Patterns and Friendship celebration

Animal behaviour in winter

For the last several weeks we have been learning about animals behaviours in winter. Hopefully your child explained the various adaptations that animals adapt to survive in the winter. They brought home a worksheet earlier this month that can be used as a starting point for conversation. They practiced in English and French at school so that they could share their knowledge with you. We also polled various classes with pets as to whether or not they noticed any changes in the class pets this January. 

We learned about various animals that hibernate and also learned the difference between hibernation and torpor. Bears actually go into torpor during the winter months. You can ask your child to sing our song about hibernation.

For animals that migrate we have been practicing many different animal poses. This also helps to get us up and moving on these wet days. Watch for a worksheet to come home soon about migrating animals. 

Patterns 

As you may have seen on Ed Inform, we have been making patterns in class. We are using toys and manipulative that we have in the classroom. We have been using screws, nuts and washers as well. The skills we have been practicing are: making a pattern, naming patterns and extending patterns. We have also been looking at different ways to use objects to make patterns such as by the colour of the object, the shape, the size and the direction which the object faces. 

We have been playing a game with pattern blocks and police cars. A child makes a pattern with a mistake in the pattern. A second child then drives the police car along the pattern until they find and correct the mistake. 

Friendship and Kindness Celebration

As we are almost finished our unit about animals in winter. We will beginning a unit on Friendship and Kindness. We will spend time talking about the qualities and virtues of a good friend and how we can practice those at school and at home.

As Valentine's Day is not on a school day this year, we are going to postpone our Valentine's card exchange until later in our Friendship unit around February 20 or 21st. Please do not send any cards before that date. I will be sending out more details about that special day.

In preparation for our day, here is what I am thinking around Valentine's Day cards. This year I would like the children to think deeply about the people in their class and write a message that describes the other child using the vocabulary we will be working on in class, such as:

• Tu es gentil (you are kind)
• Tu es amiable (you are friendly)
• Tu es serviable (you are helpful) 

The children should bring their prepared Valentines for our celebration. Watch for more information to come. Here is a list of the children in the class:   List of class first names

Ed Inform

There are many pictures of our unit on patterns as well as I am beginning to finish off the assessments for the students. We will be moving on to addition and subtraction soon. 

What you can do at home:

1. Go on a pattern hunt at home with your child and see what has a pattern on it in your home. Can you find something with more than 3 elements in the core of the pattern? Can you find a circular pattern? What about a pattern that uses size or direction of objects to create an interesting pattern?
2. Ask your child to share what they know about hibernation or animals that migrate.
3. Keep reading to your child. Have your child practice connecting the first letter sound and using the picture to make accurate predictions about new words.