Friday, December 22nd

Hello Families!

We had an amazing last week before winter break. We had so much fun carolling in the gym with the whole school! 

Thank you so much for your generosity this holiday season. We really appreciate it! We wish you a happy holiday season and a Happy New Year!

Important Dates:

Friday, Dec. 22 - Last Day of Classes
Dec. 5 - Jan. 5 - Winter Break
Monday, Jan. 8 - Classes resume

Monday, Jan. 15 - Non - Instructional Day - No School

Our learning:

Literacy:

• In writing, we continued to talk about event stories and we came up with some great ideas. We also wrote about our favourite activities to do in winter.   
• We also has the opportunity to share our writing with our classmates during "Author's Chair". We continued to learn how to give feedback to each other and gave some great feedback on how we can improve our writing.

Math:

• In grade one, we continued to learn about 2D shapes and learned about how we can sort them by using a sorting rule. We came up with some great examples of sorting rules.  
• The grade ones also learned a new game called "Snap!", this game helps with comparing numbers. Ask your child to teach you how to play!
• In grade two, we learned about increasing patterns and practiced estimation. See some of our increasing patterns below!

Inquiry:

• We learned about different plants that are found in the prairies and did a guided drawing of an Aster flower.
• We have begun learning about prairie communities.  Ask your child the typical landscape of the prairies and what animals they might see. 
• We continued to discuss the importance of bison in the prairies. 
• We also created a winter scene for art.

Thanks for reading!

Friday, December 15th

Hello Families!

One more week before winter break!  The excitement is in the air.  Thank you to all the families who were able to donate to our Families Helping Families outreach.  We have such a generous community. 

Important Dates:

Friday, Dec. 22 - Last Day of Classes
Dec. 5 - Jan. 5 - Winter Break
Monday, Jan. 8 - Classes resume

Monday, Jan. 15 - Non - Instructional Day - No School

Last Two Week Spirit Days:

Monday Dec. 18 – Do You Wanna Build a Snowman (dress like a snowman or in silvery/blue colours)
Tuesday Dec. 19 - Mad about Plaid
Wednesday Dec. 20 - Tree Topper Day (festive hair or hats)
Thursday Dec. 21 - Wear your favourite pjs
Friday Dec. 22 - Dress like your favourite holiday character

Our learning:

Literacy:

• We have begun our targeted literacy groups this week.  Ask your child what they have been focusing on.  Some examples include CVC words, digraphs, consonant blends, vowel teams, comprehension strategies.
• In writing, we have moved from walking stories and started learning about event stories.  Ask your child what is included and not included in an event story. 
• We built our understanding by listening to the stories Jabari Jumps and Perfect Snow, where we worked as a class to retell the beginning, middle and ending of each story.
• Then we had the opportunity to map out our own event story. We will continue working on writing own next week. 

Math:

• In grade one, we started learning about 2D shapes and had the opportunity to do a scavenger hunt to find different shapes around our school. 
• We also began talking about the word symmetry.  Ask you child what this term means. 
• In grade two, we demonstrated our understanding of counting and representing numbers to 1000.  
• We strengthened our understanding of money and ability to count money using our knowledge of skip counting. 
• We also represented different amounts using a variety of coins and bills.  Ask your child if they can recall the names and amounts of each coin.  

Inquiry:

• As we had finished our building projects, each student had an opportunity to present their projects to the whole class or one on one to a teacher.  They explained the purpose of their project and the reasons why they used different materials.
• We have begun learning about prairie communities.  Ask your child the typical landscape of the prairies and what animals they might see. 
• We discussed the importance of  bison in the prairies and we followed a guided drawing to draw a bison.  
• We also created art work inspired by Van Gogh's Wheatfield and Crows. 
• Today, we worked with our grade 3/4 buddies to use the Indi Robots.  Ask your child how they were able to make their robot move.  

Thanks for reading!

Friday, December 8th

Hello Families!

We had wonderful first week of December and were able to get a ton accomplished.  We are also very excited to have some now.  Happy Hanukkah to all those who celebrate!

Important Dates:

Friday, Dec. 8 - Non-Instructional Day - No School

Friday, Dec. 22 - Last Day of Classes
Dec. 5 - Jan. 5 - Winter Break
Monday, Jan. 8 - Classes resume

Last Two Week Spirit Days:

Friday Dec.15 - National Ugly Festive Sweater Day – Wear your favourite festive sweater/shirt

Monday Dec.18 – Do You Wanna Build a Snowman (dress like a snowman or in silvery/blue colours)

Tuesday Dec.19 - Mad about Plaid

Wednesday Dec.20 - Tree Topper Day (festive hair or hats) 

Thursday Dec.21 - Wear your favourite pjs

Friday Dec.22 - Dress like your favourite holiday character

Important Information:

Thank you to everyone who has donated or planning to donate gifts to our Families Helping Families class family.  Just a reminder that the deadline is next Friday, December 15th.  Here is the link to our Google spreadsheet. 

Ms. Lloyd and Ms. Day's Class

Inquiry Projects

We have finished building our project for inquiry and will be presenting our projects next week.  On that note, your child will be bringing home their creation next week, so it might be a good idea to bring an extra bag they can use to carry it.  

Our Learnng:

Literacy:

• We continued strengthening our word work stills by sorting words and pictures using the long and short vowel sounds to the e and o.
• We also made words out of two more mystery words.  Ask your child how many words they were able to make and they can practice this at home.  The mystery words were print and holidays. 
• They have built their heart words toolbox with more words this week.  Ask you child about the new heart words.  We also call these words no excuse words in our writing as we should be spelling them correctly.  
• In writing, we used what we know about adding sensory words to write about our favourite season or food.  Those who wanted to also participated in author's chair, where they received constructive feedback from their peers. 
• We are going to start our targeted literacy groups again next week, where we will be focusing on their phonic skills. 

Math:

• In grade one, we are deepening our understanding of representing numbers in different ways and continued to practice skip counting. 
• We also started estimation.
• In grade two, we have begun discussing greater and less than and what equality means with numbers.  Ask your child about these symbols < > and =
• We were also introduced money and we are learning the values of the coins and bills.  In grade two they will be expected to determine the value of coins and bills by using their knowledge of skip counting.  Ask you child to skip count by 20s, 25s and 50s.  

Inquiry:

• We spend time in the Makerspace building our projects!  We had to create something that had a purpose and used our understanding of properties of matter to make our creations. 
• After we present them next week, we will be bringing them home!
• As the holiday season is here, we will be learning about different celebrations and traditions of people from all over the world.  
• Today we discussed Hanukkah as today it begins.  We also took some time to learn how to draw a Menorah and learned how it is used in Hanukkah celebrations.  Ask your child about Hanukkah. 

Thank you for reading!

Friday, December 1st

Hello Families!

It is so hard to believe that we are already in December!  The time is flying.  

Important Dates:

Friday, Dec. 8 - Non-Instructional Day - No School
Friday, Dec. 22 - Last Day of Classes
Dec. 5 - Jan. 5 - Winter Break
Monday, Jan. 8 - Classes resume

Important Information:

We are calling on your kindness and generosity to help support families in need during the holiday season.

Eric Harvie School will be supporting 5 families in Calgary this year, and each teaching team has been assigned a specific family to sponsor. We have created links for each classroom’s Google Sheet sign-up gift tracking sheet as listed below.

Please read through the list of needs and wants for your family. Some families have many kids so please make sure to scroll along the spreadsheet. If you are in a position where you can support a family and see an item you would like to contribute, that is very appreciated. We are not looking to buy every item on the list but we do want our families to get some of their needs and wants. Please ensure that the items contributed are new.

Steps:

1. Read through list for your child’s class using the links below

2. If you have bought or already have a specific item put a “Y” next to the item on the spreadsheet

3. Wrap and label your gift. Please write the first name of the person receiving the gift on the label.

4. All gifts will be due on or before Dec. 15th 2023.

Here are the links to access the Google Sheets for our classroom:

Ms. Lloyd and Ms. Day's Class

Our learning:

Literacy:

• We completed a few work word tasks by sorting words based on the vowel sounds and made words out of two mystery words (rabbits and plans).  Ask your child what the sounds of the short a and i and the long a and i.  They can also show you the different words they made  using the letters of the mystery words.  
• We also are working on heart words (words they should know by heart).  This week we looked at you and the.  
• In writing, we are continuing to make our writing more interesting and are working on adding sensory words to our personal narratives.  We brainstormed words we could use to describe the different senses to write about our favourite food and season. 

Math:

• The grade ones practiced counting on from any number between 1 and 100, as well as continuing representing numbers, which included using a number line. 
• The grade twos practiced their problem solving skills where they challenged themselves to think of two numbers and then describe the similarities or differences of those numbers. They pracitced counting backwards by 1s, 2s, and 10s with numbers up to 1000 and learned about odd/even numbers.  Ask your child how they can determine if a number is odd or even. 
• Altogher we collecting data from each other about whether they would rather be able to talk to a dog or a cat and then used that data to create a graph. 

Inquiry:

• Today we went on a beautiful Coulee walk, where we used our five sense to experience the outdoors.  We then made a visual journal page of what we felt, saw, heard, smelled, and tasted (that one had limits :)
• Throughout the week we learned about transparent and opaque objects and what those terms mean.  We then used paint to demonstrate those concepts.  
• The November Cree Moon is the Hoar Frost Moon (ihkopiwipisim) and we created art to represent hoar frost.  Pictures below. 
• Yesterday, we begun making our plan to build an object that has a purpose that includes different properties of matter that we have learned.  The students will need to explain why they used the materials they chose (ex.  I chose wood because it is sturdy, I chose playdough because it is malleable, etc. ). As an added challenge they will incorporate different nonstandard measurements in their design (ex. longer then, shorter then, more/less flat space, etc.)
• We will begin our building our creations next week, please continue to bring any recyclables or materials.   

Thank you for reading!