The Important Thing About Writing

We are loving the book 'The Important Book.' 

We have also started to use this pattern to help us determine the important thing about writing. We started by discussing that letters talk and make sounds. When they are put together in a special way, they make words. We use those words to represent a complete idea in a sentence. 

So how do we make super sentences? We brainstormed some ideas of what good writers do. We created ideas to follow the pattern in The Important Book.

That is a lot to remember! So we decided we would find a way to make that shorter and easier to remember by being COPPSS...

As we learn to write in detailed sentences, this will be our reminder to help us be good writers after each sentence. Can you help us at home when we write?

Children's Story Writing Contest

Children's Story Writing Contest

DC Canada is holding a writing contest for kids! Each child can submit a story, and the top 30 stories will be published in an illustrated storybook. The school with the most participants will win a prize of a gift pack of books and games.

Word count:
Grades 1 and 2: 50 to 100 words
Grades 3 and 4: 100 to 200 words
Grades 5 and 6: 200 to 350 words

Participants who will be published (and their legal guardians) will have to sign a form before proceeding with publication. Absolutely no AI is permitted. The top three winners in each category will also receive a cash prize.

Deadline: October 21, 2026.

Submit a story here.

Reading Lessons Update & NEW Home Activities Coming Soon

 Prepare yourself...this post is a biggie!!! 

The past couple of weeks during our in class activities, we have been showing what we know with our phonological awareness, what words have become sight words (instant recall) and what words we can decode based on our understanding of phonics. Next week, we will be jumping into reading full texts to show what we can do with decoding accuracy and fluency. As we work through getting to know the students, we will be adjusting student programs by sending home reading books at their challenge level based on these tasks they have been completing, along with some additional reading activities that will come home in their Snuggle Up & Read folders.  

Thank you for jumping into our nightly reading program!!! Students are eager to earn some desk pets! Please find a balance that works for you, at home, for this home reading program.  

During our daily in class lessons, we have started into phonemic and phonological awareness review. As an introduction, here is a letter to families to help build skills at home...

Every couple of weeks for the beginning of the school year there will be a parent letter and some information posted about what we are working on in this part of our program.

Letter Sound Rings

The past couple of week's focus in class has been letter sounds (other wise known as phonemes - the smallest unit of sound in the English language). In the next week, I will send home letter sound practice for students that is individualized for what students are personally working on. This will be a ring with 5 letter sounds they are working on mastering. These will be stored in your child's Snuggle Up & Read folder for home/school practice. While some students are working on the phonemes, others have mastered the phonemes and working on blends, diagraphs, vowel teams. A parent resource of how to form the sounds will come home along with it. Below is a video that helps with some of the tricksters that some of us may not have even realized when we practice! You will need to click to watch on youtube but it is a quick and worthwhile little video to help understand some common misconceptions about letter sounds! 

Here is a little video to demonstrate the alphabet of the letter sounds. Of course there are also some more letter sounds that are diagraphs, blends and teams (meaning more than one letter put together) but this is where we are starting with review to really reinforce the letter sounds and recognize the letter association. 

Word Rings

Further, we will be also sending home a word ring for some students. These are words we would like them to be able to read instantly by the end of Grade 1 to help build fluency and accuracy so they can focus more on comprehension skills which is our ultimate goal. These words align with our in class phonics/spelling lessons so we have assessed where each child is working. Therefore, everyone is working at their own pace with their own understanding. So some students will have rings and some have already mastered these words with the lessons taught in class in their previous school year(s). If your child is bringing these home, these will be stored in your child's Snuggle Up & Read folder for regular home/school practice. An information page will come home as well about this.  

Happy reading!

September's Estimate Jar

On Wednesday, we learned about estimating the number of objects that were in our Estimate Jar. Each student wrote down their estimate on their whiteboard. 

We discussed our rules for counting objects (one item at a time with one to one correspondence). And we have been practicing counting and focusing on our teen numbers (they are tricky) with our number of days we have come to school. 

However, we did find that counting by twos would be faster! So we grouped our treats in twos to see about skipping every other number. We got the same number....only faster!

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 candies. 

We had a lucky winner, Brooke! She had the closest guess that was only 5 away from the actual number! She was super kind to share the candies with everyone in class! Then she got to take home the leftovers! Score!

Students are really excited to see what is going to fill our estimate jar next for October!

October's Reading Room

Here is our October virtual reading room! This contains some great books with themes we will be focusing on in October in our Busy Bee class:

• Thanksgiving
• Empathy
• Halloween

Click on the pdf with interactive links on the books to enjoy! 

October Newsletter & Calendar

October Newsletter

We made it through the first very busy month of September! This is another detailed but really comprehensive newsletter with some reminders for the Busy Bee classroom! Please take some time to read when you get a chance (as we know families are extremely busy) and access if there are any questions that should arise along the way.

October Calendar

This is our October calendar! Although we can send home a paper copy, this blog has the most up to date information! We have a couple exciting events we are coordinating and will keep you posted there. Check out the blog calendar regularly for upcoming dates and information or the Homework & Reminders page.

The Important Thing About Reading

We have been thinking about what good readers do! So we decided to review in the same pattern as 'The Important Book' introduced last week. We reread this book and worked on the important things of reading.   

We have been introduced to the concept that we have strategies to use when we get stuck on a word. These strategies align with the Science of Reading and our new Ministry of Education Language curriculum. We will be introducing these over the course of Grade 1 with words we are stuck on. 

A more detailed version has come home on the yellow sheet in your child's Snuggle Up & Read folder. It doesn't look quite the same but certainly the same strategies are listed and are on your child's reading bookmark in their folder. We will be focusing on introducing/reinforcing one strategy per week, although we want these to be a tool box of strategies. What works for one student, may not be the best or most efficient strategy for another student. When we use these strategies, this helps us with decoding our words to read accurately what is written. 

However, the second part of reading is remembering and understanding what we read. After reading, we want to be able to retell the book and answer some questions about what we read. These two components (decoding and comprehending) are what bumps up your child's reading level.

Soon, Mrs. Herbert will be buzzing with each student for them to read a challenge level text to her. We do this regularly. Mrs. Herbert will record your child's updated reading level and record their reading goals to work on as they bump up to continue to be excellent readers. We celebrate all the good reading practice we do!  

The other component of reading that we are working on is acquiring high frequency words, letter sounds, phonological awareness and print concepts. We pluck away on these at school but some activities will come home to support our learning in these areas (ie high frequency word practice or letter sounds or letter identification depending on your child's developmental reading level that will come home later this month in our Snuggle Up & Read folders). 

We look forward to seeing how far our little readers will soar with their reading in Grade 1!! Thanks for all you do at home to support your child's reading!!