Week of December 15-19

 

Learning Intentions:

I can read and understand a story by identifying characters and events, and by making personal connections.

I can use reading, writing, drawing, and sorting activities to share my ideas and thoughts.

I can collect, organize, and display information using pictures, symbols, and graphs.

I can create and interpret a glyph to show information about myself and our class.

I can design, build, and solve problems with others while counting, sorting, and graphing materials.

As we wrap up 2025, our class has been busy finishing our Gingerbread multi-curricular unit. It has been a wonderful way to bring learning together in a creative and engaging way. We enjoyed a week of holiday tunes, singing and dancing together as a whole school.

In Literacy, students rotated through a final set of gingerbread-themed centres. These included roll‑and‑draw activities to design their own gingerbread people, a reading and writing centre where students filled in missing words, a character‑sorting activity based on the story, and a read‑and‑reflect centre where students made personal connections to the text. These centres supported reading comprehension, sentence structure, vocabulary, and creative expression while allowing students to work independently and collaboratively.

In Math, students created a gingerbread glyph, a visual representation of information using symbols. Each feature of the gingerbread person (such as buttons, decorations, or colours) showed something specific about the student or their choices. We then used the glyphs to practice graphing, comparing and analyzing class data in a hands-on way. 

Our final project brought everything together as students designed and built a gingerbread house that could stand independently. Once completed, students graphed and discussed the materials and candies used in their structures, reinforcing concepts of counting, sorting, and representing data. 

This stuffy was left in the classroom. He will keep Fox and Percy the Puffin company.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Week of December 8-12

  Learning Intentions:

• I can work with a group
• I can follow step by step instructions to create art
• I can read and listen to stories and make connections
• I can use my knowledge of letter sounds to solve a puzzle
• I can create complete sentences
• I can show my learning through multiple literacies

This week, the students started their first rotation of literacy centers. The students worked with their groups to complete the following tasks: Winter Code Breaker, Guided Drawings of Gingerbread Person and House, Listened and Read various Gingerbread stories and made connections and shared their thoughts on the book, finally, they made fun holiday sentences through a game! The students will continue to explore literacy centers throughout the year. They are working on staying at their center and working the whole time, working with their teammates and completing their tasks.

*Note:     We ran out of time for our spelling test today and will do it on Monday. 

                This will be our last spelling test this year.

Learning Intentions:

• I can record data using tally marks
• I can ask my classmates survey questions to collect data
• I can use data to make bar graphs
• I can use data to make pictographs
• I can create a question, survey my classmates, graph the results and draw conclusions (Gr 2)

This week the Grade 1s and 2s both continued their exploration of data in math. They continue to practice different skills such as recording data in tally marks when surveying their peers and sharing data through various types of graphs like bar graphs and pictographs. They are continuing to explore how to draw conclusions from the data such as "What is the difference between how many people chose snowflake over tree?" They will finish their learning on statistics by the end of next week with more hands on activities as well as a quick check-in to assess their learning.  

Supporting Students at Home

Spelling:
Help your child to learn word patterns at home. Start with a word like "library" and ask them to make words using those letters. (ex. lab, rib, ray, lay, bray, bay... from library).

Math:
As we explore data and statistics, please encourage your child to find ways to explore this unit at home. Ask your child to make a tally chart and count how many items in the fridge? On the Christmas tree? Have your child ask family members a would you rather question and have them record their answers.

Grade 1/2 Blog for Ms. Renette

Week of December 1 to 5

·      I can record data using tally marks.

·      I can ask my classmates survey questions to collect data. 

·       I can use data to make bar graphs.

·       I can use data to make picture graphs. 

·       I can identify the x-axis and y-axis on a chart.

In Math this week, students have been gathering data from their classmates with questions such as, “Would you rather have 1 giant gingerbread cookie or 10 small ones?” They then recorded the data and filled in a bar graph to represent their results. We used videos that showed the usefulness and applications of bar graphs and picture graphs. We also read a book called “Tally O’Malley” about a girl who plays a tally game on a family trip to pass the time.

Learning Outcomes:

·       I can explain the difference between needs and wants.

·       I can explain the difference between goods and services.

·       I can explain how goods and services can be traded or shared.

·       I can identify things that are imported into my community.

·       I can identify things that are exported out of my community.

I can understand how things are transported to different places.

In Social Studies this week, students sorted a number of items into two categories: needs and wants. There were some lively discussions and some debating used to determine what things we “need”. Next, we explored the concepts of goods and services, and especially how they relate to our community. They were given trading cards which they could either trade with a classmate, give to a classmate or simply place in the share bin. Then they wrote sentences in their Journals explaining what they chose to trade or share. Lastly, we explored the concepts of Natural Resources and Man-Made Products and studied how different items come into and out of our community.

Supporting Students at Home:

Math:
Students can use tally marks to count items in a cupboard or on the Christmas tree. For example, how many boxes and how many cans are there in a drawer? Can they then record this using tally marks and show the results in a bar graph? 

Social Studies:
Ask your student to give examples of things that are imported and exported into and out of our community. Ask them to name some natural resources that are found in our country.

Spelling Words:
Ask your student to look for what pattern there is in their spelling words this week. For example, is there a double consonant or vowel pattern?