Reading Practice and Prodigy Math and Science Check in

Dear Parents,

It's the last week before vacation and excitement has been building. We've been doing a number of thematic writing activities, like thinking of ways to make a grouch grin, and writing a letter applying to be an elf, as well as our usual reading responses to a variety of books. I'll try to do a holiday round up post to show pictures of student work before we go leave for break.

It's easy to fall back in reading during vacation, so during the winter break, it will be helpful to keep on top of reading as a top priority. If you need support with the Raz kids site, please let me know via email. Here's the main site: https://www.kidsa-z.com/main/students/

In math, we've been focusing on problem solving strategies after finishing our geometry unit (focusing on symmetry). All the math sheets students have been working on in class have gone home and our quizzes have marks on them, so that you know how students are performing. Students with marks at Level 3-, 2+, 2, or 2- should focus on rehearsing these skills because students need more practice.

In order to support this practice, I've signed students up for Prodigy. Look in your Mr. Zippy's tonight for the sign up info. It's an online math game that supports grade appropriate skills for students. It's free, and a good way to practice math over the break. Here's the link to the main site: https://www.prodigygame.com . It's free to use and set up like a video game.

In Science, I sent home a checklist for students to follow through on home energy use last week--but I haven't received most of these back. If you haven't completed it, there's a copy available online. Completing it will help us follow through on energy conservation:  Energy at home pdf

Thanks for all your support of student learning. I know how busy this time of year can be.

Sincerely,

Ms. Goegan

Shoe Challenge--Quick Post

Dear Parents,

We've got Raz kids up and running. I've seen many of you logging on and practicing, which is great. I'm also really noticing that students are beginning to gather speed around reading. We've been working hard! If you need updated password information or missed anything coming home, please let me know and I'll update you.


In other classroom news, today we finished reading Ramona the Brave. In the climax of the novel, Ramona faces off with a very big dog, who she chases off by throwing her shoe. Ramona continues to school shoeless and needs to construct a new shoe out of paper towels. We decided to celebrate finishing the novel by having a bit of a design challenge and make a shoe ourselves. Not everyone is done, but here are some preliminary photos.

Design questions like this are a great way to jumpstart inquiry in the classroom. You can see how engaged students are in the process, how varied the results are, and I look forward to hearing about their thinking processes. 

Sincerely, 

Ms. Goegan

Photo post about Science

Dear Parents, 

This post makes much more sense in the context of my previous post about the energy project. We've begun the unit with some good books and great questions. 

Here's the board as it looks right now...we'll keep adding questions

How does energy come from the sky?

How does engines work?

How does rides work?/How does the car work?

What will happen if you scrape your eraser?/How does the snow shoe hare change colour?/How does the boat repel?
(Not sure about what the first one is saying)

How does the energy get through the wire?

These next few are about Rosie Revere, Engineer:

"At the beginning her uncle laughed at her, then her Aunt came and she decided to try, then the helicopter flew"

Her uncle says, haha you're funny and she is sad, then she dreams about her invention, then her aunt laughs but she feels better

First she likes to invent, but then her uncle makes her feel bad and then her aunt tells her,  "it was your first try and you made it fly".

At the beginning she likes to invent, but then her uncle and the snakes laugh, then in the end she will try again

These next two relate to 11 Experiments that Failed. I asked students to talk about their favourite bad experiment and why it didn't work.

Why was it a bad idea to put the gerbil on the ferris wheel? He was too short

Why was it a bad idea to try to grow a fungus garden? Because the brother is saying "My shoe are missing" and there are mushrooms growing in it and it is stinky.

Energy!

Dear Parents,

You should have received the project outline for our science unit tonight. I'm off for the rest of the week to attend a family matter, but wanted to ensure I sent it out with enough time to spare for December 11th. I know this time of year can be very busy.

This is a project to be done at home that will be presented to the class. You are welcome to guide and assist your child as needed. They will be marked on their own understanding of the energy processes involved during their presentation.

All students will present their toy, their findings, and information. They should practice presenting their project at home. Some ideas to consider are Movement energy transforming into light energy; wind energy transforming into movement energy; or chemical energy (batteries) transforming into movement.  We will be covering a variety of energy sources and transformations in class as the unit progresses as well. 

We began yesterday by asking some of our big questions. (I'll be adding to this post when I can download the pictures from my phone at home)

This week, we've been reading books about kids who are engaged in science.

Yesterday, we talked about 11 Experiments that Failed, which outlined the scientific process and showed that it's all about asking the right kinds of questions and using information you already have to help you predict outcomes. Students brainstormed their own energy questions and did a reading response about why they think some of the experiments in the book failed. I'll post some pictures of them later.

A sample of the kind of experiments that failed

Today, we read Rosie Revere, Engineer all about being resilient in the face of failure--because mistakes are part of getting to success. I'll add some pictures of their responses too.

The right attitude makes all the difference

Students were excited to see the resemblance between this Rosie and the poster on our wall.

 I think they're also excited about their toy ideas. I had Luke show me his airplane in day care as a possible idea to pursue and Elliot was asking about how to show streetlights turning on at night as part of his toy. 

Sincerely,

Lisa Goegan

Report Card Appointments

Monday, November-13-17

Dear Parents,

I’m sending your interview request times home today, in advance of tomorrow’s report card. I would like to see all students and their families if possible. If these times are not convenient, please do connect and let me know when we might make other arrangements.

Due to the YMCA’s presence in Room 105, interviews will be conducted in the Nutrition room (near the main stairwell), instead of this room.

I’ll be adding an online scheduler to tonight, so if you go to my blog you can find a link that will connect you to the options still available. My blog is msgoegan.blogspot.com. If you return the paper form, I’ll input your time into the online schedule myself.

As always feel free to connect via lisa.goegan@tdsb.on.ca if you have additional questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

Lisa Goegan

Thursday Evening Slots:

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/selfsched?sstoken=UU5RM3RFdlRBWTR0fGRlZmF1bHR8NWFhNzhlOTEyMmUzYTc5ODI3NjFlYmU1NjBiMzc1OTg

Friday Morning Slots:

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/selfsched?sstoken=UU5RM3RFdlRBWTR0fGRlZmF1bHR8NWFhNzhlOTEyMmUzYTc5ODI3NjFlYmU1NjBiMzc1OTg

Halloween, Patterning, Creepy Writing and Picasso, of course.

Dear Parents,

It's been a while since I've had a chance to update, so this is a bit of an omnibus post. We had a great Halloween yesterday and I thought, first, I'd post a class photo Mr. D took of our guys in the stairwell.

We've been getting up to gear these past few weeks, finishing our Number Sense and Numeration unit and beginning our Patterning and Algebra unit. Students have taken home all their worksheets from this unit and I sent home the practice test early last week, after we'd taken it up and then did a second test with them on Friday. Because so much of Grade One is learning how to learn, it's interesting to see who improved after review, and who still needs practice.

In our patterning unit, we are taking specific patterns (ABBA, ABCA, ABBBB, etc) and deliberately practicing making them with a variety of materials to show that the same pattern might look different but is really the same.

In language, we've read a slew of "scary" books like The Dark, Creepy Carrots and Creepy Underpants these past couple of weeks. Students have continued to do Reading Responses to these books, and we're beginning to do some art and more serious writing about the connections we can make between books and student experiences. You can come read this bulletin board in person to find out what each student thinks is the creepiest and what they plan to do about it.

 We did some art reflections about another book, They All Saw A Cat, which was about different perspectives on a single object: how it can look different depending on who is looking. It's a beautiful book and students enjoyed talking about it, but many had difficulty with the shifting perspective in their own work.

So we've moved on to Picasso and some play with shapes and abstraction.

I love doing Picasso based work around Halloween, because students enjoy the strangeness of his vision. Our portraits were inspired by the cubist idea of capturing motion, so students layered a side view of their faces with a front view.  Some students were frustrated by not being able to embellish their work with pencils and markers, but it's good to play with different materials and limits, I think. The results were pretty neat.

Students enjoyed working with the variety of papers, especially the metallic ones

Some added framing elements, others tried to make it look as "normal" as possible

I liked this ones use of tongue and nostrils

Some are definitely more abstract than others

This one is eating an ice cream cone

This one took a mistaken cut and incorporated it into the work

This one did some neat things with layers, I thought

I'm also posting to remind you that our timeline projects are due tomorrow. Good luck with the final touches. Please do let me know if there are any last minute issues or questions.

Sincerely, 

Ms. Goegan