Mrs Nowell's Class Blog A classroom blog from the students in Grade 1 and 2 

Well here I am in this space again after taking a break for 4 years!  In that time, I’ve had a baby and moved to the Comox Valley.  It’s been a busy 4 years.

Last year I landed at Arden Elementary, which is where I went to school as a kid.  It was very strange to be in my old grade one classroom as a teacher!  I taught grade 2 there for a year on a temporary contract and moved on to another temporary contract at Courtenay Elementary.  This year I am teaching grade 1 and 2.  Or I was?  I am?  Since Covid-19 has shut schools down I am teaching from my home, wishing I was in my classroom with all my students.  I would like to use this as a place to share my story and my students’ journey for the rest of the year.  Since my classroom for now is partly in my home and partly online, I will post what’s happening in both those places.  For now here’s what has been going on around here…

 

We are busy learning about gardening and all the little critters that go along with it.  We have started  learning about bees and how important they are for our world. 

Today we were lucky to have NEAT to come by and teach us all about composting.  We learned about different types of worms and got to have some one-on-one time with our new little buddies.

We also planted our seeds for the community garden.  This year our class is doing a Greek Salad garden, meaning we have planted tomatoes, peppers and oregano.

100’s Day was at the end of a busy week at school.  We had Family Day on the Monday, Valentine’s Day on Wednesday and Cabin Fever Day on the Thursday with Friday being 100’s Day.  We kept our usual routine for the morning and had some 100’s Day math centres during math rotations.  In the afternoon we had STEM challenges.  I got a wonderful freebie from Brook Brown at Teacher Pay Teachers and the students had a blast.  I had enough bins that there was only 2 sharing per bin and the challenges could be done alone or with the person with them.  We had challenges all over the classroom in in the hall.  The best part was when the students finished building they could go over to the rainbow table and get a camera and take a picture of their creation.   The afternoon went by in a flash!

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Over the Christmas season our class learned about different cultures and how they celebrate Christmas.  We have a few Filipino students, a boy that was born in South Africa as well as a girl that moved here from China in September and our lovely Mrs Selenas is Italian!  We have quite a multi-cultural crowd this year.

At the end of the January, Anna shared the customs and traditions that her family observes during Chinese New Year.  She also tutored me in Chinese calligraphy,  I still have a lot to learn!

I hope everyone had a wonderful break!  We are back and ready to learn!  We did a STEM challenge this week.  The students challenge was to work with a partner to create a pom pom launcher.  They came up with a quick plan, presented and demonstrated their little machines and then we had a little launching contest.

 

We are moving forward in math with double digit adding and subtracting and this week the students had an intro to carrying and borrowing 10’s.  It would be very beneficial if the students can continue to practice their single digit facts to 20.  Knowing these simple facts helps them gain confidence and lets them move forward easily.

 

We are starting a new unit in Science about sound, I apologize now if there is extra noise at your houses over the next little while!

 

Don’t forget to log in and read with Raz-kids online.  The students are fairly well-practiced logging in and going to where they need to be.  I check this progress at least once a week and you can have access to reports from this program as well.  This is our home reading program, so no physical books will be coming home from the classroom.  They will still be getting library books out once a week though, so if you like to read out loud to them, don’t worry.

I am asked to remind parents to look for over due library books and/or pay the fines so that we can get those books back into circulation.  Also school fees are past due.  If you have not paid your fees yet, please contact the office and make arrangements to do so.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday!

Please don’t forget that you can log into Raz kids at anytime and do some reading!  The students can listen to the story first and then read it by themselves after.  There are still some students that are not logging on a home and if I can help please let me know!

ABC.ya is another site to visit for some number and sight word practice.

See you in the new year!

We wrapped up our unit on the Water Cycle last week with a challenge.  The students had to work with a partner and create the water cycle using recycled materials that I’d been collecting for a little while.  The first day, they had to plan what they were going to build, then decide what they would use to create it.  The next day they revisited their plans and made their final “shopping list” and then went to the table and collected their materials.  The final products were pretty amazing and they were so excited to be able to talk about their projects with Ms Elsa’s class from next door. 

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During parent teacher interviews I had some questions about home reading, and after speaking to many parents about connectivity to the internet, I made the decision to give Raz kids a try this year.  A letter with log- in information went home this evening, along with how to get to the website.  I’m really excited about this opportunity because it will allow your student to practice reading on a mobile device as well as home computers!  They have the ability to listen to the text as well as read it and then there is a comprehension assessment at the end to see if they understood what they read.  No keeping track of books and making sure they get back to school everyday and they can keep moving to the next level when they are ready!  If you haven’t already, here’s the link to give it a try with your student.  If you have any questions please contact me.

The past month has been a very busy one!

We went on a field trip to places that help us reduce, reuse and recycle.  Thanks to NEAT for coordinating that for us.  We got see what happens behind the scenes at a thrift store, how our bottles and cans are recycled and what goes on at the landfill.

We have done some more STEM challenges.  We helped Rapunzel escape from her tower!

We made it through Halloween on a Monday,

On November the 10th, we had an art lesson with the National Art Gallery in Ottawa.  The docent talked to us about different paintings and pictures that they have in the art gallery.  The students got to talk to her through the computer and ask and answer questions.  It’s amazing what a connected world we live in.

 

After recess we had our Remembrance Day ceremony in the gym.

We have written our letters to Santa today and pretty soon, we will be starting our Christmas crafts!  Time is flying by!

 

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Well, not officially, but it seems that we are stuck with the snow for a while.  Please send snow pants for your student to wear and some extra socks to change into after recess.   I have many students coming with no snow pants or splash pants and they are getting wet outside and then sitting in wet clothes during class time.  We will be going outside every recess and lunch until the temperature dips below -15.  I have some students telling me that they are just not bringing them because they don’t want to wear them and I’m afraid that they will get cold and wet out there.

Thanks for your help!

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