Week of May 10-14 From the Classroom First, my apologies that there was no classroom blog update posted last week. Unfortunately, the post did not update properly and I only just noticed the issue. Thank you for your understanding! Over the past two weeks, students have continued building important literacy, numeracy, inquiry, and wellness skills through a variety of engaging learning experiences connected to the Alberta curriculum. In literacy, students continued reviewing heart words , letter teams, and spelling patterns while applying this understanding during both reading and writing activities. Our focus has been on strengthening decoding skills, recognizing familiar word patterns, and using sounding-out strategies when reading unfamiliar words. Students have also been encouraged to apply these strategies independently during daily reading and writing tasks to build confidence and fluency. In math, students have been working on fact families to deepen their understanding of ...
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Week of April 27-May 1 Information From the Classroom This week in Grade 1, students continued building their literacy skills through ongoing work with letter teams and heart word review . As students become more confident recognizing spelling patterns and high-frequency words, they are beginning to apply this understanding more independently during both reading and writing activities. Throughout the week, students participated in independent reading, choral reading, and collaborative shared reading activities with classmates. It has been wonderful to see students growing not only in their reading confidence, but also in their ability to work together and support one another as readers. We also connected our literacy learning to science in a very meaningful way! Over the course of the week, students carefully observed the prairie dogs outside our classroom window and recorded their observations in the form of “field notes.” Students practiced looking closely, noticing details, an...
Week of April 20th-23rd From the Classroom Literacy In literacy, we introduced our final set of heart words for the school year (please refer to the previously posted chart for the full list). From now until June, we will focus on reviewing and strengthening all of the heart words we have learned, helping students build confidence and automaticity in their reading and writing. We also explored new letter teams : edg , tion , and tch . Students practiced recognizing these patterns in words and began applying them in their own writing. Using story mats and roll-a-story activities , students engaged in independent writing , stretching their ideas and building simple narratives. We also revisited nouns and verbs , helping students better understand how words work together to create meaning. Reading continues to be a strong focus in our classroom. This week, students participated in: Shared reading activities to build comprehension and fluency Choral reading to devel...
Week of April 13th-17th From the Classroom In literacy , we continued building our reading and writing skills by working on heart words and exploring letter teams kn, wr, and ear . Students practiced applying these patterns during our daily literacy instruction, where they participated in independent story writing and strengthened their reading comprehension skills. In math , we explored problem-solving through engaging Esti-Mysteries (from Steve Wyborney’s website), where students practiced making reasonable estimates and explaining their thinking. We also continued working with part-part-whole relationships to support our understanding of addition and subtraction . In social studies , we began exploring the concept of the past and how things change over time. We looked at photos of common objects and discussed how they have changed across the years. We also examined photographs of people, noticing differences in appearance as well as how photographs themselves have ...
Week of April 6-10 *My apologies for the lateness of this post -I have been unable to access the site until this morning due to technical issues. Thanks! From the Classroom Literacy Letter teams this week included r blends (br/cr/dr/fr/gr/tr) Heart words for the week included column H words from the chart posted in the Feb. 23 blog. During daily phonics instruction, students continued to review all letter teams and heart words introduced to date and apply that understanding during reading comprehension tasks and independent writing work. We continued to discuss what makes a word a noun or a verb and reviewed the "mechanics" of writing -particularly in writing the daily messages in communication books (upper case letters as needed, lower case letters as required, proper spaceing and punctuation as well as attention to neatness and letter formation). Math Continued work on writing subtraction sentences and solving subtraction questions was a primary focus this week...
Week of March 30th-April 2nd From the Classroom This week was full of meaningful learning across all subject areas, with students continuing to build both skills and confidence in their work. Literacy In our word work, we focused on letter teams -wor, -ed, and -ing , helping students recognize common patterns in words. We also worked with Column F of our heart word chart , continuing to build our bank of high-frequency words. Once all of the words in the chart have been introduced, we will begin revisiting the more challenging words regularly for ongoing review and consolidation. Students also continued to grow as writers! We have continued working on three-sentence stories , and used a variety of “roll-a-story” mats to support idea generation and structure. A story mat from this week has been included below for optional at home practice. It has been wonderful to see students becoming more confident in expressing their ideas in writing. Math Using the story Elevator Magic...
Week of March 16-20th From the Classroom This week, our learning was full of creativity, connection, and hands-on exploration across subject areas. In Literacy , students continued building their reading and writing skills through heart word practice, focusing on Column E from our classroom chart. We also explored L-blends (pl, bl, sl, fl, gl, cl), practicing how these blends help us read and write new words. Students began early story writing , sharing their ideas through simple sentences and illustrations as they grow in confidence as young authors. In Math , we used the story The Napping House as an engaging focus text. Students created glyphs to represent the people (and pets!) in their own “napping house,” using symbols to organize information. We then explored repeated addition by asking: How many feet live in YOUR napping house? This activity also connected to Social Studies , as students discussed family members, roles, and responsibilities within a household. In Scie...