Geometry and Pizza?

What amazing imaginations grade one students have!  Students used their knowledge of 3D shapes such as cylinders, spheres, pyramids, rectangular prisms, cubes, and cones to create and write about these in their very own 3D Shape Books.

After exploring the properties of 2D shapes and 3D objects, students built edible cubes by problem solving using 8 mini-marshmallow vertices and 8 toothpick edges. Next, they tried constructing pyramids.  

 Students built a 2D shape pizza by cutting and counting geometric toppings of onions, sausages, peppers,  and cheese.  Next they created math addition equations from their data. 

From Seed to Plant

 In science, we learn about the ways in which animals depend on plants and ways in which plants depend on animals, and to identify the requirements of plants to maintain life; i.e., air, light, suitable temperature, water, growing medium, space; and recognize that we must provide these for plants in our care.

Students performed the poem From Seed to Plant for students in kindergarten and grade one.

Watch our trailer here!

Urban Reflections

We are learning about different communities in our world, specifically urban and rural communities. 

We now are familiar with several Calgary landmarks and, inspired by these, we created cityscapes that incorporated the Bow River and a landmark using Mr. Sketch markers and water.  They are dazzling!

 

Grade Ones Travel Back in Time to Fort Calgary...

Students traveled back in time to train as North West Mounted Police officers, learning how to stand at ease, salute, fall out, and take the oath.

Students worked cooperatively to build a log cabin, complete with a sod roof!

As characters from Calgary's past, students participated in a train ride from Red Deer to Calgary, where a real-life event was re-enacted, with the help of students actors and actresses ;)

We wrote about our adventures back in our classroom and, using transparency images of our characters, a little bit of water colour and a steam train, we shared some of our memories from our trip back in time!

Arbour Day

Arbour Day celebrates the importance of our trees and green spaces.  It is an annual event held in Canada, the United States and in many other countries that all share a common vision of greener communities. 

Arbour Day in Calgary is celebrated on the first Thursday in May. On this day, each grade 1 student in Calgary's schools receives a tree seedling to be taken home to be planted on private property. To date, annual Arbour Day celebrations in Calgary have distributed an estimated 425,000 tree seedlings to grade one students.  The seedlings are provided by Alberta Sustainable Resource Development.

How to plant an Arbour Day tree:

•  Plant your Arbour Day tree in your garden right away. Please provide assistance to children who might be planting.
• Give your tree enough room to grow. Lodgepole Pines can grow to be 30 metres tall.
• Plant your tree at least four metres away from other trees, shrubs or buildings.
• Don’t plant your tree under power lines.
• Keep your tree cool and moist. Handle your tree gently, since the roots break easily.

When you plant your tree, remember:

1.    Remove the plastic bag.

2.   Spread the roots in the hole and cover them quickly.

3.   Press the soil firmly around the roots and water the tree.

4.    Please protect the tree with a small fence while it is still small.

5.   Please take care of your tree by giving watering regularly when the soil is dry. Remember, not too much, you don’t want to drown your tree. 

St. Patrick's Day 2015

Leprechaun trap blueprint

After reading The Night Before St. Patrick’s Day, grade ones planned and created blueprints of their leprechaun traps.  After sharing their traps, students set their traps around the room before going home. 

We also tried some Clever Tom math!

When we returned the next day, our indoor shoes were gone, and our classroom was a mess!  Although we did not catch a leprechaun (this time), all the traps had a note left by a leprechaun visitor, along with gold coins!

We wrote poems about leprechauns and learned about how St. Patrick shared meaning of the trinity using the shamrock.  We created our own shamrocks to remind of his beautiful story.

The Trinity as told by St. Patrick

All Things Gingerbread!

We enjoyed reading and comparing many versions of the classic story, The Gingerbread Man.  Mrs. Champion baked a gingerbread at home and brought him to our class.

  While we were away at lunch, he ran away from our class!  The good news is, though, he left us clues to track him down.  We finally found him in Madame Launiere’s office!  We wrote about our adventures with the Gingerbread Man by writing our own books, The Gingerbread Man is Loose in St. Matthew School, including mapping his route on our school floorplan!  

In art, we made gingerbread prints using foam and a brayer.  We added a little bit of cinnamon on our white glue icing to finish them off J  Next, we designing and then built our very own gingerbread houses.