Sherwood Elementary 2023-2024

May 3, 2024: We said "au revoir to Mme Sarah this week! We will miss her but will see her again, as she is booked to substitute teach in our class for a couple of days in June. We have really enjoyed having her complete her B.Ed practicum with us and wish her well as she begins her teaching career! We continue doing lots of writing every day and  learned that partners can help us with our writing, by asking questions so that we expand our ideas and add more detail. In math we are working on measurement, and are comparing various classroom objects while learning about mass, surface area and capacity. 

April 19, 2024: This week we continued with problem solving in math and Lucy Calkin's "small moments" unit of study on personal narrative writing. We enjoy our "writers workshop" every day and the children are writing some fantastic personal narratives.  We learned that writers don't write about big "watermelon" topics, but they write about tiny "seed" stories. These are little stories inside of one big topic. We begin with a mini lesson, then we practice what we have learned during independent writing. Afterwards we share what we have written! I'm very proud of their progress. Earth day is approaching and we have been discussing small actions that we can take to help our planet. We also completed a beautiful coffee filter art project for "Earth Day."  Beginning on April 22, Madame Sarah will be taking over the majority of the teaching duties as her time with us is growing short! Thank you for your donations to Easter Seals. Our class raised $43.50 on hat and jersey day. If you would still like to donate, it is not too late. Donations can be sent in any day next week! Thank you for your support. 

April 5, 2024: This week we decorated our bulletin board with a seasonal art projects referencing April fool's day (known as "poisson d'avril in French.)  We created fish collages  and the children should be very proud of these beautiful and colourful works of art!  We are continuing with a Lucy Calkins' unit of study on personal narrative writing (les petits moments.) In math, we are working on subtraction and mental math strategies.  All of this combined with some new math and literacy centers made for a busy week!  

March 15, 2024:  We created some abstract art this week and gave it a Saint Patrick's day flavour by creating leprechaun mazes! The children seemed to really enjoy this activity! I enjoyed meeting with you this week during Parent teacher conferences. I am so pleased with all of the progress the children have made so far this year! Please keep reading at home, as it makes such a difference!

March 1, 2024:  The highlight of this week was the 100th day of school which was celebrated on Tuesday! We marked this special day with some fun activities and some "100-themed" play-based learning centers. We are wrapping up our unit on healthy eating and Canada's Food guide and will soon begin doing some "personal narrative" writing. In math, we are working on addition to 12 and will be moving on to subtraction within 12 soon. We also celebrated "Pink Shirt Day" this week and enjoyed a "cultural diversity" assembly in the gym! 

February 16, 2024: We had a busy week! We had wrapped up our work on "la description" last week, but didn't have a chance to share with our friends in the other Grade 1 class until recently. It was fun to share writing with friends! We are now discussing healthy eating and Canada's food guide before beginning our next writing unit. We enjoyed celebrating Valentine's Day and Winter Wellness Day are enjoying getting to know "Madame Sarah," our pre-service teacher from UPEI. 

February  2, 2024:  We continue to work with addition doubles this week and have learned some new games to practice these. We have wrapped up our unit on descriptive writing and will soon share our books with the 1B class. We discussed Groundhog  Day (Jour de la Marmotte) and are excited that Shubenacadie Sam has predicted an early spring. We will see if her prediction is correct in the upcoming weeks.  We are encouraging everyone to speak French in class and many are really making a good effort in this area! Bravo!

January 19 2024:  This week we continued with the writing genre that we began prior to Christmas: "la description/descriptive writing." We had fun with a directed drawing lesson of a cute penguin and then described it using the descriptive writing structure. I will share the completed projects with you next week as the writing part is still in progress.  We will continue with this genre for the remainder of January with the goal of being authors and creating our own books! We decorated our classroom with some wintery mittens and hats. We  have begun exploring a new math unit on addition and subtraction to/and within 12. We will be practicing lots of strategies for adding and subtracting. 

December 22, 2023: We celebrated the last week of school before the holidays with some special theme days and a school skate on Friday. Joyeuses Fêtes!

December 15, 2023: Lots of photos to see this week! Our highlight was definitely the holiday concert on Wednesday! It was certainly exciting and I am very proud of all of the children and of their excellent performance! We are busy at school doing some Christmas writing and working with numbers up to 100 in French. We finished the week with a visit to Stonepark to watch some French Christmas plays. Thank you to Mme Carver and her Grade 8 students for inviting us! We look forward to next week and the special "school spirit" days. We will be skating on Friday! It is sure to be a fun and exciting week at school! 

December 1, 2023: This week we turned the calendar page to December! With that, we are learning about the vocabulary associated with the celebration of Christmas.  We have begun a unit on descriptive writing, and  completed a "directed drawing" of a reindeer. The students followed the French directions very well and are proud of their final product. Students will describe this reindeer in written form next week. In math we continue to group objects to count by 2, 5 and 10. We decked our halls with some holiday art and are practicing for our concert, which will take place on Dec 13. We are really looking forward to it! 

November 17, 2023:  This was a very short week due to Remembrance Day and the Teacher's Convention.  We enjoyed learning about families this week.  Each child is writing a book about their individual family. It is amazing to see how far they have come  with their writing since September! In math, we are focusing on skip counting by 2,5,10 and on counting groups of objects in different ways.  We have have been noticing various patterns in the number chart (up to 50.)  It is getting chilly outside. Don't forget to send a warm jacket, mittens and a hat.  If your child has difficulty fastening their jacket independently, please do some practice at home. It will make things much faster at recess and dismissal.  I really  look forward to meeting with you next week for parent-teacher conferences.  This week was short, so all of the photos are of math centres! I'll have more variety next week. 

November 3, 2023: We had a busy week with Halloween, a pajama day and our field trip to Victoria Park!