Forest of Reading Wrap Up!

 

The Forest of Reading is Canada’s largest recreational reading program! This initiative offers ten reading programs to encourage a love of reading in people of all ages. The Forest helps celebrate Canadian books, publishers, authors and illustrators. More than 270,000 readers participate annually from their school and/or public library.

Our class, participated in the Blue Spruce reading program which we read 10 fictional stories from Canadian authors and illustrators. We each got to vote for our favourite and sent our results in with those that also participated at South Perth! We love a chance to read new, exciting stories! 

The winner this year was just announced this past week and the winner of the Blue Spruce award was: 

This book certainly won the hearts of many of our Busy Bee readers who voted for this as their favourite! Congratulations to all the nominees on their wonderful books! 

To celebrate, we had a little ice cream sandwich party on Friday afternoon! Thanks to School Council fundraising to help get these books into the lives of our little readers and get the opportunity to participate and have their say to instill the love of reading! 

Phonics Lesson 95 oi, oy - /oi/ & Lesson 96 ou, ow /ow/ : May 11 - 15 (Reading Practice Book)

Phonics Lessons - May 11 - May 15

This week we have continued to learn about vowel teams. Vowel teams are two or more letters that work together to make one vowel sound. 

Lesson 95: oi, oy - /oi/

We learned about a new sound called a diphthong. This is a kind of vowel sound that glides which means our mouths move a little bit to as we make the sound.  

oi /oi/: The letters oi together spell the sound /oi/ and is usually in the middle of a word, such as the words point and coin. It can also come at the beginning of the word, such as the word oil.  

oy /oi/: The letters oy together can also spell the sound /oi/ and usually comes at the end of a word like boy and toy. 

To make the /oi/ sound, start with your lips gently rounded and your tongue low and toward the front, then pull your lips back and pull the back of your tongue toward the roof of your mouth. Be sure your voice is on. Like all vowels, /oi/ is a continuous sound that can be stretched out. 

In this week's text called, The Right Choice, students are looking for words that have one of our diphthong vowel patterns listed above. They are looking to highlight (the whole word that has that spelling pattern). Be careful for spelling patterns that are included in the story that include those letters that do not make the same sound as our vowel team we are looking for. Students are also asked to illustrate the story to demonstrate their understanding of the text.

Lesson 96: ou, ow /ow/ 

This week also learned about making a new sound that is another diphthong. This is a kind of vowel sound that glides, which means our mouths move a little bit to make the sound. 

ou /ow/: The letters ou together spell the /ow/ sound which can come in the middle of a word like in loud and sound. It can also come at the beginning of the word like in out and ouch.

ow /ow/ - We have already learned that ow can spell the long /o/ sounds as in show but ow can also spell the /ow/ sound like in the word cow. It can come n the middle of a word like in town and crowd. It can also spell it at the end of the word like in how. Sometimes, ow can spell /ow/ at the beginning of the word like in owl.   

In this week's text called, Summer at the Farm House, students are looking for words that have one of our special vowel teams listed above with the /ow/ sound. They are looking to highlight (the whole word that has that spelling pattern). Be careful for spelling patterns that are included in the story that include those letters that do not make the same sound as our vowel team we are looking for. Students are also asked to illustrate the story to demonstrate their understanding of the text.

Heart (Irregular) Words of the Week

Heart words are words that do not decode or follow the spelling rules that we have been learning. We have to know them by 'heart'. However, once we learn more spelling rules, they may be only temporary heart words and the rules will come along later! In the meantime, we have been focusing on reviewing and learning the words below with focused in class practice. These will eventually (if not already) be on spelling word lists or word rings. 

This week we are reviewing:

• hour
• minute
• Monday
• Wednesday

This week's new words:

• February
• eye
• heart

Fluency Grids
With each lesson, there is a fluency grid with the lesson focus that is intended to help students recognize the phonics rule and assist in reading it with accuracy and automaticity. At home, challenge your young reader to read the word (aim is to decode/read each word within 3 seconds) and then recall it each time they see it within the grid of mixed up, repeated words. A couple minutes of practice is all they need. This acts as a warm up before reading the text that also applies the same skill while building on all the previous skills as well. Each week we are building on the previous week to become more fluent readers so we can focus on what the text is sharing rather than spending all the time decoding the words.

Homework Reminders
Students have been working on the story or stories in their Reading Practice book this week that will come home each weekend. At school, they work with a partner to complete their fluency grid, read with someone their story and highlight the focus words. Following, they are illustrating a picture for the text to show their understanding. 

At home, students are to finish the above tasks and read to an expert the week's lesson(s). After completing, parents are to initial at the indicated spot at the top. 

This week, we are have completed two lessons so there will be two stories to complete in their white Reading Practice booklet after the clip. Please see the information letter in the front of the book for more, detailed information about this weekend practice book coming home. Please return on Monday (or Tuesday if there is a no school day on Monday).

Happy reading!

Phonics Lesson 93 au, aw, augh - /aw/ & Lesson 94 ea - short /e/ & a - short /o/ : May 4- 8 (Reading Practice Book)

Phonics Lessons - May 4 - May 8

This week we have continued to learn about vowel teams. Vowel teams are two or more letters that work together to make one vowel sound. This week we are learning about new ways to make vowel sounds we already know but alternative spelling patterns to make them.  

Lesson 93: au, aw, augh - /aw/

We learned this week a new sound /aw/. The /aw/ sound is similar to the short /o/ sound. The /aw/ sound can be made three ways. 

aw /aw/: The sound /aw/ can be spelled with the letters aw and is usually comes in the middle of a word, such as the words lawn and hawk. It can also come at the end of the word, such as the words paw and law. And it can also come at the beginning of a word, such as the word awe.  

au /aw/: The sound /aw/ can also be spelled with the vowel team au and comes in the middle of a word like haul and fault.

augh /aw/: The sound /aw/ can also be spelled with the augh spelling pattern and comes in the middle of a word like caught.    

In this week's text called, Trip to the Zoo, students are looking for all the words that have the letter teams that makes the /aw/ sound based on the au, aw and augh spelling patterns to highlight (the whole word that has that spelling pattern). Be careful for spelling patterns that are included in the story that just include any letter combinations. We are specifically looking for the aw sound combinations from au, aw and augh making that special /aw/ sound. Students are also asked to illustrate the story to demonstrate their understanding of the text.

Lesson 94: ea - short /e/ & a - short /o/ 

This week we learned there are some unique ways to make short vowel sounds of /e/ and /o/. These patterns are not very common and they only happen in a few words. We would really recognize these as heart (irregular) words but it helps to know the pattern. 

ea - short /e/: We know ea spells the long /e/ like in mean and team. In some words, ea spells the short /e/ sound like in head, read, thread and bread. We just have to recognize that it could be both when we read (and write) and see which one sounds correct in our word to make it make sense. 

a - short /o/ - and there is this letter a that wants to make the short /o/ in some words. Again, we just have to recognize that it can do that as a heart word but is not as common. This usually happens when a follows w. some words like this are watch, water, father, wash and swamp.  

In this week's text called, Surprise on the Track, students are looking for words that have one of our special vowel patterns listed above. They are looking to highlight (the whole word that has that spelling pattern). Be careful for spelling patterns that are included in the story that include those letters that do not make the same sound as our vowel team we are looking for. Students are also asked to illustrate the story to demonstrate their understanding of the text.

Heart (Irregular) Words of the Week

Heart words are words that do not decode or follow the spelling rules that we have been learning. We have to know them by 'heart'. However, once we learn more spelling rules, they may be only temporary heart words and the rules will come along later! In the meantime, we have been focusing on reviewing and learning the words below with focused in class practice. These will eventually (if not already) be on spelling word lists or word rings. 

This week we are reviewing:

• floor
• poor
• door
• won
• son
• month

This week's new words:

• hour
• minute
• Monday
• Wednesday

Fluency Grids
With each lesson, there is a fluency grid with the lesson focus that is intended to help students recognize the phonics rule and assist in reading it with accuracy and automaticity. At home, challenge your young reader to read the word (aim is to decode/read each word within 3 seconds) and then recall it each time they see it within the grid of mixed up, repeated words. A couple minutes of practice is all they need. This acts as a warm up before reading the text that also applies the same skill while building on all the previous skills as well. Each week we are building on the previous week to become more fluent readers so we can focus on what the text is sharing rather than spending all the time decoding the words.

Homework Reminders
Students have been working on the story or stories in their Reading Practice book this week that will come home each weekend. At school, they work with a partner to complete their fluency grid, read with someone their story and highlight the focus words. Following, they are illustrating a picture for the text to show their understanding. 

At home, students are to finish the above tasks and read to an expert the week's lesson(s). After completing, parents are to initial at the indicated spot at the top. 

This week, we are have completed two lessons so there will be two stories to complete in their white Reading Practice booklet after the clip. Please see the information letter in the front of the book for more, detailed information about this weekend practice book coming home. Please return on Monday (or Tuesday if there is a no school day on Monday).

Happy reading!

Green Shirt Day - Awareness About Children's Mental Health & Wellbeing

Today, we participated in Green Shirt Day that brings about mental health and well-being awareness.

 

The Grade 1/2 Busy Bees have been learning all about emotional literacy, self regulation and mental health and wellbeing all year long, and our understanding grows each year. Today, during Children's Mental Health & Awareness week, we spent time solidifying how we should express our feelings and that it is ok to not to be ok all the time. We also spent time discussing what we can do about it as well as recognizing how to help others when they are not in the ‘green' zone. 

Exploring feelings, beyond the simple 'happy or sad' responses, helps children really understand what specific feelings can do to our bodies and how to deal with them. Being able to express our feelings with 'I statements' will be a starting point for our wee bees. For example, we will be working on 'I feel _______ because _____________________.' 

Here are some various emotions, we may be exploring...

We are understanding that our emotions impact our body. Sometimes we have difficulty controlling our bodies as a result of those feelings. The Zones of Regulation help us to really organize those feelings. When we say we are 'good to go', we are in the green zone and ready to learn. 

After our learning today, we decided to create a brainstorm on ways to help us get into the green 'good to go' zone...

One way to be healthy and take care of our mental health is to reduce the amount of screen time. The school's Mental Health and Wellbeing Team challenged each class today to take the pledge and choose not to use devices (as much) as it impacts our body in many different ways. We learned some pretty interesting facts on how screen time impacts our heart, lungs, eyes and brain! We made a commitment and hope at home, we can be held to our promise to reduce the amount of time on devices. We discussed other ways to spend our time. We look forward to our elective activities tomorrow to explore activities that might peek our interest more and get off screens to help with our mental health and wellbeing!  

Help us to stay true to our pledge and choose not to use (as much) to help keep our body and minds healthy! Thanks to the school's Mental Health and Well-Being Team for challenging us and for the cool new sunglasses!! 

Outdoor Phys Ed Today!

We were so excited to be outside for phys ed today in the beautiful weather! We tried out hand at a cooperative team warm up and then had some time with soccer and hula hoop activities outside. We look forward to more outside phys ed coming up and please remember to have outdoor shoes that are runners so we are prepared for these activities.  

Honesty Matters!

In April, we have been learning all about honesty as our character trait of the month. We have read books, poems and watched videos all about this concept to help us understand what this big idea means but students have a very good sense of this already. We brainstormed all the ideas we have been learning about and have posted in our classroom:

We have read these books:

And some great songs and videos we watched about honesty are:

We are working hard on focusing on making good choices and owning our mistakes. We all make mistakes but it is what we do about it that matters!

April Estimate Jar

 

We sure do love our Estimate Jar activity! Today, we did our April jar! April flew by with the students seeing what was in there! 

Each student wrote down their estimate on their white board of how many skittles packs were crammed on in the jar that made it tricky to see them. 

We decided today we would count by 2's because the objects were a bit bigger and we didn't have a lot of time so counting by 2's is quick and we always use more practice counting by 2's!  

Then for the big moment...we all took a turn going around the class and sharing our estimate. We compared numbers and how far away our estimate was from the actual total we had of the skittles! 

Claire was our lucky winner!!! It was close that we almost had a 6 way tie of students that were 2 away but Claire snuck in their with her estimate of being exactly on the 22 that was in the jar! She knew our tradition is to share the treats with everyone in the class. Everyone got a pack to take home and Claire got a couple extra packs as the winner!   

Sweet deal! Some sweet math on a Thursday morning!