February 3-7

February is here and it is going to be a fun and busy month! We begin the month with Groundhog Day.  Will Balzac Billy see his shadow?  We will have to wait until Sunday to find out!  In the mean time, we made some predictions.  Check it out!  On Monday will see if our predictions were correct.  By the look of our graph, I'd say most students are hoping for an early Spring! (Me too!!!)

On Wednesday, we are kicking off #IReadCanadianDay!  We would love for the students to wear red and white or Canadian clothing to show their Canadian Spirit.  Mrs. Foster (our learning commons facilitator) will be kicking off the Great Canadian Maple Leaf challenge at an assembly at 2:40 today.  She has challenged the students to read as many books as we can written by Canadian authors.  Each time a student reads a Canadian book, they will write the title on a maple leaf to hang on the Wish Tree in the hallway.  The class who reads the most Canadian books will win some kind of fun reward!  If your child reads a Canadian book at home, please write it in their home reading and draw a simple maple leaf beside the title of the book.  We will track our books at school.  Thanks for your help with this!

We are very excited for our 100th day of school celebration on Friday, February 7th.  We would love the students to dress up as if they are 100, it makes the day alot of fun.  Thank you to the parents who have signed up to volunteer that day.  We will be having centers in the gym all morning and we need parents to help out at the centers (you are also welcome to dress up!).  If you would like to come but are unable to stay for the whole morning, that is just fine.  We appreciate any help!  This is one of my favourite days in Grade One!  We can't wait!  


Our 100 day collections have been rolling in and the students have had some excellent clues to help us guess their items.  We would love to have all of the collections brought to school by Thursday.  Thanks for your support with this.


The February calendar and Valentine information came home last week.  Please let me know if you have any questions.
Here is a link to the note as well as our February calendar.
February Calendar
Valentine List

What's happening this week? 

Monday

-New sight words this week.
-Jr. Choir @ 10:30.

Tuesday

Wednesday

-Winter walk at 12:30.  Please make sure your child has warm winter clothes.
-#IReadCanadianDay!  We are going to dress in red and white or in Canadian clothing! Our Great Maple Leaf challenge assembly is at 2:40.

Thursday

-Library Day.  Please check for any library books that your child may have at home.
-100 item collections due today.

Friday

-100th day of School Grade One celebration!  Students can dress as if they are 100 years old!

Coming up next month:

Every Monday:  Jr. Choir

Every Thursday:  Library

February 12- Div 1 teachers vs. Grade 5 basketball game.
February 14- Valentine party and card exchange.
February 17-21- NO SCHOOL
February 24- Our gymnastics unit begins in Phys. Ed.
February 26- Pink shirt day and Grade One Kindness assembly@ 8:40.

January 27-31

We had fun in Grade One this week with our little snowman unit.  We wrote "how-to" stories about building snowmen, we made a digraph snowman (with blends th, sh, ch, and wh), we read "Perfect Snow" by Barbara Reid and recreated a perfect snowy day with plasticine!  Stay tuned for pictures.  Each day for the month of January, our calendar leader gets to build a melting snowman.  We watch as the snowman melts into a puddle and then we build him all over again the next day! 

We are very sad to say goodbye to Mrs. Hadford, our principal, this week as we celebrate her retirement.  We thank her for her leadership and support over the years and we wish her all the best in the next chapter of her life.  We have a special assembly to celebrate her on Wednesday at 8:40, families are welcome to attend.

We would like to welcome Mrs. Sharon Willms-Laing to our school who will be acting Vice Principal for the remainder of the school year.  Please visit the link below for an introduction to Mrs. Willms-Laing.  We are excited to welcome her into our Probe family.
Welcome Mrs. Willms-Laing

February is around the corner and it is going to be a very exciting month!  We will be celebrating our 100th day of school on Friday, February 7.  We are looking for parent volunteers to help out with our centers in the gym that day.  If you are able to help out, please fill out the form that was sent home or email me.  Information about this day was sent home on Friday along with a 100 item collection project.  For this project, we would like the students to count out 100 simple items (they can count by 1's, 5's or 10's) and put the items into the paper bag that was sent home.  They need to write 3 clues on the bag so that we can guess what the items are in the bag.  Some examples of items they may want to count are marshmallows, lego pieces, cotton balls, macaroni noodles, paper clips, etc. 
We are also looking for a donation of 2 boxes of Fruit Loops (the no-name brand is just fine) for one of our centers where the students get to make a necklace out of 100 Fruit Loops.  If you are able to donate a box, please let me know.  Thanks so very much!

We will be celebrating Valentine's Day on Friday, February 14.  A note explaining our class party and Valentine exchange will be sent home tomorrow.  Here is a link to the note as well as our February calendar.
February Calendar
Valentine List

What's happening this week? 

Monday

-New sight words this week.
-Jr. Choir @ 10:30.

Tuesday
-Senses exploration centers.

Wednesday

-Mrs. Hadford's retirement assembly @ 8:40.
-Spirit day!  Wear your favourite jersey.

Thursday

-Library Day.  Please check for any library books that your child may have at home.

Friday

-No school.  Professional learning day.

Coming up next month:

Every Monday:  Jr. Choir

Every Thursday:  Library

February 5- Winter walk at 12:30.
February 5- School council meeting at 6:30.
February 7- 100th Day Celebration.  Students can also dress like they are 100 years old.
February 12- Div 1 teachers vs. Grade 5 basketball game.
February 14- Valentine party and card exchange.
February 17-21- NO SCHOOL
February 24- Our gymnastics unit begins in Phys. Ed.
February 26- Pink shirt day and Grade One Kindness assembly@ 8:40.

January 20-24

It looks like we might be out of the deep freeze next week and that means that we will be back to our regular recess routines!  Please remember to send warm winter gear for your child to wear during our recess breaks.  An extra pair of socks in their backpack might be a good idea as well since our playground could get quite sloppy with the predicted warmer temperatures. 

Since we were unable to get outside this week, we decided to have a snowball fight IN the classroom with word wall words!  This was so much fun as the students wrote words on pieces of paper, crumpled them up, threw them around the room. Then they  had to pick up one snowball at a time, read the word on it and write in their snowfort!  SNOW MUCH FUN!

This week, we will be doing an author study on one of my favourite authors: Barbara Reid.  I had the opportunity to meet Barbara a few years ago at our local Word on the Street festival and she inspired me through her story telling and beautiful plasticine artwork.  We will be reading Barbara's books and creating our very own "Perfect Snow" day based on  the plasticine technique she uses to create her pictures.  Stay tuned for pictures.


What's happening this week? (it's a quiet one!)

Monday

-New sight words this week.
-Jr. Choir @ 10:30.

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

-Library Day.  Please check for any library books that your child may have at home.

Friday

-Exploratory round 3.

Coming up this month:

Every Monday:  Jr. Choir

Every Thursday:  Library

January 29- Spirit day!  Wear your favourite jersey!
January 29- Special retirement assembly @ 8:45 for Mrs. Hadford.
January 31- No School- Professional Learning Day.

January 13-17

Brrrr.... it looks like we will be in the middle of a deep freeze this week!  Most likely that means we will be having indoor recess.  Please still send your child to school with warm winter clothing, just in case.  If the temperature is warmer than -20, the students will go outside for recess.  Since it looks like this could be an indoor week, students can bring one small toy/activity or board game to school to play with during our indoor recesses.  Please, no electronics.  

What's happening this week?

Monday

-New sight words this week.
-Jr. Choir @ 10:30.

Tuesday

Wednesday
-Boston Pizza Hot Lunch.
-New West Theatre presents The Legend of the Lost Tooth.

Thursday

-Library Day.  Please check for any library books that your child may have at home.

Friday

-Exploratory round 3.
-Scholastic book orders due.

Coming up this month:

Every Monday:  Jr. Choir

Every Thursday:  Library

January 29- Spirit day!  Wear your favourite jersey!
January 29- Special retirement assembly @ 8:45 for Mrs. Hadford.

January 6-10

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your families.  I am looking forward to seeing my adorable students and hearing all of the stories about their Christmas break.  Thank you again for all of your support to make December so much fun for the students.  They were so exited and grateful when they opened their Christmas cards from their classmates.  Thank you for donating cookies and supplies for our cookie decorating day.  They had a blast and the cookies turned out fantastic!  I hope you all enjoyed the Christmas concert, we had the cutest little group of bakers that I've ever seen!  Please make sure to check out my pictures under the pictures tab.  I had lots to add!

When I looked at our calendar for January, it is a very quiet month. I always love this month as it is back to routine and time to set some goals.  Every year, I say that the magic of January hits Grade One.  It seems like the students always come back to school with a new confidence and their learning just takes off.  The growth that they are going to make in the next few months always astonishes me.  

Winter Break Reading Challenge
Before the Christmas break, I sent home a "Marshmallow" reading challenge to help motivate the students to read over the break.  This was completely optional but if your child participated, please have them return their form to me this week.  

What's happening this week?

Monday

-New sight words this week.
-Jr. Choir @ 10:30.

Tuesday

Wednesday
-Parent council meeting @ 6:30.

Thursday

-Library Day.  Please check for any library books that your child may have at home.

Friday

-Exploratory round 3 begins.  Your child will be participating in one of the 5 options:

Computer games, colouring, yoga, domino games, and music.

Coming up this month:

Every Monday:  Jr. Choir

Every Thursday:  Library

January 15- New West Theatre present the Legend of the Lost Tooth.
January 15- Boston Pizza Hot Lunch
January 29- Spirit day!  Wear your favourite jersey!
January 29- Assembly @ 8:45.