October 14 - 18

Learning Updates:

• In math, we have been investigating what pairs make ten, We have found that there are 6 pairs that make ten. Ask your child to share the pairs that they found. For an extra challenge, ask them what the pattern is to find all 6 pairs. 

• In our Visual Journal, we completed our Thanksgiving Turkey. Ask your child to share what they are thankful for. 

• In reading, we have been working on recognizing the following sight words in print: 

• a 
• after 
• about 
• am 
• all 
• Ask your child to find these words in the books you are reading together. 
• In writing, we have been working on using number words to make our sentences more descriptive. 

Classroom Updates: 

• We will be completing a pumpkin exploration over the next two weeks. If you are able, please send in a pumpkin for the class to explore. If pumpkin donations could be brought in by Tuesday, October 23rd, that would be greatly appreciated! 
• A We Scare Hunger Update: Thank you so much for the generous donations! We are almost at our new goal of 200 items of food! Amazing! 

• Home reading went home today! Here is a little more information about sight words: 

As part of the Home Reading program, students need to practice sight words along with the leveled books. The sight word lists can be found on the parent resource section of the blog.

As you practice nightly reading, please choose a few words to focus on each week with your child.  Students can find the words in their books, as they are reading and/or practice spelling them in the air or on the table with imaginary pencils. Also, you can build sight words with playdough, pipe cleaners and small materials like buttons.  Websites like www.starfall.com and www.abcya.com can help too. Frequent exposure to these words will help to increase their reading fluency. 

Please find the sight words here and here.

October 7-11

Learning Updates

-This week we looked at the holiday/celebration of Thanksgiving and discussed what we are thankful for in our lives.  We brainstormed ideas and will be finishing our thankful hand/turkey on Tuesday.

-Also this week we went back to the pond to observe seasonal changes since our last visit. After our visit we journaled an event map of the changes we observed.  We then learned a new art technique of watercolour pencils and were excited to fill in our drawings.

-In math we continued to discuss patterns in our world and will be filming our findings next week to a program called HP Reveal.  We look forward to sharing this with you at conferences. We worked on the game "Splat" using up to 10 blocks. It is a mental math game that requires visualization of what is 'covered'.  Here is the website where you can find Splat slides if you are interested: www.stevewyborney.com. You can use your own objects such as rocks, bingo chips or beads to practice Splat at home.

-This past week we welcomed the CBE superintendent Chris Usih and Area Director Mike Nelson to our school and classroom. They observed our classroom wishes we made after we read the story The Wish Tree  by Kyo Maclear.  They are now hung in our classroom and we will see if they come true!


Upcoming Events

-Thank-you for your donations for We Scare Hunger! We have passed our goal of 100 items! The campaign is still on until Oct 31 and we are still accepting donations to reach our new goal of 200 items.

-We are looking for police cleared volunteers to help with taping our picture collages to our visual journals.  If you are able to volunteer please email us with availability.


Have a wonderful long weekend and we will see everyone on Tuesday, October 15.

September 30 - October 4

Student Learning:

In math, we have explored our classroom and the Learning Commons for patterns. We talked about to record what we found by taking a photo using an iPad. Here are some examples of student work:

Next week, we will work on describing the patterns using mathematical vocabulary such as core and term.

We have also been writing and journalling about seasonal changes in the fall. We also took part in chalk talk to think about the food, holidays, clothing and changes in plants and animals that take place during this time.

Updates:

• We did not get to the pond on Friday, so we will be heading there on Monday, October 7 in the afternoon. 
• Book orders are due on October 10th. 
• We have started the "We Scare Hunger" campaign to collect food donations for the Calgary food bank. Our classroom goal is 100 items of food and we have gotten an excellent start! Thank you for your donations. 

Auburn Bay School is partnering with the Calgary Food Bank once again this October to help fight hunger in our community.

We Scare Hunger is made possible with the support of Help Hunger Disappear®, Campbell Canada’s national hunger awareness and food drive program. Since 2008, Help Hunger Disappear® reminds us that we can all play a part in helping the more than 900,000 Canadians who rely on their local food banks every month.

The Auburn Bay School We Scare Hunger Campaign officially begins Tuesday, October 1st and will end October 31st. We invite you to be a part of the change our students are working hard to create. Students have been asked to bring in food bank items throughout the next month. Last year we brought in 1720 pounds of food. This year, our school goal is to collect 1800 pounds of food!

To give you an idea of how much food that is, the average family of 4 people receive an estimated 125 pounds worth of food, filling approximately 2 grocery carts per family. So, if we divvy up the 1720 pounds worth of food collected last year, this amount supported about 14 families, filling 28 grocery carts with food. (Calgary Food Bank) The Calgary Food Bank Wish List can be found here https://www.calgaryfoodbank.com/wishlist/ Please only send non-perishable donation items.

Together we can make a difference.

Thank You,

Auburn Bay School

September 23 - 27

Student Learning: 

It was a busy week of grade one! We explored seasonal changes and learned about Terry Fox. 

Our Terry Fox run took place on Wednesday. We set a goal to keep running or walking for the entire time. 

We raised $99.65 for the Terry Fox Foundation! Thank you for all of your kind donations. Today, we talked about how to figure out how much money we raised. We sorted the money into types and then counted how much we had altogether. 

Ask your child to share how we sorted the money or how we counted the money. 

This week we also looked at seasonal changes as part of the Science curriculum. Here are some of the stories we shared: 

We then used the leaves that were brought in to create an object. Ask your child to share what they created. 

Updates: 

• Book orders went home and are due on October 10th. 
• We will be going on another pond walk on Friday, October 4th. 
• With the unpredictable Alberta weather, please ensure your child is dressed to be outside. We will go out every day unless it is pouring rain or colder than - 20 degrees. 
• On Monday, September 30th, the green and blue team will take part in Orange Shirt Day. Students are invited to wear an orange shirt or another article of orange clothing. This is in recognition that we respect everyone. 

Have a lovely and restful weekend! Stay warm : )  

Sept 16-19 Update

Student Learning

-Thank-you all for attending conferences this week.  We are looking forward to working with all of you this year!
-This past week we were ARTISTS! We focused on learning the shapes of the sunflowers in a sketch, then bringing these skills to our watercolours. They are beautiful and we will be posting them on IRIS soon.
-Also we are building our independent writing skills by using sentence starters and adding our own thoughts and ideas.  This week we used: I can and I have my.
-We are continuing to use math vocabulary to describe patterns. Ask your child to share a characteristics of a pattern (it will be repeated)
-This week we learned how to access Get Epic an online library.
Here is our classroom codes to read at home

Mrs. Kenney: zzg5505
Mrs. Harrold ckb4702


Upcoming Events

-We will be going on a pond walk to observe seasonal changes on Tuesday Sept 24.  Please dress accordingly. We will also be collecting leaves to build a leaf creature.
-To help with building a leaf creature, please bring in extra leaves for Wednesday Sept 25
-Picture Day Thursday Sept 26
-Please bring your pictures for SS (things that they enjoy, what is important to them) by Monday Sept 23

Please see message about Terry Fox from Mrs. Miller below

Toonies for Terry 

Auburn Bay School will be participating in the Terry Fox Run on Wednesday, September 25th. As we lead up to our run, classes will be working towards increasing their stamina in Phys. Ed while fundraising money for cancer research. Please bring in Toonies for Terry to your classroom teacher as we spread cancer awareness.

On the day of the run, it is important that students wear appropriate outside shoes for walking/running along with dressing appropriately for the weather that day. Parents are welcome to join us for this event out on the soccer field at 1:45 PM on Wednesday, September 25th. The Terry Fox Run will last approximately 15 minutes and students will line up with their homeroom teacher to go back inside for the remainder of the afternoon when we have finished. We kindly ask parents to wait outside while this is happening and to pick up your child from their normal dismissal spot.

Our First Full Week of Grade One is Complete

Student Learning: 

• In math, we have started our work on sorting and patterns. Ask your child to share their understanding of the math words: attribute and core. 
• Dot Day was a success! Stand by as the grade ones work together to create a Kandinsky inspired tree out of the dots that were created on Friday. 

Classroom Updates: 

• We will be working on a special cover for our Visual Sketch Journal. For this cover, we are asking for families to send in 7 - 8 photos of your child, their family and photos of any items that are special to them. This may be photographs or they can be pictures printed from the internet that show these special items. If you are unable to print the pictures, you may email your child's teacher and we can print them for you. These photos will be used in their visual journal and will be connected to the Social Studies curriculum. Please send photos in a small plastic bag labelled with your child's name by Monday, September 16th.
• Thank you to everyone who has sent in the beginning of the year forms. If you have not yet, please send them back to school as soon as possible. 
• Conferences will be on Thursday, September 19th and Friday, September 20th. Conference booking opens on Sunday and may be done through your Power School account. 
• Due to conferences, students will be dismissed on Thursday, September 19th at 12:00pm and there is not school on Friday, September 20th. 

Have a wonderful, restful weekend!

Our first week of grade one is complete! A few notes for the upcoming weeks:

• We will be creating our classroom alphabet out of loose parts. If there are any small bits around your home that you would be willing to donate to the classroom, please send them in a small plastic bag by Friday, September 13th. Loose parts could include paper clips, nuts, bolts, beads, pebbles, string, etc. Please know these parts will be shared with the class and we will have extras for all students to use. 
• We will be working on a special cover for our Visual Sketch Journal. For this cover, we are asking for families to send in 7 - 8 photos of your child, their family and photos of any items that are special to them. These photos will be used in their visual journal and will be connected to the Social Studies curriculum. Please send photos in a small plastic bag labelled with your child's name by Monday, September 16th.

Thank you for a fantastic first week and have a great weekend!