Grade 1 Electronics Day!

Our class has asked Mr. Gardner to allow us to bring electronics to school for a special treat. We first asked him much earlier in the year (around March Break), but Mr. Gardner told us that our reasons were not strong enough. We worked hard to develop our ideas (we brainstormed new ones, shared ideas, and built on the ideas of others) during our persuasive writing unit.

Here is the letter we wrote together and created as a class:

June 18, 2013

Dear Mr. Gardner,

      We want to bring electronics to school for a special treat.

      First of all, we can learn more about sharing. If someone doesn’t have electronics to bring then we can share ours with them. Sharing makes a difference!

      Second of all, we are learning about energy, and some electronics (like iPads and iPod Touches) will help us to find information. We can also learn about how electronics use energy, like electricity and batteries, by turning them on and off.

      Third of all, bringing electronics will help us to show how we are responsible. We can be safe with our devices so they don’t break. We can review our skills to show we are ready for Grade 2.

      Fourth of all, we always play with the same toys. If we try new games on our devices then we can learn more skills and get smarter. Electronics have a lot of games about writing. We can learn more about spelling too. We can also learn to write neater and faster. We can learn more vocabulary words to help us prepare for Grade 2.

      Most importantly, we’ve been working hard for the whole year and we deserve a special treat. It’s a great way to celebrate the end of the year!

      It is for these reasons that we think we should have an electronics day.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Howard’s Grade 1 Class

We were so excited to hear Mr. Gardner's response - YES!! 

Here are the details for the special Electronics Day:

Who: Grade 1's from Mrs. Howard's Class

When: Thursday, June 27 (9:00am-12:00pm)

School is only during the morning on this day.

Where: Mrs. Howard's Class 

Students may only use the electronics in the classroom. Before school and after school use on the tarmac or during recess it not permitted. We will keep the classroom locked during recess time.

What: Electronics

Please only bring devices that are hand held (e.g., iPads, iPods, PSPs). We will not have access to a TV. Students are also welcome to bring nothing - we will have iPads and laptops from our school to use and enjoy as well!

As I have said to all of the students in our class, I will miss everyone over the summer vacation! This is the perfect way for us to celebrate our hard work and to enjoy the last few hours of school together!

Recycled Materials Needed

Next week we will be building some very cool student-designed structures using recycled materials. If you have any boxes, containers, paper towel rolls, etc. at home that you can send in next week, our class would greatly appreciate it! Thank you!

Bike Safety

At the beginning of the month we had a presentation about 'jelly brains'! The intermediate students did a great job and everyone from our class really enjoyed it! We especially loved feeling how soft and smooth the jelly brain was! 

The bike tuneup was a huge success! If you signed up for the educational bike program, the next day (and the day you need to bring your bike and helmet for) is June 18th (Gr. 1 and 2). 

Fun Media / Energy Video Clips

As part of our learning about media and energy, students loved watching many different video clips and commercials this week! Our focus has been on identifying target audience, responding to the media, and finding the message. Next week we will think more about who has created the media (e.g., commercial) and their purpose.

Here are links to some of the clips we have seen. Students asked for links from the class blog so that they could enjoy them at home. These links will show the videos on YouTube, so please keep internet safety / supervision in mind while viewing them at home.

The House Hippo

Animals Save the Planet - Meerkat Traffic

Ridiculous Waste

School Calendar

Our Class Blog now has another cool feature - the School Calendar Page! The link is now located under the 'Pages' section of the blog (on the lefthand side).

Click here to access the School Calendar.

We LOVE Math!

In celebration of our learning about probability, we played a very fun game today! Each student received one pencil before entering our classroom. Students had the opportunity to take a turn playing the spinner game on the SMARTboard.

Rules of the Game:

It costs one new pencil to play the game.

If the spinner lands on blue, no prize is won.

If the spinner lands on green, you win the grand prize - either the yellow or orange present!

Students quickly decided that winning the grand prize was very unlikely! As R.B. put it, "It's almost impossible to win the grand prize because there is only 1 green part and there are 11 blue parts on the spinner!"

Although there was only one grand prize winner, and some students chose to keep their pencil instead of taking a chance on the spinner, we had a LOT of fun playing! 

Investigating 3D Figures

Today students were given a very important task! Our class is in charge of labelling the bins with 3D figures for our whole school! We quickly realized that we would need to figure out the names of each of the figures and ways to identify each figure.

While working on a plan of action, students noticed a lot of interesting things about the figures. Take a look at some of their work below!

Here students were tracing the faces of the figures to find familiar shapes (e.g., triangles, rectangles, circles).

In the above picture, students were drawing the 3D figures to help recognize each one. They talked about how the sides of each shape looked different. 

Here is one of the bins our class is in charge of labelling! Students were already debating about whether or not they would sort specific figures into different bins, and if so, what the sorting rule might be (the number of points, the 2D shapes on each side, etc.).

Tomorrow we will compare our investigations and determine what we still need to find out. Today, A.K., suggested that we all work together to label the figures we do already know. That way we will figure out which figures we still need to learn about.

Way to go, Grade 1's!

Energy At Home Project

Students took home their Energy At Home projects yesterday. These projects will help us to see how we use energy in our everyday lives. Please return the project by Tuesday. If you have any questions, let me know. 

Who likes the Sun?

Yesterday we learned about how the Sun is the main source of energy for our planet. We shared facts and learned more about the Sun too. To see how the Sun's energy affects us, we did an experiment. We can't wait to see what will happen to the paper in our windows! Students made many wonderful hypotheses about what might happen (e.g., the paper will melt, catch fire, heat up). We will learn more about the Sun during our study of energy AND find out what will happen to our paper!

The Book Fair is here!

The Book Fair is here! Tomorrow students will be able to browse and purchase books. Our class time slot is from 11:45-12:15. Families are welcome to join us during that time to help purchase books. Students will also have an opportunity to buy books on Friday as well. 

Happy reading! :)

We are likely to learn about probability this week!

Students have been doing a great job using the math vocabulary from our probability unit this week! They created beautiful books that compare the likelihood of events happening. Take a look at some of the work (and fun!) from today!

The Crayon Game

Students loved playing the Crayon Game this week! We used the game to mesh our algebra and probability math units. Everyone had a fantastic time learning new math vocabulary while playing a fun game!

Over the next few days we will be learning how to describe the likelihood of everyday events occurring. We will use words like possible, impossible, certain, likely, unlikely, etc. to describe games and everyday events. 

At home, try talking about the chance of different things happening. E.g., is it likely that we will have rain tomorrow? Is it possible to get to school in less than 3 minutes? How likely is it to find more than 10 raisins in the box? Who is most likely to win the lacrosse game?

Jump Rope For Heart

Jump Rope For Heart is tomorrow! Please remember to return pledge forms tomorrow morning. We will hopefully be outside and enjoying beautiful sunny weather, so please dress accordingly. If we end up getting rained out then our class will have a Jump Rope time slot for indoor skipping in the gym. 

Get ready to have fun tomorrow, Grade 1's! :)

Homework for Parents

We had a visit from Fight-fighter Lummiss today! He shared a lot of information with us! We learned about his job and a lot about fire safety. Everyone was so excited to give their parents homework! Families are asked to look inside today's booklet and complete the checklist. 

We love mixing colours!

Students had so much fun mixing shades of colours and creating secondary colours with primary colours! We learned how white helps to make lighter shades of a colour. We also learned how having different amounts of two colours (e.g., red and blue) can change how a colour looks when it's mixed. We also learned that mixing many colours often makes brown. 

Next week we will be creating monochromatic cityscapes! I can't wait to see how everyone personalizes their work!

We love Algebra!

Today we began our new math unit! We are learning all about algebra. We had a ton of fun with our first problem, which was all about marbles. While learning how to play a new marble game, students quickly noticed that both players did not have the same amount of marbles. Each student thought of ways to make the game more fair. I especially loved how students described their ideas during our 'Math Congress'! They referred to their feedback, built on others ideas, and explained why they agreed and disagreed with others. Fantastic work today Grade 1's!

Organizing Your Word Wall Book

I am so proud of each student for learning more about organization this year! Many students have worked hard to improve the organization in their homework too. Take a look at some of the amazing work below! Please remember that these are just a few examples of amazing work. Fantastic job, Grade 1's!

Welcome Miss Thom!

We are so excited to welcome Miss Thom into our classroom! Miss Thom is a student teacher from the Concurrent Education Program at Queen's University. She will be joining us for the next two weeks. Everyone has enjoyed meeting her and getting to know her so far this week! We can't wait to share what we do in Grade 1 with Miss Thom!

Van Gogh Art

Students in our class LOVE painting! We have created art works that are inspired by Van Gogh's work. Everyone enjoyed using their knowledge about horizon lines to create a tabletop. I am so impressed with how carefully students painted! Next week we will finish outlining the flowers and vase with oil pastel. Take a look at some of our work in progress!

School Opening Article

York Region posted a news article about our school opening. There's also a video that has a snapshot of our class performance! Here is the link in case you'd like to check it out!

http://www.yorkregion.com/news-story/2538450-hansen-visits-aurora-school-bearing-his-name/