Welcome to Grade 1 and Our Busy Bee Classroom!

Dear Grade 1 Busy Bees & Families,
Welcome to our blog! This is a great spot to keep up with all the happenings of what we get up to during our time at school! Explore the blog & check out all the information. You will be subscribed to this blog later this week so you can stay up to date with all our learning. Also, please bookmark this blog on your favourite device as it a great reference tool of all information for our class!
Looking forward to a great year with you all!
Take care!
Mrs. Herbert

Last Day of School Excitement!

What a great way to spend the last day of Grade 1/2 with some fun math, awards and gifts! We certainly were excited to finish up with a bee movie with a theme of ‘beeing’ yourself! Thank you to the families that sent in some surprise treats today as well! They were enjoyed with the movie! 

Have the best summer break, Busy Bees!

June Estimate Jar!

Today, we did our final Estimate Jar for the school year!!   

Each student wrote down their estimate on their white board of how many treats were in the jar. This time they were NOT the same size or item so it made it a little more tricky as our final estimate jar challenge of the school year!  

We decided today we would count by 2’s because we know counting by ones takes us a long time, and we wanted to move on to other fun math activities today!

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 candies.

Avery was our winner! She was just 1 away from the 27 treats we had in total! Our winner knew our tradition is to share the treats with everyone in the class. So we divided them up to share practicing our division skills we have been exploring in math. Each of the class friends got 1 with our equal sharing with a remainder. The 8 remainder were given to Avery as the winner to share with her family! 

Some sweet math on this last day of Grade 1/2 in the Busy Bee classroom!

Summer Break Wishes From Mrs. Herbert

   

Wishing all the Grade 1/2 Busy Bee families a wonderful, safe, healthy, and rejuvenating summer break!! 

Thank you for all the wonderful work and support from home to build these little learners! It takes a village to raise such amazing little people! They have grown so much and in so many ways! You should be proud of your little one! 

To our 2025-2026 Busy Bees...Congratulations! You did it! I wish each and every one of you the very best and continued success next year!! Thank you for letting me be your teacher and learning with me. I am proud of you for all you have learned to do this school year and the wonderful character traits you are instilling in yourselves. I just know you will go on to do great things, when you put your mind to it! Have a great summer!! 

We welcome all our little learners back to school on Tuesday, September 8, 2026 for a fresh start to a new year!!

SPCS Play Day!

The weather cooperated so perfectly so we could participate in our school wide Play Day!! It was warm but we got to cool down with some great games organized by Mrs. Hobson and Mrs. Boyd with our 7/8 class to run stations and our 6/7 class as the team leaders. 

Also, we enjoyed a school wide picnic with a hot dog and cake lunch organized by School Council! Thank you to those wonderful parents that helped make that happen! 

We had a blast and finished up with some freezies as a treat! What a great way to end the day and prepare us for our last day of school tomorrow!

Learning Buddies Year End Celebration!

Today, we celebrated the end of the school year with our learning buddies! We wanted to say thank you to them with a special card we made and indulged in a little 'make your own' ice cream sundae party. 

We so greatly appreciate all the learning buddies have helped us do this year! We are a bunch of smarties thanks to them! 

Have a great summer to Mr. Glover & Mr. Steinmann's Grade 5/6 class!  

Penpal Video Conference Meet & Greet

Today, we had the pleasure of meeting our penpals from Little Falls Public School. We have been writing back and forth since Christmas time and having a blast getting mail from our new friends. We invited them to a video conference so we could see them in real life! We sent them a care package to open today with a treat for each of them! And we got a special delivery to have to open as well from them! It was fun to see our penpals and maybe one day we will get to meet in person! Thank you to Mrs. Brodhagen's 1B class for working with us to be better writers and make a friend along the way. 

South Perth's Steps for Seniors

We braved the wet weather to put some Steps in for Seniors!

ONE CARE provides a range of supportive care services that enable seniors and people with disabilities to enjoy better quality of life as they age at home. ONE CARE Home & Community Support Services is a community based, charitable, not-for-profit health organization providing supportive care to families in Huron and Perth Counties and surrounding area. All of the money you raise as part of Steps for Seniors 2026 will help raise funds to support the purchase of new vehicles for our transportation program in Huron and Perth Counties.

There is still time to donate to this link to contribute to a great cause! Thanks for all your support!

A little wind and rain didn't get our spirits down knowing we are helping those in our community!

As Good As Gold - Learning About Integrity

Throughout the year, we have been learning about many different character traits. This month, we have been focusing on a biggie! We have been learning about integrity as we feel it encompasses many of the other character traits into one. We have read books, listened to some songs and watched videos all about this concept to help us understand what this big idea means. We caught on pretty quick but certainly expanded our thinking too! We brainstormed all the ideas we have been learning about and have posted in our classroom:

We read these books:

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

  

We are working hard on focusing on making good choices and going to try our best to demonstrate integrity as our goal over the summer to start off next year to a great start!

Camp Bimini Year End Class Field Trip!

We had so much fun on our adventure to Camp Bimini! So much to see, do and explore! This really was a great trip for Busy Bees that like to see, touch and do! 

Thank you to the parent volunteers for coming along! We really appreciate having that support to makes these trips possible. And we also want to thank School Council funds to make this a much more cost effective trip for each of little Busy Bees! 

Here are a few pictures from our trip...

Phonics Lesson 104 &105 Prefixes un-, re-, pre-, dis-: June 15 - 19 (Reading Practice Book)

Phonics Lessons - June 15 - 19

For our final week of phonics learning, we are combining a few lessons into one to review our understanding of the prefixes introduced last week. 

Review of Lessons 104-105: Prefixes un-, re-, pre-, dis- 

Morphemes that are added to the beginning of a word are called prefixes. This week we are reviewing several prefixes: 

un -: The prefix un- can have two meanings. un- means not or opposite. So unhappy means not happy or not in a good mood. In some words in means the opposite like in the words unzip. Zip means close but then unzip means the opposite where I can unzip my backpack open. Other examples are unkind, untie, unreal and uncover. 

pre-: This prefix means before like in the word preview. The word preview means watch or view before. We watch previews of movies before watching the whole movie. Other examples are preheat, premade and prewash.

re-: This prefix means again or back like in the word redo. The word means to do again. I can redo my work or redo the laces on my show. Other examples are refill, rerun, retell, return and rewind. 

dis-: This prefix means not or apart. If you disagree with someone, you do not agree or have the opposite opinion. If you disconnect something, you take it apart so it is not connected. Other examples are disadvantage, dishonest and dislike. 

We have two stories this week to focus on the prefixes pre-, re- and dis-:

In this week's text called, Dinner At Grandma's, students are looking for words that have the prefixes pre- and re-. They are looking to highlight (the whole word that has that spelling pattern) . Students are also asked to illustrate the story to demonstrate their understanding of the text. 

In our second text for the week titled, Poppy the Gamer, students are looking for words that have the prefix dis-. They are looking to highlight (the whole word that has that spelling pattern). Students are also asked to illustrate the story to demonstrate their understanding of the text. 

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).

AND THAT'S A WRAP!

Students have worked super hard to apply their phonics knowledge in their reading and writing over the school year. It is cumulative understanding with these lessons. They are very excited to be wrapping up these lessons and take their learning into the next school year with them. At the end of this school year, they will be bringing home these workbooks as a way to practice their reading skills as one more resource to read grade level texts over the summer since our classroom books have to stay at school. Please see the blog post with other reading resources that are available over the summer.

Thanks for all your support to help students apply their skills and become effective and efficient readers!  

Happy reading!

Reading & Math Home Resources for Summer

LANGUAGE & MATH HOME RESOURCES FOR SUMMER

Hello Busy Bee Families,

We are pleased to announce that the following language and math resources will be available for summer use for students. Play based learning shows greater results in retention for students in primary grades and some of these activities are award winning for their support in student learning. These comprehensive learning programs offer unlimited practice across thousands of skills—all of which are aligned to the provincial curriculum. These programs are adaptive and will adjust based on your child's demonstrated understanding of the material. These are great activities to continue to build on skills over the summer.  

Math Resources:

mpower.tvo.org/students (login information on the password page in your child’s planner)	https://www.teachyourmonster.org/account/users/sign_in (login information on the password page in your child’s planner - same as Teach Your Monster to Read) **Website version is free but the app may cost to download on a tablet.**

Language Resources:

RAZ Kids / Kids A-Z **Available until July 31**
www.kidsa-z.com (login information on the password page in your child’s planner) **Website and App both FREE**	www.teachyourmonster.org (login information on the password page in your child’s planner) **Website version is free but the app may cost to download on a tablet.**

CNE Free Children's Pass

 

The CNE has provided our board with a Kids School Pass for the 2026 season!

This pass offers free grounds admission to the 2026 CNE for children aged 13 and under. This pass can be downloaded and scanned on a smartphone at the gate or printed.

The CNE will take place from August 21 to September 7, 2026.

Click here to get the pass.

Outdoor Phys. Ed Time!

 

It's been a great week, despite the threats of rainy weather, to get outside, enjoy some fresh air and get our bodies moving in different ways with various activities. 

Planting the Busy Bee Sunflower Garden

 

This week we prepped and planted our Sunflower garden at the school playground! This is one of 5 gardens the students of the school plant and watch grow! We decide to plant sunflowers since they are vital to bees by providing highly accessible nectar and nutrient-rich pollen. Surprisingly, sunflower pollen also acts as a natural medicine for them! We are excited to see them grow! 

Phonics Lesson 102 Suffix -less/-ful & Lesson 103-105 Prefixes un-, re-, pre-, dis-: June 8 - 12 (Reading Practice Book)

Phonics Lessons - June 8 - 12

We are continuing with our understanding of morphemes this week. A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning in a language. Morphemes are the word parts that change a word's meaning. A suffix is a morpheme we add to the end of a word. We have covered the suffixes -s, -es, -er, -est, -ly, -ful and -less. This week we are also introducing prefixes to our understanding. 

Lesson 102: Suffix -ful/-less

We already know several suffixes like -s, -es, -er, est and ly. This week we learned about the two suffixes -ful and -less. 

-less: The suffix -less has a schwa sound with it sounded more like lis, like in the word sleepless. The suffix - less means without. So in sleepless, the suffix -less means without sleep. Other examples are helpless, endless and hopeless.

-ful: The suffix -ful means full of like in the word helpful. Helpful means full of help. If a person is being helpful, they are giving a lot of help to you. 

In this week's text called, A Dreadful, Stormy Day, students are looking for words that have the -less or -ful suffix on words. They are looking to highlight (the whole word that has that spelling pattern). Students are also asked to illustrate the story to demonstrate their understanding of the text.

Combined Lessons 103-105: Prefixes un-, re-, pre-, dis- 

Morphemes that are added to the beginning of a word are called prefixes. This week we introduced several prefixes: 

un -: The prefix un- can have two meanings. un- means not or opposite. So unhappy means not happy or not in a good mood. In some words in means the opposite like in the words unzip. Zip means close but then unzip means the opposite where I can unzip my backpack open. Other examples are unkind, untie, unreal and uncover. 

pre-: This prefix means before like in the word preview. The word preview means watch or view before. We watch previews of movies before watching the whole movie. Other examples are preheat, premade and prewash.

re-: This prefix means again or back like in the word redo. The word means to do again. I can redo my work or redo the laces on my show. Other examples are refill, rerun, retell, return and rewind. 

dis-: This prefix means not or apart. If you disagree with someone, you do not agree or have the opposite opinion. If you disconnect something, you take it apart so it is not connected. Other examples are disadvantage, dishonest and dislike. 

In this week's text called, Unlucky, students are looking for words that have the prefix un-. They are looking to highlight (the whole word that has that spelling pattern). Students are also asked to illustrate the story to demonstrate their understanding of the text. 

We will be working through the rest of the stories that focus on the other prefixes (re-, pre- and dis-) next week to wrap up our phonics learning for this school year.  

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:

• answer
• honest
• honour

This week's new words:

• truth
• truly

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!

Learning About Fractions With Cake!!

 

We have been introduced to the math concept about fractions while we also happen to be learning about fairness in May! Mrs. Herbert baked a rectangular shaped cake this week and iced it to share with the class. She started by sharing with the leader and 'cutting' one SMALL piece for them and the rest Mrs. Herbert got to eat. The students were pretty quick to realize that that was not fair for more than one reason (a: there are more students in the class than just the leader and b: the leader didn't get an equal piece compared to Mrs. Herbert's).

So we tried again (really we only scored the icing so we didn't make a mess of the cake!) We shared it equally and learned the name of one 'half'. When we divide something into two equal pieces, we call that one half.  

We decided that was too much cake for two people so we demonstrated about what the size would look like if 3 were sharing and 4, to include others. However, they were catching on that not everyone was getting one and we needed more parts. Well the pieces definitely got smaller when we added more and more people to get a part of the cake. It can also be tricky to got into equal pieces on our first try! 

And to be FAIR, we wanted to make sure everyone got a piece of our cake so we figured out how to cut the cake into 20 equal pieces and served it up as a special math treat today! 

This was a tasty introduction into parts of a whole, called fractions. We will be learning more as we explore and investigate the concept of fractions this week! Test out our knowledge of the fraction names! 

Choose Not To Use Challenge Wrap Up Day

This past month, the whole school had been challenged to 'choose not to use' as part of way to understand how to positively support our mental health and wellbeing. The school's Mental Health and Wellbeing Team challenged each class 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 and engaged in some really great activities at electives and with some activities planned and ran by the school's Mental Health and Wellbeing group. 

Today, we wrapped up our month long challenge and enjoyed some outside time together as a whole school with some additional play time and a treat! What a beautiful day to enjoy our successes with our challenge! We challenge you to keep it up and make a conscious effort to continue to choose other activities that are better for your mind and body than screens! 

 

Phonics Lesson 101 Suffix -ly: June 1 - 4 (Reading Practice Book)

Phonics Lessons - June 1 - 4

This week we continued expanding our knowledge of morphemes. A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning in a language. Morphemes are the word parts that change a word's meaning. A suffix is a morpheme we add to the end of a word. This week we are going to focus on the suffixes -s, -es, -er and -est. 

Lesson 101: Suffix -ly

We already know a few suffixes: -s, -es, -er and -est.   

The suffix -ly is pronounced with the y making a long e sound like in the word slowly.

-ly means like or manner of. Words that end in -ly are usually adverbs. Adverbs are words that describe actions or things that are happening. For example in the sentence "Tom drives slowly,' slowly tells us how Tom drives. 

In this week's text called, Rollercoaster, students are looking for words that have the -ly suffix on adverbs. They are looking to highlight (the whole word that has that spelling pattern). 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:

• about
• answer

This week's new words:

• honest
• honour

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. After completing, parents are to initial at the indicated spot at the top. 

This week, we are have completed one lesson so there will be one story 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!

May Estimate Jar

  

This week, we did our May Estimate Jar since May school days have now disappeared!   

Each student wrote down their estimate on their white board of how many fruit chewy candies were in the jar. 

We decided today we would count by 5's because we know counting that way takes less time and it was super close to lunch time as well!  

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 candies. We are getting much faster at comparing numbers!

Fateh was our winner (funny enough he won last year's May estimate jar as well!) and was the closest estimate to the 66 treats we had in total! Our winner knew our tradition is to share the treats with everyone in the class. We had enough for everyone to have 3. We created our first division sentence with 66 divided by 20 to be introduced to that type of number sentence. Since there were 6 remainder that was Fateh's winnings! Some sweet math on a beautiful, sunny day to wrap up May!