Week 19

Dear grade 1 parents,

This week we have been finishing up our inquiry which will be presented next week. Students have come up with some great ways of how we can share our ideas about how to be a good communicator.

We have been publishing our signs that we made for the school to remind people how to communicate with our friends.

First, students drafted their ideas:

Then we shared them with the classroom:

Finally we made the final copy with markers:

Students have decided they will share their signs with the school at assembly next Tuesday and ask the students of JIES to look at the pictures and guess what they might be telling us. At Celebration of Learning on Friday, grade 1 will share the answers. We are really interested to see if our signs work around the school!

In math we are working on measurement! We have found that blocks are great for measuring things around our classroom!

In language, we  have been introducing our language centres. This week, we learned how to read to someone. The students are super excited about asking their friends the comprehension questions!
We also continued reading to self!

In art, we have been working on our Jinsho Art Exhibition work. We are making a traditional pacific Tapa/Kapa mat. We are using our knowledge of patterns and organic and geometric shapes to create our mat! We hope you can come to Jinsho Art Exhibition to see it!
 

Have a great weekend!
Sara Matthews

Show and Tell

Every Friday, I give students weekend homework.

JAL students are getting better and better on Hiragana writing.

For JNL students, I ask them to write a journal about their weekend.

On Monday, I read the journals for everyone and they really like to hear what their friends did on weekend.

This week, I asked students to bring their favorite things for Show and Tell time.

Some of them are really good at explaining what they are and why they like it.

Although there are some kids who was a little bit too shy to talk in front of everyone, 

they can keep practicing public speaking in class.

Week 18

Dear grade one parents,

This week we went on an organic shape hunt for our inquiry project. Students found many interesting shapes!

We then sorted them with our geometric shapes. At first, students put the circular organic shapes in with their circular geometric shapes and rectangular geometric and organic shapes together. However, some organic shapes reminded students of both rectangular and circular and the class became divided. So we went back to the drawing board, and finally we came out with organic shapes and geometric shapes separated.

 Then we traced our geometric and organic shapes to make a picture!

In maths, we have been finishing up our shapes unit. We did some fun tests to see what can be stacked, rolled and what objects slide!

This week, we also looked at fiction and non-fiction books. So, this weekend please ensure your student is doing a book review on a fiction book.

Today, we had our suisha activity where we are getting the gym ready for the art exhibition. Its going to look great!

Kind regards,
Sara Matthews

Week 17

Grade one parents,

This week we started off by sorting our shapes. Students were given two pieces of paper and asked to sort the shapes they found into two groups.
This required students to use their discussion skills as they tried to find a way to sort all the 3D and 2D shapes that we had found.
The shapes we are learning are:

cube /cubiod / triangular prism / pyramid  /cone / sphere / rectangle / square / circle / triangle

Key vocabulary are:

face / side / corner

In language time, students have been working on their Words of The Week. The four words this week were:

Sky  Why  Ask  Help

Students were also learning about the blend "sk" sound and introduced to periods (full stops).

We also had a Suisha activity this week where students got together and painted for the Jinsho art exhibition.

In inquiry, students have been learning about geometric and organic shapes. We learned how to draw our own organic shapes by closing our eyes and moving our pencil to the sound of music!

For guided reading, we have continued reading with grade 2 on Friday.

Have a good weekend!
Sara Matthews

Kanji and Katakana

In this term, Grade 1 students finally start learning Kanji and Katakana.
We have already talked about when we use Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji.
When I asked students where they think Kanji came from, they were saying so many countries' names like Australia, New Zealand,Turkey etc.
After guessing, we learned that Kanji came from China about 3300 years ago.

Grade 1 students will have Kanji homework on Monday and submit those papers on Thursday or Friday before Kanji test.
Thank you so much for your support at home.
I was so happy to see that students were very excited to write Kanji!

Week 16

Grade one parents,

This week we have been starting our new term and our new inquiry!
In math, we are introducing 3D shapes!

Today we went on a scavenger hunt for 3D shapes in our school! Stay turned next week for our shape sorting!

We have started our new unit of inquiry: how we express ourselves. Our central idea is how feelings and ideas can be shared in different ways.

For inquiry time, we worked in groups and chose a picture that we really liked. Together, we made our own story using our narrative skills we learned last term. We then shared the stories during inquiry circle.
The stories were really imaginative and creative! 

We have also been looking at shapes and symbols in art, and this week we looked at creating our own ideas using only four shapes, and symbols in Maori art.

In language, grade one have been really improving in reading. This term, we will be collaborating and sharing our reading comprehension skills by doing buddy reading with grade two!

See you next week,

Sara Matthews
Grade 1 teacher