Wednesday, November 25

 Hi parents,

We had a great day today! In the morning, we talked about hibernation, and the students made a "Bear Cave" craft. The students seemed to really enjoy it! Even though crafts may seem simple and maybe less 'academic', they are an awesome way for young students to practice reading and following simple instructions. We followed up our craft with a writing prompt, where students responded to the prompt: "The animal that lives in my cave is..." The class did a fantastic job with this creative, open-ended task.

In math, we've been working more on representing numbers. I'm trying to encourage the students to think of any number as a group of tens, and a group of ones. For example, think of '18' as 'ten and eight', or '236' as 'two hundreds, three tens, and six ones.' Number Blocks does an excellent job of illustrating this concept for numbers up to 20 especially. 

This morning, we watched the short film "Hair Love", and had a thoughtful, meaningful discussion about it. We talked about how everyone has a unique appearance, and it's important to try your best to love and embrace the way you look, even when it's difficult. We also talked about how it's what's on the inside that really counts. The students even connected it back to what we'd learned about Terry Fox! I'm debating making 'film studies' a new subject area. 

Hair Love: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNw8V_Fkw28

Thank you to everyone who has sent back their purple family forms! 

Have a nice night,

Zac

Freezer Feastival Message

 Hello parents of Lake Bonavista School! 

 

We need your help. Our Freezer Feastival fundraiser has been a success and now we need to get all the purchases into the vehicles! This Friday, November 27, we are in need of 6 more volunteers for curbside pick-up of orders. This will be done safely outside adhering to COVID-19 protocols. The weather is looking lovely for Friday, please come prepared with a mask and appropriate outerwear. 

 

The time slots available are 3 people from 12:00 - 3:15 pm for deliveries, and 3 people from 3:15 - 4:15 for cleanup.

 

These proceeds from our fundraising events benefit our children. If you are able to take the time this Friday, please contact me directly at lbsvolunteercoordinator@gmail.com or if you have received a sign up genius from this address, please sign up there.

 

If you are unable to help this time and would like to be on the volunteer list, please send me a note and I will add your information. This list is used when volunteer opportunities are available.

 

Thank you very much!

Krista

Tuesday, November 24

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today! In the morning, the students had Music, and did an activity about sentence writing. For this activity, they had to cut out pictures, and arrange them in the proper order to form a sentence. We talked about how most sentences contain a subject, an action, and often a time / place. For instance, "The boy played at home." We talked about how a sentence that does not contain an action or subject doesn't really make any sense - for instance, "Played at home" can not exist independently as a sentence.

Sentence writing and grammar can be quite challenging. I think the best way for kids to learn at this age is to start with short, simple sentences, and give plenty of examples and non-examples of complete sentences.

We read the story "Same Difference" this morning and had a great discussion about the message behind it, which is basically that appearances don't really matter at all - it's what's on the inside that matters!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpSLtVXF0Mc&t=13s

We spent a lot of time today with work period time, so that the kids could finish up their work from yesterday. I hope you are all having great conversations at home about family! Thank you to the parents who have already sent their interviews back, I appreciate it!

Have a nice day,

Zac

Monday, November 23

 Hi parents,

We had a great Monday today! It seemed like the students enjoyed their long weekends. I really enjoyed having the opportunity to talk with so many of you during conferences. I was so relieved by how smoothly they all went - honestly I thought there was about a 50% chance that the technology would completely fail and it would all spiral into chaos.

This morning, we started talking in more detail about what it means to be Canadian. We focused on the idea of Canada as a 'multicultural' country, where people can have different beliefs, backgrounds, appearances, cultures, etc., but still accept one another. Here are the videos we watched:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spHQcfGAsQU (Small Talk - Differences)

https://www.tvokids.com/preschool/canada-crew-k-2-social-studies/videos/canadians (Canada Crew - Canadians)

The students wrote about their weekends using sentence starters provided by me. 

In math, we switched things up and focused on 'representing numbers'. The students divided a page in their sketchbooks into four quadrants, labeled "Number Block", "Ten and ____", "+", and "-". They chose a number between 11 - 20. In each quadrant, represented their number in a different way. For example, in the Number Block column, they drew what their number looked like as a base ten block. In the "Ten And" column, they showed their number as a group of 'ten', and its corresponding 'ones'. 

In the + and - quadrants, the students wrote as many different addition and subtraction equations as they could think of that equalled their chosen number. This is where I really noticed the Morning Math skills kicking in! The kids did an excellent job. I am so happy to see how far they've come with basic facts. While there is a lot more to math than just adding and subtracting, it is impossible to deny how beneficial it can be to have a solid understanding of basic facts.

In the afternoon, we basically did our new afternoon routine - Mindfulness, Spelling Practice, Gym, Daily 5, and Work Period. I am quite pleased with how this routine has been working out. I think giving the students a designated time for spelling practice has helped make sure everyone is actually writing out and reading their spelling words. I will look for ways to make this more interesting as the year progresses. 

Family Culture and Identity Interview (Family Homework!)

At the end of the day, I sent home a purple sheet of paper with each child with the heading "Family Culture and Identity Interview". This interview is part of a larger project that we'll be working on to complement our work around multiculturalism, identity, and self-esteem. If you can find some time, please fill out the interview with your child. Your child does not need to do the writing, but I think it would be great if you could talk about each of the questions with them. There is NO RUSH to complete this task! Please send it back whenever you are done. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at zalink@cbe.ab.ca .

Have a nice night!

Zac

Spelling Words (Week of Nov. 22)

 

Jack Hartmann -un Words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCF_zfflsD0

Blazer Fresh - "Wizard of Words" https://family.gonoodle.com/activities/wizard-of-words (this video touches on the idea of a prefix, but not -un, unfortunately )

Thursday, November 19

 Hi parents,

We had a great day today! It was a nice way to end our week. I am looking forward to virtual conferences this evening and tomorrow. This is the first time I've ever used Microsoft Teams (for anything!) so please bear with me if there are any technical difficulties. Honestly I would be quite surprised if there aren't...  If, for whatever reason, your conference time is disrupted, I am more than happy to find another time to meet in the near future.

Talk to you soon!

Zac

Wednesday, November 18

 Hi parents,

We had yet another great day today. I have felt exceptionally grateful to the students for their hard work, kindness, and creativity this week. It is easy to look past all of the negativity in the world when you're teaching a Grade 1/2 class.

In the morning, we reviewed the concept of hibernation, and then the students responded to the writing prompts "I WOULD like to hibernate because..." or "I would NOT like to hibernate because..." 

We had a fun and interesting discussion about the questions first. Some students said they'd be happy to hibernate because it would be like a huge buffet followed by a nice, long nap. Others realized that hibernation would mean sleeping through their birthdays, or Christmas, and that was absolutely unacceptable.

The students completed their November Learning Books today, and hopefully were able to safely deliver them home today. As I wrote in my email yesterday, I hope that the books help to spark some conversations at home. I thought it would be cool to send home work that featured a little bit of everything, rather than just focusing on one subject.

Tomorrow is our first day of conferences, and as such, Friday is a day off. That means tomorrow is our spelling quiz! I have high hopes for this one because we have practiced harder this week than in previous weeks.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Tuesday, November 17

 Hi parents,

We had another great day today, especially for a Tuesday. The students started the day off by working on November Learning Books, which I am planning to send home tomorrow. The books are intended to highlight some of the learning the kids have done this year. Of course a 4 page book could never even begin to scratch the surface of the vast, immense amount of learning we've done since the start of the year, but I'm sure you will enjoy them nonetheless.

Our morning Nature Walk was very cool today because the freezing fog created little ice spikes all over the fences, goalposts, and trees. I've added some photos below.

The students had Music class, and then we read a book called "Animals in Winter". The students learned about 'hibernation' today, and played a quick game where they acted out hibernation as a variety of animals.

In the afternoon, we practiced spelling, went to Gym, and did Daily 5. The students ended the day with Explore and Play because we worked through it this morning. 

Have a nice night,

Zac

Virtual Book Fair ON NOW!

 

Scholastic Book Fair

Save The Date 

Our school’s Book Fair is going online, so save the date! 

From Monday, November 16th – Sunday, November 22nd discover the newest books hot o the press, from the comfort of your home. Bonus: Every purchase supports our school and keeps kids reading. 

https://virtualbookfairs.scholastic.ca/pages/5148539 

 

Literacy Committee  

Monday, November 16

 Hi parents,

We had a good day today, but it was a very typical Monday and I don't have too much to report.

In the morning, students worked on their weekend journals, did some addition and subtraction, and did a quick activity that reviewed some of the big concepts we've learned in math this year. We're going to be doing a lot of work this week in preparation for conferences, so that the students have some new activities to share at home.

We practiced this week's spelling words, did Daily 5, and read some stories. We've been spending a lot of time practicing routine tasks, like journal writing, Daily 5, and spelling practice, because these tasks lay the foundations for a successful Montessori classroom. One thing I am really working on with the kids is spelling practice. At the start of the year, the students were just getting it finished as quickly as possible, but now they're writing the words out more carefully, and reading them aloud. I've noticed that this has helped many Grade 1 students build confidence not only with their spelling, but with their reading too! All around I'm quite pleased with how things have been going since our tough days in previous weeks.

Also - I am in the process of sending out updated Google Classroom information, as I was required to reset passwords over the weekend. Stay tuned for an email with your child's new info.

Have a nice night!

Zac

Spelling Words (Week of Nov. 15)

 

Jack Hartmann offers his take on '-en' words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o-SPIIjEGE

Alphablocks "Pen, Pet, Peg": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0h_NGJEUJA