Hundreds Chart

Today your student will be bringing a Hundreds Chart home with them. They can use this at home to help them with tonight's homework. However, please send it back to school tomorrow so that we may use it in class as well.

Thank you!

Several Important Announcements!

• I am very sorry. I was out sick yesterday and I just remembered that I forgot to post the new homework for this week. I am very sorry for the mistake. The homework pages are listed now. Again, please remember to complete the assigned page on the assigned night and do not work ahead. We seem to be still having a problem with this because every day in our math lessons, students are telling me that they did the homework for this last night. If you work ahead, that means you are having your student complete work that they have not yet been taught in class. If you are having problems with their understanding, this is the reason. I am sorry to repeat myself about this again. Thank you for your cooperation. 
• I will try to get the newsletter for the last two weeks up tonight. I know we are behind and I have some photos to share about their work for the last few weeks.
• Please remember that you cannot send money to school with your student for lunch. They need to have coupons only. I have been making exceptions for the last few weeks but it needs to stop. If you send no water/food with your student and only money, they will not have food for the day. I am only allowed to accept coupons. 
• The sun is shining and the weather is getting warmer! As a result, your students are really thirsty. Please start sending more water with them again because they are running out early in the day. 
• Reminder: This Thursday is a half day. Students will go home at 12:00pm. 
• Please remember to check the blog and the channel book every day. I have noticed that when I am sending notes home, parents are not seeing them for several days. You must check it every day. Thank you.

WORLD MATH DAY

Also, our school is participating in World Math Day. This is a competition that your students can compete in. This is an activity that needs to be done at home so it is your choice to participate. World Math Day is on March 6. Your student can log on to the website on that day and compete with kids of their age from across the world. Your login information will be coming home today in the home file. I think they can log on early and practice. 

http://www.worldeducationgames.com/

Congratulations!

Today all of the students in our class received awards during morning lines for various achievements in class.

The awards are coming home today for you to see.

Congratulations to the students of Grade 1b! 

A few announcements

-Please send the signed progress reports back to school as soon as you can.

-This Thursday is our Field Trip to Ceramic Cafe. If you did not pay the fee for the trip, please remember to keep your student at home that day.

-February 28th is a half day for students.

Just a quick reminder.....

Field Trip money is due tomorrow!!!!

Notices/Field Trip

~~~On Thursday, students may come out of uniform for Valentine's Day. Please send them in red, white or pink. Otherwise, they must come in uniform. Thank you.

~~~We are having a field trip next Thursday to Il Pennelo Ceramic Cafe. This is a trip that students school-wide should be taking at some point. We will paint a ceramic tile there which will then be used to decorate the school gates. Please understand that the 80le price includes the ceramic piece, but the students will not be able to keep the piece as it will be used for the school. However, the ceramic piece that your student makes will be a part of the school forever.

The due date for sending in the fee and permission slip is this Thursday, Feb 14. If you would like your child to participate in this activity, please send the money in as soon as you can.


Thank you.

Grade 1b News - Feb 3-7 International Week

We had a very fun, exciting week learning about America.

Reading: For phonics, we learned about R cluster sounds and rhyming them. We continued to practice identifying nouns, verbs and adjectives.

Math: In math we learned greater than, less than and one more/one less. These are challenging concepts, but the students are working very hard.


Our afternoons were spent doing international week activities. Here are the things that we did to learn about America:
-Looked at America on the map and learned about what states are
-Learned that America is also called the United States of America and can be shortened to USA
-Listened to American songs, such as Proud to Be an American, My Country Tis of Thee, God Bless America, and the Star Spangled Banner
-Learned about the American Flag. How many stars? How many stripes? Why?
-Learned about the most popular names in America and chose new names for the week (the kids loved this!)
-Worked together as a class to create a large American flag painting
-Painted a mural as a class with different aspects of America that we learned about
-Read lots of books about American and did our own research
-Learned the Pledge of Allegiance

On Thursday, we got to travel to other "countries." We went to Spain, France, Tanzania and Italy. After our busy morning, we spent the afternoon eating American food and watching Magic School Bus, a very popular American TV show. I made fresh lemonade and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the students to try, very popular kids food in America.

Here are some pictures from Thursday. The GP School facebook page has lots of other photos of the day from all the classrooms.

Eyad, Zeina, and Hashim explaining the mural we made to another class

Class Photo in front of the American flag painting that we made

One more announcement....

We are learning the Pledge of Allegiance to present to the other classes tomorrow. If you could help your student practice it tonight, instead of the Math homework, I would really appreciate it!


The Pledge is the salute that Americans do to the flag every day.
These are the words:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.


Most of them remember quite a bit of it by now, but additional practice would be great!!!

Out of Uniform Tomorrow/International Activities

As a reminder, students can come out of uniform tomorrow if they are dressed for their country.

We need to dress in Red, White and Blue. The PE uniform pants are great for this because they are already blue and white and then you would just need to add a red shirt. However, that is just an idea.

If you do not send your student in Red, White, and Blue, then they must come in uniform.


Also, we will not be having a dish party. We already have a very busy morning "traveling" to other countries, and a birthday party in the afternoon. I will however be providing some small "American" snacks for the kids, myself.

Thanks for your cooperation. 

Important Announcement

Please do not complete tonight's Math homework page. I did not get to teach the lesson in class today due to International Week activities.


Also, as a general announcement, please make sure you DO NOT WORK AHEAD in the homework assignments. Do the assigned pages on the correct nights. I have them planned so that they complete the homework on the night that I do the lesson. If you have them work ahead, then they are completing work that they have not yet been taught. This creates misconceptions and mistakes in learning when you do this. The homework is intended to be review and additional practice on concepts that have already been taught in class. 

International Week

This week is International Week as I am sure the students have let you know.

Last week, I had all of the students look at a map of the world and choose a country they would like to learn about. We had a vote on the top two countries chose, and the winner was America.

 

So this week, each day, we will learn something new about America. The class has been so excited and enthusiastic about learning. Yesterday, we learned that it is actually called the United States of America and sometimes shortened for USA. We have also learned what the stars and stripes on the flag mean. Today, each kid got a "new" American name for the week. 

We will also do flag art and make a mural of American symbols, among a few other activities. 

On Thursday, your students can come out of uniform, but please send them in Red, White, and Blue for America.

Thanks! 

Grade 1b News: January 20 - 31

This is news for the last two weeks.

Reading: We learned about adjectives. Right now, we know that adjectives tell shape, size, color and number and they describe a noun. We have practiced looking at sentences and figuring out which words are the nouns, verbs and adjectives. We also learned about what a pronoun is and how to use them. We learned the short o, and short u sound in words like rot, lot, mop, top and run, sun, fun. We practiced the qu and z sounds and double consonant sounds like zz, ll, ss, ff, tt. Miss Miranda finished reassessing our reading levels and has created new reading groups based on our progress! The class has shown excellent progress!

Writing: We have continue to work on small moment stories. We are in the early stages where we are just working on identifying what a small moment is.

Math: We finished Chapter 10 about place value and tens and ones. This was a very short chapter, but the students learned the concept well.

Science: We used books about different habitats to do some research. Students were put into groups and read about two different habitats together. They were given research questions, such as, What is the name of the habitat? What plants live there? What animals live there? and they needed to use the book and their team to answer the questions. This was a fun activity and the students really enjoyed it.

Social Studies: We began to learn about communities. We looked first at our school community. We made a list of all of the people in our school and what their jobs are. We talked about why each person's job is so important and what would happen if our school didn't have that one job. We learned that every person in the school is very important and we all work together to make the school run.

Nutty Scientists Trip: The show and activities at the Nutty Scientists was about solids, liquids and gases. Students got to learn about carbon ice and sublimation (when a solid turns straight into a gas). They know about Carbon Dioxide and call tell you it is CO2. They watched what happens when a solid turns into a gas and creates pressure. These extremely complex concepts were introduced to the students in a way that made it easy for them to understand. I was very proud with their effort to understand what they Nutty Scientists were teaching them!

Here are some pictures from the trip. I tried to get as many pictures of Grade 1b students as I could, but we were split into different groups, so all of the students were not with me. Check the other Grade 1 and 2 blogs to see more pictures.

Making Magic Fingers

Ziad handling the carbon ice

Pouring hot water onto the carbon ice

Carbon ice, hot water and soap

Hashim making a gas whisper

Youssef and Leena very interested

Dareen and Ziad playing with the carbon bubbles

Nour and Gasser making carbon ice juice