March 23 TWAS

Although this was a short week for the students, they packed in a lot of learning.

In LA, group A continued to work on story writing.  Most of the rough drafts are complete and final copies are being composed in Google Docs.  During Daily 5 work on writing the students are continuing to investigate and share what they learn in wonderful Google slide creations.

Group B focused on continuing their work on their 3 character story (dragon included) by planning out the different aspects of a story first, using a storyboard template to plan the basic outline.  Using this, they then wrote a rough draft of their story in their story writing books.  Some of the students then moved on to begin typing their story in Google Docs.

In music, the students are exploring different aspects of the musical, “Peter and the Wolf”.  Ask you child what the story is all about and what instruments are connected to each character in the story.  They also had a blast during gym, strengthening their soccer skills by playing ring soccer in pairs, then in groups of 4.  During afternoon recess outdoors they learned a “Circle of Courage” game similar to “Capture the Flag” with rings and cones.  Ask your child how this game is connected to the “Circle of Courage”.

The focus in math this week for Group A was mental math strategies.  We are continuing to work with our anchor numbers (5’s and 10’s) and using other strategies such as doubles and doubles plus one to work through equations.  In math stations we challenged each other in addition games, completed math art projects, worked through math problems and played with 2D and 3D shapes in Mathletics.

Group B began learning about time this week.  They made their own paper plate clock with movable hands to play games and practice their new skills.  They loved playing a racing game (girls against the boys) to be the first to display a specific time on their clock that I called out and wrote on the board.  We will continue with this after the spring break, learning about am/pm, the 24-hour clock and other time concepts.  The students in B also learned a new addition game with dice called, “Barn or House”.

The students began a new unit in science, “Hot and Cold”.  They began by learning a bit about the topic and doing a choral read of the learner outcomes.  Then they sorted pictures of hot and cold things into one of three categories, which included a “can be both hot and cold” column.  They also added their own ideas to their lists.  The also began to write about what they think they already know about hot and cold and what they would like to know, on a KWL chart.  At the end of the unit the students will write about what they learned.  After the March break, the students will continue investigating hot and cold further. 

In social studies the students continued working on their Inuit PowerPoint presentations in order to prepare them for the student-led conferences.

Have a wonderful spring break!

Mrs. McArthur & Ms. Klein

Healthy Snacks

Cranston strives to promote healthy eating.  We have noticed lately that some of the snacks that the children are bringing to school are not providing adequate nutrition to support their brain growth and development.  Please send your child with fruit, vegetables, yogurt or cheese and crackers.  If they bring a snack high in sugar, they will be asked to put it back in their backpacks.

Thank you,

Mrs. McArthur & Ms. Klein

Weekly Spelling Words March 20-23

Grade 1

which
she
do
how
sock
rock
block
clock


Grade 2

well
large
cook
sent
even
grew
stew
drew
chew
few
brew
event
unit
metric
colour
shape

spelling words for Monday March 20

Spelling words for the week of March 13-17 (quiz on Monday the 20th)

Spelling grade 1

there

use

an

each

job

mob

cob

rob

Spelling grade Grade 2

wear

put

end

does

another

head

bread

dead

sweat

deaf

spread

deal

room

break

weather

soil

TWAS

Hello All,

Phew what a fun week!  It was whirlwind busy and we're all exhausted, but so much fun learning. I'll let the students fill you in; this is what they came up with to share in our weekly TWAS brainstorm this morning:

TWAS

SCIENCE: We filled the kiddie pools with water and floated our recycled material boats and propeller boats (prediction videos are loaded up onto IRIS). We made sailboat art and within it wrote our descriptions of buoyancy.

SOCIAL STUDIES: We rotated through four stations that looked at agriculture, as a resource, in and around Saskatoon. The first station focused on the wool that we get from sheep, and after brainstorming a few facts we learned to weave.  Another station centered around the design/infrastructure of farms and we created model farms out of lego, wooden popsicle sticks, 3D shapes and math manipulative blocks. At the food station we tasted an assortment of foods that come from Saskatchewan farms (wheat crackers, mustard, chick peas, goat and cow cheese, peas, corn and corn chips, bread). At the honeybee station we learned bee facts and created bumble bee puppet shows. Thank you so so so much volunteers who made this fun lesson possible :)

MATH: 51B learned a 10-frame card game (it was lots of fun), shaker math, math toss, egg carton 10-frame math.

51A worked on “big number” math equations using 10s and 1’s to equate fast sums using mental math.  We also rotated through math stations  (math games, math problems and work with teacher). 

As an entire class we worked through some multiplication and division math problems.

Language Arts:  We worked on story writing, using Google slides and Google docs to write out our stories.  We continued to work on passion projects in the work on writing station of Daily 5.  We’re enjoying hearing all about Wilbur his “blood thirsty new friend” Charlotte and that troublesome rat Templeton in Charlotte’s Web.  We also spent some time studying what exactly a sentence is:  "it begins with a capital ends with punctuation, has an action word a subject and conveys a complete thought that makes sense.”

Music: We watched Peter and the Wolf and completed some reflective writing.

Gym:  (Ms. Quilley was at the pool with other classes this week).  We played gassers, planes and taggers, egg/chicken/alligator/giant/ king; silent find; number pair and make ten; a pirate games called “ship shore”; basketball hockey; hula hoop and skipping; over/under/bounce.

Parents please remember to book for student led conferences next week, either Wednesday night or Thursday morning (feel free to contact us if those times don't work and we'll sort out another time).

I also want to send out a special thank you to Mrs. Luca for joining us so seamlessly over the last few weeks and all of the wonderful ideas and care that she brought into the class.  This also means that we can look forward to Ms. Klein joining us again on Monday!

Thank you for all that you do so support your child's learning; have a fantastic weekend and we'll look forward to seeing you next week,

Mrs. McArthur, Mrs. Luca and Ms. Klein

TWAS March 10th

Hello Everyone,

Happy Friday — it sounds like a lot of you are going to be very busy with ringette and hockey tournaments this weekend.  Good luck to all of our little athletes. Have fun and load up some pictures into your google drives for sharing :)

Our Friday TWAS brainstorm produced the following:

Math:  51 B went on 2d and 3D shape hunts through the school this week while 51 A worked on drawing 2D/3D shapes.  Both classes continued to study and label the attributes of geometric shapes. We also worked on our mental math skills and number sense with a variety of math games (math toss/barn dice/shakers).

Language Arts: In language arts this week 51B developed some really cool story characters, adding lots of juicy characteristics and story problems their storyboards (dragons/frogs/bumble bees). 51A continued to work on story writing and many of us are now typing up good copies in Google Docs.  We also worked on literacy in our Daily 5 stations each day and many of the students were very excited to have jumped up in their ready levels this week!!!

Science: We built boats out of recycled materials, and wow are there ever some creative masterpieces!! We really hope that it will be warm enough to float next week. We also created propeller boats (which we are also hoping to float next week) and had a buoyancy review with Bill Nye the science guy. 

Socials:  In social studies our work continues on Google slides, creating beautiful presentations about Inuit culture and traditions.  It is so much fun, and everyone is working so hard on these presentations. We also celebrated International Women's Day this week. The children wrote about the women in their lives and it was very moving to hear all of the beautiful tributes to moms, sisters, aunties, grandmas and many many other people that these children appreciate and adore.   

Art:   This week's art creation was a beautiful sailboat northern light/sunrise/sunset paper creation. They really are spectacular (we're getting really excited for student led conferences so that we can show off our cool creations). The children are also working to create art submissions for this year's yearbook. 

Physical Education: We combined skills that we have been learning in a number of centers (basketball/mountain climbing/climbing wall/throwing/skipping)

Extras:  Some of us started Animation club and others of us are making a variety of different things in sewing club.  

Thanks for reading about our week.  We have another busy week coming up and if anyone is free we could use some extra hands for social studies inquiry work Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon.  If you think that you might be available/interested please send me an email (kkmcarthur@cbe.ab.ca) and I will supply you with more details. 

Finally, scheduling for student led conferences is up and running (Mrs. Klein is doing well and is scheduled to be back with us on the 20th).  If you have any issues booking then please give the office a call on Monday and they will walk you through it. 

Have a wonderful weekend,

Mrs. McArthur and Mrs. Luca

51B Mrs. Luca contact info

Hello All,

Mrs. Luca wanted to be sure that you all have her email;  she's happy to answer any questions and as always our door is open.

niluca@cbe.ab.ca

Have a safe and warm week,

Mrs. Luca and Mrs. McArthur

Spelling Words March 6 - 10

This week's spelling list:

Grade 1

when

your

pop

said

mop

top

hop

drop

Grade 2

also

beat

seat

three

small

mean

clean

peak

dream

beach

team

length

weight

height

meat

distance

TWAS March 3

Hello Families and Friends of 51,

We hope you all have had a great week: March is here, hopefully some spring weather will be arriving soon too :)

The students composed TWAS this week with Mrs. Luca and this is what they put together:
At swimming we learned new skills like jumping off the diving board, swimming with flippers, synchronized swimming, hand stands in the water, doing star fishes in the water, swimming in the deep water. We have learned how to be safe in the water. We know that when you jump into the water, safety is always behind you. We took the bus to the swimming pool and we played games on the bus. In gym we played basketball, tag games, volleyball. In math we learned about 2-d and 3-d shapes. In writing we made a puzzle with the story`s elements. These are characters, plot, problem, solution and setting. In science we are building boats that have to float. In Social Studies we are working on a powerpoint with a partner, about Inuit culture. In music we are learning songs about Earth.

Thank you so very very much volunteers for giving up so much of your time to help out at swimming, we really couldn't have done it without you! Thank you also to parent council for the popcorn treat today; it was THOROUGHLY enjoyed!

We are extremely proud of all of the hard work the children have done this week, and how resilient they have been throughout both of the swimming schedules.  A group of Mount Royal University students were in observing today and they came bounding up to me at the end of their visit asking "what do you do to make these children be so well behaved?"  They didn't believe me that we threatened them with dragons . . . so in the end I had to admit that I couldn't take credit for any of it, they're just an amazing group of wonderful, hard working students and we're incredibly lucky to get to spend our days working with them — thanks for sharing your beautiful little people with us :)

Have a fantastic weekend all,

Mrs. McArthur and Mrs. Luca