Ms. Vanderwel's Room

Hello Families! I hope you had a lovely week. The weather has warmed up and the kids have been able to get outside most days for recess and lunch. Here's a sneak peek at our week : )  ---------------------------------------------------- This week we finished writing letters to our buddies. The kids also had a chance to get together with their buddies and read their letters to them. Their big buddies also read a story to them and talked about the setting, characters, problem and solution of the story.   We also began a new Author Study author-- Kevin Henkes.  Mr. Henkes stories are relatable to students because they deal with situations that kids often face and offer a positive message of overcoming challenges. They also contain a wealth of vocabulary words that are unfamiliar to students and offer an opportunity to learn about new words and their meanings expanding students understanding of texts.  We read several stories and talked about the setting, characters, pro...

Hello Parents! Here's a sneak peak at out week! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This week we focused on Robert Munsch for our Author Study. We learned about his childhood and also how he became a writer. He always loved storytelling and worked in a daycare for awhile. The owner of the daycare told him he should write his stories down and that's how he got started writing. We continued to identify what the setting, problem, characters, and solution of a story are as we listened to each story. As we read we looked for interesting vocabulary words and discussed the lesson in each book.  We also continued to learn about a variety of letters of the alphabet and building words during our Making Words activity.  As we build words listening for the sounds in each we also talk about the meaning of the different words we build.  In math, we finished looking at the doubles +1 strategy for Gr. 1 and adding two-digit numbers with regroup...

Hello! It's been a cold one! Thanks to everyone who braved the cold this week. Here's a peek at what we've been up to! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This week we learned about Friendly Letters. Students watched a video talking about the parts of a friendly letter and then got to work writing a letter to their Gr. 5/6 Buddies! Students also had to be sure to remember to use capital letters, leave spaces and include a period in all their sentences.  In math, students in Gr. 1 have been learning about Doubles facts. They played a game in which they had to use their doubles facts, drew pictures of the doubles and completed a fun colouring sheet using doubles. The Gr. 2's began learning about adding two-digit numbers both with and without regrouping.  In Social, the students in Gr. 1 continued to learn about a community in the past. The also started to learn about the different groups of people that helped to settle this...

 Ho! Ho! Ho! Happy Friday! Here's a peek at our week : )                     -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We continue to practice for our Winter Concert on Tuesday, December 19. We are asking students to wear all white or a white shirt and black pants for their performance.  We are also asking them to wear a winter toque-- preferably white-- on Tuesday evening.                          ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This week we read the story 'The Hat' by Jan Brett. The students did a 5 Finger Touch n' Tell with a partner being sure to include all the important elements from the story. Then they set to work sequencing pictures from the story and summarizing the story using proper sentence structure and details from the book. This is the fir...

- IMPORTANT REMINDER -    The students had an exciting week shopping at the Winter Market and going to the Book Fair. We also worked on some art, did a number of science experiments and learned about the prairie environment as we prepare to learn about a prairie community-- Calgary now and in the past. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In writing we finished our summary of 'The Mitten' by Jan Brett. Students continue to work on using capitals at the beginning of their sentences, leaving spaces between words and using punctuation at the end of a sentence. Students also continue to develop their skill at using elaboration to add details to sentences and ensure that their sentences are in the correct order.  In math, we have been working on addition to 20 (Gr. 1) and addition of two-digit numbers to 100 (Gr. 2) using a variety of strategies (eg. ten frames, number paths, number lines). Students were challenged to not only solve...