Learning Buddies!

  

We are so very excited to have Learning Buddies! Today, we met our Grade 5/6 Learning Buddies and did some activities to get to know one another. We look forward to getting to hang out with them again in a couple weeks!

Student Seesaw Digital Portfolios

 

Our student Seesaw digital portfolios are now live!! Thank you for your speedy return of forms to get this up and running. 

A parent email will come from Seesaw filling you in about what to expect to set up your family account to be able to access student posts for this school year. 

We already have some posts in there of student work we have done so far with our new school year. Students will start to add their own posts going forward, as they learn this new platform in Grade 1. Remember the student accounts are secured, individual spaces and are NOT public/searchable by anyone else. 

We look forward to sharing our work with our families so that opens up conversations about what is happening in our Grade 1 Busy Bee class! It's like a window right into our classroom and you can get up to date information about student progress!   

The Important Thing About Speaking

   

Our class has read Margaret Wise Brown's 'The Important Book' the past week. The book has a regular pattern that we recognize and have been finding the important things about ideas in our lives, following the same pattern. 

We have used the inspiration that everyone is unique and have drawn our self portraits! We are certainly proud of how each and every one of us is like no one else and that we all have things that make us special. We also have met our Learning Buddies and shared with them 'The Important Thing About Me' with an All About Me poster. 

The Grade 1 Busy Bees have been discussing what good speakers do when we share our thinking with others. Mrs. Herbert has demonstrated what maybe speakers shouldn't do in a bit of a funny example with her 'Me Bag’ sharing. From that, we created a list of what we think good speakers do and created a new page for the book 'The Important Book':

We hope this helps as we prepare for our special 'Me Bag’ sharing that is coming up soon! Information came home today to start gathering our three special items and practice what we want to share following our ideas above. Looking forward to hearing what is important to each and every student to get to know them better!

International Dot Day!

   

Tuesday, September 15

The Busy Bees have joined over 21 million children and adults around the globe in 196 countries to celebrate International Dot Day – a grass roots “creativity and courage” movement, started in 2009 by a teacher in Iowa. Inspired by New York Times best-selling author/illustrator Peter H. Reynolds’ classic storybook for all ages The Dot. Exploring the themes of creativity, bravery and self-expression, The Dot is a story of a perceptive and caring teacher who reaches a reluctant student who thinks she can’t draw by encouraging her be brave enough to “just make a mark and see where it takes you.” What begins with a small dot on a piece of paper becomes a breakthrough in confidence and courage, igniting a journey of self-discovery and sharing, which has gone on to inspire countless children and adults around the globe to just give something a try.

Today, we celebrated The Dot by reading the story and discussing the author's message. Then we went on to make our mark and created our own dots to show how we are all unique and special. It is ok to try your best and your best is all we are asking for! This has been our message as we start Grade 1; a growth mindset with our Cupcake Work and continuing to try our best with positivity and risk taking in what we attempt to do as we learn.

The author also created a little song to go along with the book and we listened while we worked.

Here are some of our own dots from our activity!

Let's all give it a go and try our best in Grade 1!

You never know what may happen from just a little dot!

Cupcake Work!

Cupcake work you may ask? What is that?

Well Mrs. Herbert showed us all some cupcakes today to pick which one we would like to enjoy! They were decorated like bee hives with yellow icing and special sprinkles and little bees to go with our Busy Bee classroom theme. We were excited to pick the one all decorated with the extra things!

However there were many no one picked! These ones weren't as nice. One was burnt to a crisp, black and hard as a rock. No one wanted that one! And there was one with no icing, and one that was sort of sloppy and one with no sprinkles or bee decorations. Why didn't people want these ones?

Well when Mrs. Herbert asked the class, they said they wanted the ones with all the good things on it that make them extra special That makes complete sense!

This week, we will read this poem to solidify what picking that cupcake really meant...

I looked at all the cupcakes,

Sitting on the plate so fine,

And I wondered and I thought a bit,

“Now which one will be mine?”

Our teacher made them for us,

With gooey frosting spread with care,

Covered with coloured sprinkles,

Topped with sweet bee wear.

But one just didn’t look so good,

It was burnt and small and round,

With a tiny smudge of frosting,

But no sweet treats were found.

No one picked this cupcake,

‘Cause it really was a mess.

Of all the decorated treats,

This one was not the best.

Our teacher noticed no one ate it

And asked us all, “Why not?”

We told her that of all the treats,

This one didn’t look so hot!

“I see,” she said, “On this one,

I did not do my best.”

This one did not measure up,

It did not pass your test!

You didn’t want a cupcake,

That I didn’t make with care.

When handing finished work my way

Show me, that you really care.

I don’t want to see your work

Until you’ve done your best.

Work neatly and carefully,

Work hard to pass my test.

Then I will want to choose your work

To show to everyone,

And you will be so proud of

The fine ‘cupcake’ work you’ve done!

So now you see that this very special lesson went right along with explaining how Grade 1 works. We will be learning how levels work and that trying our best is what we always want. Sometimes we might try our very best and our best might be a level 1 or 2 and that's ok. Mrs. Herbert is here to help. As long as their best effort is given. No burnt cupcakes for us!!

Welcome to our classroom where our best work is not a burnt cupcake. We try our best, with our positive attitude! And of course, we ate our yummy cupcake but here are some photos from our special activity...

Grade 1 Self Portraits

We worked some 'magic' this last week in art and completed a self portrait with some special assistance from what we called MAGIC (tracing) paper in Grade 1. Students completed these amazing drawings of themselves and we have them up at school. Can you guess who is who?

SPCS on Social Media!

Did you know that you can access information about school happenings on Facebook? There are two sources of information for families:

South Perth Centennial Public School

This page is run by the school staff with information shared about school events & information, a way to see what we are learning and any school board information to share. Follow this page to stay in the loop. It is a newer page that was created with our new school admin but will be a great source of info throughout the year. Similarly, we have an Instagram account as well that will have similar posts if you have an Instagram account.   

South Perth Centennial School Parent Group

The is run by our School Council parent volunteers to post about information, upcoming event reminders, etc. Feel free follow this page as one more source of information and a way to connect with other parents of our school! 

Reminder that all are welcome to join in with our School Council meetings to help make decisions going forward with our school community. The first meeting of the year will be Monday, September 28 @ 6:30pm in the school library. Meetings are scheduled one per month throughout the school year. We would love for you to join us and share your ideas!