Happy Spring Break

I cannot believe how time flies. Spring Break is here!
Safe travels and have a fun and relaxing holiday. I will see you back on Monday, April 9th! (It will be a day 4).

P.S.: the new April specials calendar is posted. Please go to the left sidebar to view and print.

This week in literacy

Our class book of poems is HOT OFF THE PRESS! Mr. Sathish worked really hard last night and got all the books bound! Today, our students took a sneak peek at it. When we come back, all the 1st grade classes will have a little publishing party/celebration together. Our writers are really looking forward to the celebration.

As we wrapped up one unit, a new one begins. The last two days, we have been reading some nonfiction books during our Reading Workshop time. We talked about how there are different types of nonfiction. Some nonfiction books are "all about" books. Some nonfiction books are "how to"/procedural books. Some nonfiction books are biographies about a person's life. This month we will be focusing mainly on "how to/procedural" writing. Yesterday, our writers generated some ideas for their how-to books by thinking what they are good at doing. Some kids said they are good at swimming fast. Some kids said they are good at taking care of their dogs. Some kids said they are good at being quiet in class. I cannot wait to see how these how-to books are going to turn out. I am sure they will be informative and fun to read!

One cool thing that the kids got really excited about was when I read and showed them an article and a short clip about Jane Goodall. The kids quickly made the connections of the books we've read aloud in class, Me...Jane, and The Watcher, both biographical picture books about the renowned chimpanzee expert/primatologist, Jane Goodall. They were amazed by her undivided dedication and the number of years she's been committing to her research (now that she's 77 years old!).
Here's a short article and video clip about the work she's done and the new documentary/movie coming out soon.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/03/21/jane-goodall-current-interview.html

Pretty neat!

Yaseen - Star of the Week

Thank you, Yaseen, for presenting your poster this week. We really enjoyed looking at your pictures. Your summer house in Egypt looks amazing!  And your dog, Buddy, is extremely cute. We have heard so much about Buddy and we finally got to see a picture of him!

Explain Everything...

Today in I.T., our children explored a new app on iPads called Explain Everything with Mr. Hoffman. It was a cool app that allows you to save a photo (a map, a book, a diagram etc.) and crop, highlight, write or draw right on the photo, AND record your voice while you explain or give directions, read an excerpt from a book, or present a diagram. The kids tried out this app today by taking a photo of a page in a book, cropping the unneeded part, and recording their own reading. It was a good way to practice reading, explaining or presenting a project or diagram (i.e. "Star of the Week" poster. Too bad we didn't know about this earlier.) by hearing their own reading. But I am sure this app will come in handy again for future presentations. = )

Second Trimester Parent-Teacher Conferences

Thank you so much for attending to our 2nd trimester parent-teacher conference. I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me. I hope that our conference was able to provide you with some valuable insight into your child's progress in school. I really enjoyed talking with all of you, discussing your child's learning progress and social experiences at TAISM, and learning more from you about your child as you shared your insight and observations from home.

I look forward to our continued partnership throughout the remainder of the school year. = )

Magda - Star of the Week

Congratulations, Magda! You have done an amazing job with your star of the week presentation. We enjoyed reading your poster and looking at the pictures. We especially liked the way you included some information about your home country, Algeria, such as types of food, scenery, and country flag on the other side of the poster. That was really informative! Thank you for the hard work. Job well done!

How Big is a Foot?

Yesterday we read aloud a story, How Big is a Foot, by Rolf Myller. The story is about a king who wants to give his queen a new bed for her birthday. However, not one person in the kingdom knows the answer to a very important question: how big is a bed? because beds at the time had not yet been invented. The king decides to use his big feet as a unit of measurement and tells the carpenter that he should make the bed 6ft by 3 ft. However, trouble follows when the carpenter uses his small feet and the bed comes out much smaller. The king is furious and sends the carpenter to jail. Ask your child how the carpenter solves the problem.

Today in your child's folder, you will find a homework sheet along with their "paper foot". Please support your child this weekend with this little assignment. They will go around the house and measure any items of their choice (i.e. bed, TV, toy box, bookshelf etc.). First they have to make an estimation, and then do the actual measurement. Ask your child what an estimation is and what strategies they use to make a close estimation! Have fun!

The Importance of Water Cycle

This week our scientists have been learning about how the water cycle creates different types of weather and how the sun plays a significant role in the water cycle. The sun gives out heat energy that has the ability to evaporate water and its water vapor raise up in the air and forms clouds (condensation). When the clouds become too heavy because it is made up with millions and millions of water droplets, precipitation occurs and depending on the temperature, it would come down from the sky as rain, snow, sleet, or hail. This water cycle goes on and on and all living things depend on it.

We then did an experiment to learn how water changes through evaporation, condensation and precipitation. We filled 1/3 water in a glass jar, covered it tightly with a piece of saran wrap and secured it with an elastic band and left it outside on the window ledge for a day. We hypothesized what might happen to the jar, water, or saran wrap after leaving it out under the sun for a day. Here are some hypotheses:

"I think the inside of the glass jar will be wet." - Kasper
"I think there will be less water." - Mia
"I think some water will be evaporated." - Yaseen

After a day, we observed the changes that occurred to our water cycle, we made some important notes. Ask your child what was inside the jar, on the wrapper and the water level.

A friendly reminder... ASAs, half days, Report Cards, Parent-Teacher Conferences

Please note that trimester 2 ASAs (after school activities) have now finished. There will be no ASAs in the next weeks until further notice comes out. Stay tuned for new activities sign-up.

Next Sunday, March 18th is going to be a half day. Students will be dismissed at noon. Please remind your child to bring their library book that day. Ms. Catherine has kindly rearranged another time for our students to do a book swap in the morning.

Thank you to those of you who returned back your parent-teacher conference slip. If you haven't done so, or if you have a conflict, please return it as soon as possible or contact me to rearrange a time by next week. Report cards go home on Mar 24, and the conferences will be on Mar 25 (afternoon only), and Mar 26 (all-day). It will be another noon dismissal on Mar 25, and no school for kids on Mar 26. I look forward to meeting you then.

Mia, our Star of the Week

Thank you, Mia, for doing a great job presenting your poster. We were all very engaged in the pictures you posted, especially the one with you laying down with an elephant "stepping" on your back, giving you a back massage. That was really brave of you! We also loved your beautiful pet cat, Fifty. That's a really cute name. Lastly, we enjoyed some of the drawing and writing that you included in your poster. Job well done!

Our Book of Poems

As mentioned last week, our poets have been busily getting their poems revised and edited for publishing. This week, our writers have picked three poems of their choice from their collection, and continued to polish them by doing some more revising and editing work with their writing partners. Our poets were really into partner revise and edit. They were so ready to read their poems to their partners and eager to have them to help revise and edit. There were many positive and constructive feedback suggested. I was hearing things like:

"Wow I really like your poem, especially this part when you used onomatopoeia."
"I like your poem and how you got your inspiration from another poet."
"I am not sure what punctuation to use here. Can you help me?" 
"Your poem has a great beginning, but in the middle it began to sound like a story. How about you try using more action words or repeating pattern?"
"This is great. How about I help to to fix this word and spell it right?"

After many revising and editing sessions, our writers have finally begun publishing their poems today. All our poems will be published and bound in one class book (hopefully by the end of next week). Each child will be getting their own copy to keep so that they can continue to enjoy all poems written by their classmates.

Measurement

This week we have begun our new math unit on Measurement. We read aloud a couple stories related to measurement, including Inch by Inch, by Leo Lionni. We have learned that we can measure almost everything - how big or small something is, how tall or short a person is, how heavy or light an object is, or even how long or short a story or a song is. After reading Inch by Inch, we created our own inchworm, estimated and measured different objects around our classroom, such as the side of a table, the height of an easel, the length of a rug, and the depth of a bookcase. Many of us made really close estimations! We learned that measurements can be in non-standard, and standard format. Our inchworm is definitely a non-standard measurement! We had fun using our decorated inchworm in our first measuring activity.

Nila - Our Star of the Week

Congratulations, Nila! You did a wonderful job sharing your poster this week. Your poster had so many beautiful pictures of you and your loving family and we were all very impressed. We loved the organization of your poster - using small family pictures to create a border, and bigger pictures in the middle. We were all surprised that you have an older brother who is in college! We all thought you are the only child in the family. Thank you for sharing with us this week. Next week, we have Mia! = )

This Week in Reading and Writing

Our readers and writers have been working hard on their poetry unit the last couple of weeks. This week, we continued reading a wide range of poems and noting what poets do to make their writing more interesting and fun to read. As we read, we pay attention to the "cool things" that poets do in their poems and how these strategies (i.e. figure of speech, use of line breaks, onomatopoeia) help elicit their readers' reactions and feelings. For example, when poets use personification to compare and describe a non-living object, we as readers have to use our imagination and create movies in our minds. Another example that we found is that when poets use onomatopoeia (sounds) in their poems, we as readers feel that we are "in the moment" with the poet, and it makes the poem more lively.

As we are getting ready to revise and edit our own poems for publishing, our writers have been using these smart and cool strategies that we noticed in the poems we studied into their own writing. Many of them are refining their written poems, rereading them, and trying out different strategies. Some writers tried adding more actions to create a dynamic moment, and some tried using line breaks to slow things down or emphasize a certain feeling.

We also just finished reading aloud, Love That Dog, by Sharon Creech. It is a book of poems written by this character, Jack, timid boy who thinks poetry is only for girls and is always shy about sharing his poems. Gradually, as time passes, Jack gets more comfortable writing poems and begins to write poems about his dog, Sky. From Jack's poems, we understood that many poets- both kids or grown-ups get inspiration from others. Jack is particularly inspired by Walter Dean Myers. Jack's favorite poem written by Mr. Myers is Love that Boy, which later, inspires him to write a poem called Love that Dog, in memory of his beloved dog, Sky.  

Love that Dog 
By Jack 
(Inspired by Mr. Walter Dean Myers) 

Love that dog 
like a bird loves to fly 
I said I love that dog 
like a bird loves to fly 
Love to call him in the morning 
love to call him 
"Hey there, Sky!" 


We had fun reading aloud this poem together. Ask your child this weekend about the character, Jack, and what his poems are about.

This week in Math

As we wrapped up our 2D and 3D shapes unit last week, we are now moving on to a mini unit, Fractions. We read aloud a story, Give Me Half, by Stuart J. Murphy, and discussed what it means to distribute an equal share among a given number of people. We came up with a definition that a fraction is a part/share that is divided up equally from a whole.

We also explored fraction strips - experimenting different ways that a whole can be distributed equally- half, thirds, and quarters. We learned that a half can be written as 1/2; a third can be written as 1/3; and one fourth or one quarter can be written as 1/4. Our mathematicians came up with the following findings: 

"Two quarters equal to one half." 

"Two halves equal to one whole." 

"I'd rather have one half a a chocolate bar then one third." 

"Three quarters is bigger than one half." 

We are going to continue exploring fractions this coming week. At home this week, ask your child about fractions as you are preparing food, for example: sharing a cake, cutting a pizza into pieces, or dividing objects in groups, such as markers, or blocks.