Animal Research Project

Dear Parents,

I sent home a project package for an animal diorama project this evening. The project as a whole is due March 27th.

The dioramas are best made using shoe boxes, so if you have extra boxes lying around, we'd appreciate any extras being sent in. Please let me know if you need a shoe box.

Students have some access to computers at school, but using home time to help build research skills will be useful. We'll continue to fill in our K-W-L charts about the animals we've chosen at school and I have some templates to help format the reports at school in the week after March Break. Getting the research done early will be helpful to let us use class time to write.

In the photo below, you can see that we've begun to talk about the characteristics of different types of animals (vertebrates, mostly) and that the students who were here have chosen an animal to focus their research on.

Unfortunately, several students were away today, so I'll do my best to get the remaining packages out as soon as possible. I'm trying to get each student to pick a different animal and focus on a variety of habitats so we can learn more as a class. 

I promised to post some good websites for learning about animals. Here are some of my favourites, but which animals are included may vary:

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/ --Use the sidebar to help search

https://www.pebblego.com/ (free login for tdsb students is on the library sites card that went home in September) --This site will read aloud the text to students

https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/kids --links to pages about specific Canadian animals

http://kids.sandiegozoo.org/animals --Great photos and information, but a little less intuitive to navigate

http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/animals.html --Good for cool facts about your animals, less good as a primary source

https://naturalhistory.si.edu/mna/main.cfm?lang=_en  --More advanced set-up, best viewed with an adult, but some interesting maps of habitats and specimen pictures

I'm anticipating that the acrostic and the vocabulary sheet parts of the project will be tricky, so I hope to demonstrate those a little more in depth as students begin to learn about their animals. If you have any questions, please do let me know.

Sincerely, 

Lisa Goegan

Dictionaries and Atlases

Dear Parents,

The past couple of weeks, I've been introducing students to new types of texts--atlases and dictionaries. In this world of Googlemaps and online dictionaries, it's important to remember that once these were things we looked up in books, mostly because some of the things that are intuitive about deciphering these kinds of resources to adults are the result of long hours of frustration using indexes and trying to find a word that's not spelled the way you think it should be.

So many types of texts have features that are unique. Students can better understand how to access these tools when they're taught them directly.

One of the science units in Grade One is Daily and Seasonal Changes. For this unit, it makes sense to me to dip toes in and out as we go through the daily and seasonal changes that make up the year: We track the weather and temperature daily in the classroom and our December field trip to High Park Nature Centre was a great way of getting students thinking about how changes in weather affect animals and how they adapt to their environments through the seasons.

For the rest, I've cribbed a bit from this page: www.mrcollinson.ca/DailyAndSeasonalChanges and seen where the conversation goes.

Students have been fascinated by talking about shadows and thinking about the rotation of the earth both on its axis and around the sun and a number of map related topics have come up, especially as students think about why Mexico and Cuba are so nice to visit from Canada at this time of year.


This book on Maps has been a long favourite in the classroom (Our copy is heavily taped).

I've also brought in some student atlases that include more features, like lines of latitude and longitude, for example. We spent some time looking at those today and I asked students what they noticed.

Today's letter of the day, with notes from student observations of Atlases

In this week's journals, students are drawing their own maps and incorporating some of the features we talked about during today's morning circle.

Thinking about dictionaries, one of our recurrent questions is "What do you do when you don't know what to do?" Some students always ask me to spell unfamiliar words for them--even though spelling isn't paramount to me, it is for some of them. Picture dictionaries seemed like a nice tool to help to address that. 

We talked about how a dictionary is organized alphabetically.



We discussed how not just the first letters go in alphabetical order, they all do--and there's a little box at the top to tell you what the first and last words on the page are.



These dictionaries also include a frequently used words index....


And thematic pages, in case you want to dive into a topic more deeply.




Interestingly, these dictionaries have been taken out quite a bit during quiet reading and Reading Buddies periods this week. We did some dictionary races on Friday that were a lot of fun as well as helping to build dexterity with different dictionary skills.






We'll be looking at non-fiction texts more closely in the next little while as we begin to research animals. Features like infographics, indexes, and tables of contents are not necessarily intuitive for beginning readers. We hope to unpack these some more in coming weeks.

Regards,

Ms. Goegan

Pick an Interview Time

Dear Parents,

A bunch of things are coming up very fast:

1. Reports go home on the 10th. I missed sending home interview request forms today, but expect them tomorrow. I'm going to try to let you book online this term and see how it works for you and me (I'll send email confirmation of any times booked this way, to be sure).

Here's the link for Thursday night interview slots:
https://calendar.google.com/calendar/selfsched?sstoken=UU5RM3RFdlRBWTR0fGRlZmF1bHR8NWFhNzhlOTEyMmUzYTc5ODI3NjFlYmU1NjBiMzc1OTg

And the link for Friday morning slots:
https://calendar.google.com/calendar/selfsched?sstoken=UU5RM3RFdlRBWTR0fGRlZmF1bHR8NWFhNzhlOTEyMmUzYTc5ODI3NjFlYmU1NjBiMzc1OTg

If it works out, you can book in your preferred time specifically based on what's available.

2. Monday is 100th Day. We'll be doing a range of math based activities and students are invited to dress up as though they were 100 years old.

3. Tuesday is Valentine's Day. There will be time for a card exchange and some festive themed activities. I would prefer if cards were sent for all children in the class if you choose to send them. Names are not necessary; however, if you'd like a list of first names, email me and I'll send one along.

4. I have sent the finished letters along to the Prime Minister's Office today. We'll hope to hear a response soon.



As a general sort of overview:

We are finishing up the last bits of our Health unit and starting in again on Science. I emptied the folders and sent home the energy unit, so we could begin fresh. We'll be making a food rainbow on Friday I hope.



We have also just finished our Geometry unit and are beginning Data Management. I've been doing some dpa by having students pair up to make different shapes.

This is a circle

This is a square

Together they're making a star

Another star

The number 4

This is a lot of fun for the kids and spurs on some creative problem solving. Here are 3 ways to make a W:

Lastly, I've shuffled reading groups somewhat so that there are again 5 groups. The new group has yet to pick a name but is considering Cotton Candies, Jelly Beans, and Lollipops. The lowest reading group is focusing on Level D, Chocolate Chips are E, Skittles are F/G, Gummy Bears are practicing writing skills at G but reading novels at K/L/M, and Smarties are practicing writing skills at I, but reading at M or above.

Finally, we did some guided breathing today after lunch and listened to some soundscapes. Some are soothing and others are meant to build focus. I promised to send along the link:

http://asoftmurmur.com/

Have a great week!

Sincerely, 

Ms. Goegan

Building the tallest tower during activity time.

Dear Parents,

I'm putting the final marks on report cards and this round is particularly tough. It's hard to move from a descriptive perspective in Kindergarten, where I'm describing what students can do, to a more evaluative stance in Grade 1, looking at their successes against a fixed bar.

There are C's and D's going home for some students, because the effort and engagement are honestly there, but sometimes the skills aren't quite yet.

I feel like I've prepared families for those grades with the feedback on progress reports, but I do look forward to touching base about what next steps might be--because it is early days yet in their school careers.

That being said, this week we're focusing on:

Health--Students are learning some of the less intuitive parts of the food groups, like how nuts, beans, and potatoes fit into the Canadian Food Guide. We're also learning about how to look at nutrition labels. I've sent home a scavenger hunt homework assignment due next Monday and we'll be continuing to discuss in class.

Math--Looking at shapes and symmetry and identifying shapes. We played a musical game today with shape names.

Language--Still working in our 4 reading groups. Students continue to make solid progress in their reading. Skittles performed The 3 Bears for us yesterday and many students helped us read a new book called "I am NOT a Dinosaur" about some of the different creatures that also lived millions of years ago. My favourite part is the timeline in the back.

Social Studies-- We started off the week talking about many students' experiences at the Women's March on the weekend, and particularly now, I think it's important to create an activists stance and talk as directly as possible to government. We'll be sending our letters to Trudeau's office by early next week and hoping to get a response.

That said, there's a lot of variation in writing speed and proficiency amongst the class. I'm working to ensure that everyone is successful.

Sincerely,

Ms. Goegan

Hugs and Persuasion

Dear Parents,

It feels like forever since I've posted, but that's what a good break will do. Hopefully, you feel just as fresh and ready for new challenges.

This week in class, we've been finishing up our Measurement Unit from before the break and beginning the new Geometry unit that will take us up to report card time.

Today's measurement test was a little stressful for students. Even though we'd practiced the vocabulary this morning and I'd told them what was on the test, a new context (and probably the afternoon time slot it fell into) was challenging. No matter, we'll come at it fresh again tomorrow.

Yesterday by contrast, was one of those days in the classroom you dream about. I felt like students were excited and engaged by the partner work we did in math and hearing all the names of those never heard polygons, the nonagon, the decagon, etc. inspired a few to create the Hug-a-gon. It's the shape you create when the entire class joins in a group hug. Too cute?

We also are bridging up to writing some letters about some issues, so we're really working on means of persuasion. On the way to their Dental Screening yesterday, I had them brainstorm some ways they could convince me to brush my teeth.

A: They'll all fall out! It's good for you to brush your teeth!
B: Everyone has to brush their teeth twice a day!
C: Don't you want to do what you're supposed to do?
D: People won't want to get close to you if your breath is stinky.
E: If you brush your teeth, then I'll brush my teeth with you!
F: I have a toothbrush that sings and tells me when I do a really good job brushing my teeth. Maybe you should get one too.
G:Do it or else I'll be mad!
H: Please, just brush your teeth.

At the end of this highly hypothetical scenario, I was totally convinced.

We talked a lot about how #7 is not the best strategy, but that and #1 seem to be their go-tos. (Also begging, which never works).

Today, I made them use this list to convince me when some of them wanted to stay in for recess this afternoon. Hopefully, they'll continue to use their newfound powers for good.

I've also started a new read aloud book called "The Best Mistake Mystery" by Sylvia McNicoll, which is about a boy who solves mysteries by making mistakes and walking dogs.  The author is local, from Burlington.

Happily, the cover artist is also local. So local that she's made a map of our neighbourhood. (I used this map on the test as a point of reference ---you can find the artist Tania Howells' site here, with a variety of other interesting maps.)

I'm also doing an art activity based on map making. Here's my partially finished example:












And here's the online tutorial I based it off of:

Kathy Angelnik's Neighborhood Art Project

About 2/3's of the class did their stamping in small groups while the class was doing the test, so more on that to come.

Sincerely,

Ms. Goegan

A field trip before the break

Dear Parents, 

Thank you so much for the cards and gifts some of you sent in this past week. It always means a lot to know that you appreciate the work I do. I'm especially excited to try some of the treats kids have made...I like to think about the next generation of bakers. 

Yesterday's trip was a smashing success. I cannot recommend the High Park Nature Centre enough to you all. We had a lovely exploratory session in the morning, looking at different signs animals leave in the wild and then taking a hike to see what we could find. Because we had so many excellent parent volunteers, my job was mostly to take photos. 

Students did some centre based work: making pinecone feeders, molding clay to look like different types of animal scat, matching animal shelters, and connecting parts of animals to their wholes. 

Put the lard over the pinecone, then roll it in sunflower seeds

 

Match the animal to its tracks

The faces from this centre are really the best. I had a hard time winnowing them down:

The Moose

What kind of feather?

In the afternoon, we talked about different kinds of owls and the special features these kinds of birds have. For example:

Sharp beaks

Binocular vision

 And then we got to take apart some owl pellets. Owl pellets are kind of like hairballs from owls: they cough up all the things they can't digest in these little balls of fur and bone. When you pick them apart, you can tell the kinds of animals owls may have been eating. All the germs were gone thanks to irradiation with UV light, but it was still a little gruesome (for some of the parents more than the kids). You can see from the pictures below how enthralled and engaged they were.

After that, we played an owl trivia race game and role played as hunters seeking food in the forest--half the class hid the prey in one area, then the other half hunted for the tags (and vice versa). 

All in all it was a fantastic day. Thanks to all the parents who slogged through the snow with us. And a very special thanks to Jackson D's mom, Jenny, who showed up with hot chocolate at lunch (and coffee for the grown ups).