Happy Holidays & Merry Christmas :)

I would like to wish all of the children in Room 1 Happy Holidays 💕 

Thank you so much for all of your hard work this term. I hope you have a wonderful winter break and I look forward to seeing you on Tuesday, January 7th.

Sincerely,

Ms. Defoe 💜💜

Report Cards :)

Dear Parents,

Please be reminded report cards are going home tomorrow!

As we are trying to promote recycling and repurposing paper in order to help save the trees, it would be GREATLY appreciated if you would return the report card envelopes to school on Thursday 😁😁 Then they can be used again in June.

Thank you so much for your support 💕💕

I would like to send another special thank you out to all of the children who brought packaged items to school today!!!!

Sincerely,
Ms. Defoe 💖💖💖

P.S. - Thursday is the last day of school for the students 🎍🎍🎍

Curriculum Newsletter (Sept. - Dec. 2019)

Curriculum News - Grade ½

December 2019

  

Dear Parents and/or Guardians,

This is a brief outline of what the Grade ½ classrooms have been working on throughout the duration of this reporting period. As each teacher’s schedule varies depending upon when she has Music and/or Physical Education, subjects including: Math, Science and Social Studies take place at different times throughout the day. 

It is also important to remember that Science and Social Studies are often integrated with Language Arts.

Language Arts

We usually begin each morning with a variety of Balanced Literacy types of learning tasks including: guided reading, guided writing, shared reading, shared writing, calendar tasks, teacher read alouds, an assortment of word work activities as well as independent journal writing. Teachers have many personal favourites when it comes to what books they like to read to the students but, we select and share texts pertaining to topics which are currently being studied. We also read a high number of books about mental wellness, self-esteem, bullying, getting along with others and friendship skills. 

Math        

The primary focus for the students has been learning all about creating, extending and translating repeating patterns. The Grade 2 children have also been introduced to growing or increasing patterns.

The Grade 1 students have been working on developing Number Sense by enhancing their ability to subitize arrangements of dots from 0 to 10, counting by 1s up to 100, skip counting by 2s, 5s and 10s up to 100, representing numbers from 0 to 20 in a variety of ways as well as working on mental recall of the basic addition/subtraction facts up 20.

The Grade 2 children have been introduced to the strand of Statistics and Probability. They have engaged in a variety of graphing tasks which include: conducting surveys, collecting data in the form of tally marks and interpreting the data in the form of bar graphs and pictographs. The students have also been developing Number Sense by participating in a wide assortment of learning tasks revolving around the use of dice games (i.e. Hit 100, Hit 0), Power of Ten cards and problem-solving types of activities.  

Science

Creating Colour and Seasonal Changes are the two units of study which have been presented this term. 

Throughout the Creating Colour unit, students have engaged in learning tasks pertaining to primary colours, secondary colours, tints, shades, value and tones. They have conducted various experiments relating to colour (i.e. chromatography where they learned the colour black is actually made up of all of the other colours).

Throughout our study of Seasonal Changes, the students had an opportunity to go on a Community Walk to Confederation Park to explore the changes in nature as we transitioned from summer to fall (ie. colour changes, leaves falling). We also went to the Leighton Art Centre where we had the opportunity to discuss animal patterns as they get ready for winter. We read many stories about fall, collected natural found objects and created nature collages. 

        

Social Studies

                         

In Social Studies, we have begun the unit of study entitled, “My Family, My History and My Community.” Students have been discussing or bringing in items from home to share their family’s heritage, traditions, and celebrations with their peers. We have talked about all of the different languages students speak at home and have engaged in whole group discussions about how every family is special with their own unique culture.

Physical Education

The students have been developing their basic skills (ie. locomotor, non-locomotor) in the areas of Cooperative Games, Skipping, Soccer, Volleyball, Badminton and Curling. Throughout these units, students have also been working on developing the skills of sportsmanship, fair play, teamwork and communication needed to be successful in team activities. 

Health

Making healthy food choices, engaging in physical fitness, establishing positive friendships, setting personal goals and mental wellness are all integral components of the Health program.  

Sincerely,

The Grade ½ Team

*Please Note – You can access more information about the Alberta Program of Studies by going to the link below: 

https://www.learnalberta.ca/content/mychildslearning/

CHS Goodwill Initiative 2019 - Challenge #3

Hello Everyone,

We're almost there 😀 One more week to go and the holidays will be upon us. This week we are looking for items in bags/packages as part of the final challenge. Pasta, dried beans, soup mixes, spices like salt and pepper and granola bars are a few examples. We are also more than willing to continue accepting toiletry and canned items.

Thank you, yet again, for your continued support 🌲🌲🌲

Learning Highlights (Dec. 9-13)

Numeracy
We have begun creating a Pattern City to show how much we have learned about creating, translating and extending repeating/increasing patterns.

The students have also been practicing their numeracy skills by counting all of the toiletry, canned and packaged items that have been coming into the classroom for our Goodwill Initiative Challenges.

Physical Education
Being introduced to the basic skills of the sport of curling has been an exciting experience for the Grade 1 and 2 students. Did you know a real curling stone weighs 44 pounds?

Art/Big Buddies
It was so much fun working with Mrs. Evan's Grade 3/4 class creating charcoal sketches of the Rocky Mountains and then weaving them to make placemats for Meals on Wheels.

2019 CHS Goodwill Initiative - Challenge #2

Dear Parents,

For our next challenge, Team C has to bring in canned goods and other non-perishable items such as pasta.

Room 1 did an excellent job with the toiletry items, so let's keep the momentum going with Challenge #2.

Thanks again, for your support 😀  

Winter Celebration (Dec. 12)

Hello Families,

Please join us this Thursday, December 12 evening from 6-8 pm for caroling, make and give winter activities, buskers and some warm drinks (hot chocolate and cider). Some of the activities will include stuffing socks with the items for the Mustard Seed, bird feeders, letters for seniors and placemats.

Please bring cash to purchase drinks and make donations.

The children are so excited to give back to the community this winter.

We look forward to seeing you there!🎄

Sincerely,

Room 1 🔔🔔🔔

Learning Highlights (Dec. 2-6)

Literacy
As our winter holidays are very quickly approaching, we read some books about Christmas and wrote letters to Santa. We are anxiously hoping to receive a response from him prior to going on break. The photo below is proof for the students that I sealed, stamped and mailed their letters 😃

Math
We had to read clues and manipulate blue, green, yellow and red square tiles to solve mystery patterns. Engaging in this math task showed us how important it is to be able to read. This learning task was challenging for many of us but, we really enjoyed showing our ability to persist with our learning by taking it on.

   







Science/Art
The students are painting winter landscape scenes to demonstrate their understanding of tints and shades as part of our Creating Colour unit of study. They had to select one colour (blue, red or green) and mix varying amounts of white/black paint in order to create tints and shades to produce a winter landscape scene. Painting the moon, using black and white, was a task requirement. The children will be adding additional features such as trees and/or wildlife to complete their pictures. All of the artwork already looks amazing even though the final details have yet to be added 😁

  

CHS Goodwill Initiative 2019 - Challenge #1

Dear Parents,

In the spirit of helping others, Capitol Hill School is about to begin its 2019 Annual Goodwill Initiative Project. This year is looking a little different. The classrooms have been organized into teams and we will be participating in three challenges to collect different items to help those in need. Our classroom is part of Team C which includes: Mr. Landra's Grade 3/4 classroom and Mrs. Moore's Grade 5/6 classroom. 

Challenge #1 - December 5th to 9th

How many travel-sized toiletry items can we bring in to help the Mustard Seed organization?

Toiletries include:

• toothpaste
• toothbrushes
• dental floss
• mouthwash
• shampoo
• deodorant
• hand soap
• hand sanitizer
• shaving cream

We are also going to need warm men's socks to stuff these items into.

Thank you so much for your support 💕

GO TEAM C 😄😄😄

Learning Highlights (Nov. 25-29)

Literacy/Health/Science
We read an amazing book this week called, The Colour Monster." It is a story about dealing with your emotions and feelings. The students are going to write their own books and they drew colour monsters which they painted for the front covers of their books. The story begins with a multi-coloured monster whose feelings are all mixed up. As the story continues, a little girl helps him sort his feelings into different coloured jars. Yellow is for his feelings of happiness, red is for feelings of anger, green is for calmness, black is for feelings of fear and the blue jar is for feelings of sadness. The story ends with the colour pink where the monster is feeling love. We are going to write about our unique experiences and the things that make us feel happy, calm, fearful, angry and most importantly loved!

Numeracy/Science
We have continued to work on learning more about increasing patterns and number concepts. The students engaged in some problem solving tasks involving Magic Squares and they did some graphing pertaining to the Colourful Carnations experiment in Science. After surveying each other and asking the question, "What is Your Favourite Carnation Colour?", collecting data in the form of tally marks and interpreting the data, the carnation that turned blue was the favourite. Our next step is to create a bar graph which shows the results of the data. After doing this experiment, the students quickly observed the flowers in the jars containing the primary colours ended up being much more vibrant than those in the jars with the secondary colours.