explore the cultural characteristics of Indigenous communities 

Math:

We are learning about number lines in math! Number lines can help us count and they can also be used as a strategy for operational problems (adding, subtracting, multiplying, and even dividing!) Our learning with number lines started with counting. Grade 1s counted by 1s from 0-25 while Grade 2s skip counted on their number lines by 2s or 5s as high as they could go. The biggest challenge was keeping straight lines all the way down - ask your child what their strategy was for this! 

Word Work:

As part of our Word Work, we will be practicing spelling and manipulating words using the word work menu below. We have already learned red and blue words as well as ABC order! 

In Ms. Greenhall's Word Work Group students have been learning about consonants. This week we reviewed the letters V, Y, and Z using the Animated Literacy actions. We then cut and sorted pictures that start with these letters. Those who finished early tried to spell the items in their pictures and then moved onto a literacy game. Ask your child about the actions and sounds for  V,Y and Z.

 In Ms. Lacour's Word Work Group students have been learning about short vowels. This week we continued with short "E" and looked at the "ET" and "EG" word families. We then sorted pictures to match the corresponding words. Ask your child about words in the "ET" and "EG" family. 

In Ms. Gierl and Ms. Green's long vowel groups, students worked on their short and long sounds that i makes. We continued our work with King E by comparing words like: hid - hide, pin - pine, fin - fine, shin - shine, bit - bite. It is fun to think of long vowel words - try it at home! "What is the long vowel word for ________?" 

Phys. Ed:

In Phys. Ed we learned a new game called: Do You Want to Build a Snowman? In this game, we worked in teams of 3 to build a snowman with a variety of gym equipment. Each student on a team becomes an Elf, Reindeer, or Santa and when the teacher calls a type of Christmas creature, all of the students run clockwise in the gym, collect 1 piece of equipment and add it to their snowman. We had SNOW much fun!