Happy New Year!

Welcome back! I hope everyone enjoyed a restful holiday with family and friends. We have been back at school for a few days and are quickly getting back into our routine. December was so busy that there was not much time to post so I thought I'd do a little catch up now!

First, Mme. Hanson and I would like to thank everyone for the donations to our 'angels' from the Angel Tree. We hope it brightened their Christmas morning! Here are a couple of photos of the gifts we sent to our 'angels' because of your support and generosity.

Thank You!!

We were very fortunate to have a little visitor in our classroom for the month of December. Jingles, the elf, appeared one day with a letter for us to read. He asked if he could stay with us until the holidays and we agreed - of course! We enjoyed trying to find him each morning and searching for his letters. Jingles even put up a Christmas tree for us and delivered Polar Express bells. Here are some pictures of our little friend and a copy of his first letter.

Jingles with his first letter for us.

Jingles met our friend Pete the Cat.

We even found Jingles sleeping in our class library!

Click here to read the letter.

December was a lot of fun and January promises to be very busy in Grade 1. Happy New Year to all!

Baby Jacob's Visit!

Our classes are participating in the Roots of Empathy program this year. We have monthly visits from our 'Roots babies' which allow us to learn about how babies grow and develop. Each time the baby visits, we record the changes we notice as we observe our little visitor. Our 'Roots Moms' also tell us about the milestones the baby has reached since the last visit.

My homeroom's baby is Baby Jacob and we adore him! He brought some festive cheer to our room with his adorable Santa suit. The next time we see Baby Jacob will be in the new year and we can't wait to see how much he grows between now and then. Here are a couple of pictures from his latest visit.

Baby Jacob arrived in his Santa suit!

He really enjoyed exploring these toys.

We observed how Baby Jacob interacted with the doll.

He loved his Thomas the Tank Engine blanket that Julia gave him.

Baby Jacob really liked his Christmas gift from our class - a book of course!
He's already on his way to becoming a great reader!

We love Laura Numeroff!

Laura Numeroff's books have delivered many laughs in our classroom over the past few weeks. We have read several of her books including:
   

    
















We were so inspired by her funny stories that we decided to write stories about our favourite little mouse with a Christmas theme. Our focus in writing this month has been organizing our ideas so that they make sense to our readers. These stories allowed us to work on this skill while having fun at the same time. Our work is now on display in the hall and we hope our friends enjoy reading our stories! Here's a little peek at the final product.

 We are becoming great writers and storytellers!

Word Wall Words - Week of December 5

Here are the word wall words for this week:

did *
new
there
thing *
to

Words with a * are rhyming words. How many can you list?

Our Word Wall...so far!

For anyone who is interested, here is a link to a copy of our Word Wall. It can be used for practise at home or your child may wish to refer to it when writing. Children are encouraged to use these 'personal word walls' at their desks during writing activities.