Class, Class, Who Do You See?

Students learned about one another during the first month of school.  We read many stories about belonging, and were inspired by the story Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

Jump Rope For Hearts!

As part of their physical education curriculum, grade one students learned various ways to jump rope (skip)!  In the process, they also raised money for the Jump Rope For Heart campaign!

Grade One Students Take Care of Their World!

This year, as part of our social studies We Care For Our World and religion themes of stewardship, grade one students are collecting and recycling writing utensils.  These are returned to Terracycle and recycled into plastic picnic tables, garbage cans and lotion dispensers.  We counted 291 writing utensils on our first collection around our school!

Trickster Comes to St. Matthew!

Making Sense of Our Senses - Optical Illusions

We have learned how we use our five senses of hearing (ears), sight (eyes), touch (through our skin), taste (tongue), and smell (nose) to make sense of our world.  We learned how our senses can sometimes trick us, through experiments with smelling and taste.  We completed an optical illusion art project, combining primary and secondary colours, patterns, fine motor skills of tracing and cutting and tissue paper art.  Do you see the vase holding a flower or the silhouetted profiles of two faces?  Students also created I Spy...mini-books, creating clues using their senses.
 

Ducklings!

Our ducklings pipped their way into our world on Monday, 21 April 2014!  They just couldn't wait for their debut in the classroom.  Their arrival was recorded on my iPad and shown to the students the next day. 

Students thought of names for our ducklings and we voted as a class.  The names we chose we Charlie (for our darker coloured duckling) and Linda (for the lighter coloured duckling).

We learned about the life cycle of a duckling, completed a life-cycle activity and made our own ducklings hatching out of a tagboard/brass fastener shell.  Our grade one friends from Ms. Taillon's class visited us to join in the fun.  We took our ducklings out for their first walk in the world on Friday, 26 April 2014, and saw first-hand how quickly they can move on their webbed feet. 

Math - Patterns

After reading and listening to the story Caps For Sale by  Esphyr Slobodkina, students buddied up to create a pattern for their peddlars!  This activity allowed students to design as complex a pattern as they wished, while providing them with the opportunity to translate their patterns using letters.