It's hard to believe that October is upon us. We have been busy this past few weeks and the children are certainly becoming familiar with the routines of Grade 1. Many new friendship have also been forming.

  In math we spent some time exploring patterns. We created, extended, named, and translated patterns using  variety of materials. We used the Bugs and Button App to help reinforce the concepts we had learned as well. The children also enjoyed learning about attributes and how to sort objects based on one or more attributes.

We have also been learning about subatizing, which is the ability to quickly look at an arrangement of objects and know how many there are without counting. The ability to see numbers in patterns is the foundation for number sense.

In social studies, we are learning about the rules for working together. Mrs. Kristensen read us Not a Box , and we shared ideas for the different things an ordinary cardboard box could be. We thought about race cars, castles, a rocket ship, mountains, and the base of a hot air balloon. Then each group was given a cardboard box full of various materials like tape, yarn, markers, paper plates etc. Our challenge was to apply what we had learned about working together, and create something out of the box using only what was found inside. The children worked so well together, negotiating and sharing ideas, ensuring everyone had a job, and encouraging one another. The results were fantastic!