Housekeeping Items!

1) The grade 1 students are collecting deodorant for the school-wide Lenten project benefitting 'The Shepherds of Good Hope.'

2) With the warmer weather upon us, the snow is quickly melting.  Please make sure your child is dressed appropriately for this wet, warm weather and kindly label all of their belongings.  Many children have the same splash pants, mitts, hats, etc., which means it is impossible to track down lost items when they are not labelled.

3) Thank you so much to all families who donated to the 'Shepherds of Good Hope' for today's Hat Day!

When I Am 100 Years Old......

One of our activities on the 100th day of school was to brainstorm what we would be like when we reached the age of 100.  We wondered what we would look like, what are hobbies would be, whether or not we would have any hair, what the colour of our hair would be, etc. Check out their self-portraits and writing!

Class Earning Jar - An Update!

We have filled the 'Class Earning Jar' twice since October. The first time we filled it, the class reward was inviting a friend to lunch. Today, they received their second class reward which was 'Gum Day.' We had fun chewing gum blocks 1, 2, and 3 today. The students were very careful to chew their gum responsibly and dispose of it in the garbage can at the end of each block.  Our jar has been emptied and we are working toward our next goal of having a 'Show and Share' day.  Our current focus is 'Showing Kindness Toward Others.' There are already 2 pom-poms in the jar as one of our friends was caught caring for a classmate who was hurt!   

This Week

REMINDERS:

1. 
Come join the Georges Vanier School community for a Pancake Breakfast 

When? Tuesday, February 13th Tuesday, February 13th from 8-8:45am

Where? Georges Vanier School Gym

How much? $6.00 per person 

What do we get? Pancakes, syrup (diabetic version also available), fruit cup and a juice for kids or tea/coffee for the adults

How do we order? Through Cash Online http://geo.ocsb.ca/ DEADLINE TO ORDER IS SUNDAY February 11th No exceptions

IMPORTANT!! An adult must accompany the kids. If mom or dad can’t make it maybe grandma or grandpa would like to come??

2. Valentine's Day will be celebrated on TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13th in our class.

3. Ash Wednesday is on Wednesday, February 14th. We will be attending a liturgy in the learning commons. This is also our 100th Day of School which we recognize in Grade 1. Students will be participating in various Math and Language activities centered around the 100th day of school.

4. February 13th - Report Cards go home for students K-6


Recap from last week:

Winter Carnival - students had a great time playing outdoor games such as inner tube soccer, Q-Tip Broomball and Bobsled races. We all had a great day!

Math - we are working on Capacity and Mass. Students worked in groups to measure capacity of different sized cups. Fun!

Science - we discovered that the cylinder was the strongest stand-alone shape. We did a class experiment with 3 paper shapes: cylinder, triangular prism and rectangular prism. We piled books on top of each shape. NOAH won - his was the sole prediction that the cylinder would hold the most books and he was right. It held over 50 books!

Have a great week everyone!

Kandinsky-Inspired Hearts!

Crazy Sock Day!

Today we wore our 'crazy socks' as a way to celebrate kindness and to 'sock it to bullying!' We enjoyed a wonderful kindness-themed assembly led by grade 6 students second block in the gym.  We watched several videos (created and produced by our grade 6 leaders) that reminded us of the many ways we can show kindness toward each other each day at school and at home! Check out these crazy socks that one of our grade 1 students wore to school today:

We are Celebrating Valentine's Day Early on Tuesday, February 13th!

This year 'Ash Wednesday' and 'Valentine's Day' fall on the same date (Wednesday, February 14th). Due to the solemnity of 'Ash Wednesday,' we will be celebrating 'Valentine's Day' on Tuesday, February 13th. If your child is planning to distrube Valentine's Day cards, etc., please plan to send them in on Tuesday, February 13th.  Thank you very much for your support!

Michael Mitchell "Canada in my Pocket"

Money Unit

Today we launched our unit on money!

The learning goals of the unit include: 

• state the value of Canadian coins (e.g. the value of a nickel is 5 cents)
• identify/name Canadian coins
• use coin manipulatives to represent money amounts up to 20 cents

We encourage you to explore the way prices are displayed when you are out shopping together with your child! While the penny is no longer in circulation, we are still discussing the value of objects to the penny as it reflects the pricing seen in stores.  The children are not expected to be able to round up or down at this age but we will be addressing the concept of rounding with the use of a number line. For example, if a piece of licorice costs 12 cents, will you pay the store 10 cents or 15 cents?  Is the nearest coin value 10 cents or 15 cents?  By showing them where 12 is on a number line, they will see that it is closer to 10 cents.  The concept of skip counting by 5's and 10's, which we have been working on all year, directly applies to working with money. You can continue to practice these important concepts at home with your child to help support and build their number sense and numeration skills!

This Week in Grade 1

And last week....

After experimenting with different materials (e.g., plastic, wood, paper), students made a sketch of a piece of playground equipment they wanted to build using recyclable materials. The playground equipment was to be built for a toy figure or mini stuffed animal. Here are some snapshots:

On Thursday, we made predictions as to whether the new Wiarton Willie would see his shadow. Most of the students predicted YES and were correct! Sadly, Ms. Cassidy and Ms. Damiano's hopes of an early Spring did not come true. After learning about a groundhog's burrow, students sketched a burrow and had to measure how long it was using one of the materials set out for them to choose from (e.g., cubes, rings, links). They had to prove their thinking by correctly measuring the length of their burrow.

THIS WEEK IS SPIRIT WEEK AT GV! Important dates:

Monday, February 5th - Crazy Hair Day and Hat Day

Tuesday, February 6th - Crazy Sock Day

Wednesday, February 7th - Pyjama Day

Thursday, February 8th - Crazy Sweater Day

Friday, February 9th - GV Winter Olympics : Students will be outside for the morning. Please make sure they are dressed warmly with EXTRA socks and mitts and pants. They are invited to bring a board game for Block 3 in the afternoon. Last block is teachers vs. Grade 6 students in our traditional game of broomball.