Hi Everyone!

Welcome to the blog! We’ve had an awesome first couple of weeks of school! Grade 1 is such a huge change from Kindergarten but our class seems to be adjusting well! 

It was great to see so many families out at our Meet the Teacher night!  It’s always neat to see just how excited the students get to have you in our room.  They're already so proud of being in Grade 1 and that’s just awesome!  In our class this year, we have 20 students – 13 girls and 7 boys:

Abigail                 Layla
Berkley                Lizzie
Chloe                   Madison E.
Danica                 Madison P.
Gavin                   Nisarg
Hailey                  Peyton
Hayden                Reilly
Kaiden                 Serenity
Keetly                  Seth
Larsen                  Taryn

Yesterday I sent out our Class Phone list! It’s very possible that I made a typo while inputting all your phone numbers so please let me know if there are any mistakes!

Here’s a brief summary of what we’ve been up to in Grade 1:

In Language Arts we’ve been reviewing our letter sounds and printing.  We’ve also been practising our 5 sight words which are written every week in the agenda.  Each week we will practise these sight words and we ask that you please practise them at home!  It is important that the students are able to READ (not spell- but if they can spell them woohoo!) these words without trying to sound them out.  I mentioned to many of you last night that our home reading program will begin in October.  Thank you to the parents who signed up to exchange home reading!  I will be emailing you closer to the start date. 

In Math, we began with printing numbers 1-10 as a review, as well as testing out different ways to represent them.  Our first two units in math are about numbers 1-10 and patterning.  In Science we’ve begun our Colours unit, and this week we spent some time talking about colours in nature as well as manufactured colours.

This year, we do NOT have any peanut allergies in our own class. There are peanut allergies in other Grade 1 classes so we exercise caution when students have peanut butter sandwiches.  Please remind your student to wash their hands after handling anything with peanuts! 

Thanks to parents who signed up to bring snacks outside our door! When it comes time, you’ll receive a reminder for what you’ve signed up for via email. 

On Friday, September 27^th we are going on our Terry Fox Walk!  We are going to be walking with our Grade 4 book buddies.  We are leaving MMH just after announcements, and will walk over to Nicholas Sheran Lake.  We go around the lake once where we meet up with the other Westside Schools, and then we head back to MMH.  If you’d like to join us on our walk please just let me know via email. We ask that younger siblings don’t come for this, as usually the walk is pretty exhausting for our Grade 1s.  If you don’t want to walk, you are more than welcome to grab a spot at the lake and cheer us on when we pass! 

I think that’s it for now! Here are some important dates in September and October to mark your calendars with.  Have a great weekend!

-Anna Tsentouros

September

Wednesday September 18^th- Magazine fundraiser assembly @ 8:45
Thursday September 26^th- Terry Fox Assembly @ 11:15
Friday September 27^th- Terry Fox Walk @ 8:45

October

Wednesday October 2^nd- Family Assembly TBA
Wedneday October 9^th- School Council @ 6:30pm
Monday October 14^th- Thanksgiving! No School
Tuesday October 15^th- PD Day – No School
Tuesday October 22^nd- Picture Retake day
Thursday October 24^th- PD Day in Pm only
Friday October 25^th- PD Day no school
Thursday October 31^st- Halloween Parade in the pm