We had so much fun in the Makerspace last week. Mr. Ray challenged us to make a Scribble bot. He told us that we would need to use our engineering skills to make a moving robot. He told us the materials for building would be three markers, a plastic cup, a motor, a battery pack, and lots of tape. First we made a plan of what we wanted to build.
The next step was to start building. It took lots of patience to attach all of the parts. We had to tape our markers inside the cup, making sure everything was stable. There was a lot of trial and error with attaching the battery pack wires to the motor. Mr. Ray helped us problem-solve and get our scribble bots ready to scribble.
The scribble bots started to move and scribble. It was so exciting to watch them move and scribble on the paper. Take a look at them in action below.
Grade 1A couldn’t keep it in, heavens know they tried, so we went outside for a small picnic, here’s the evidence:
The students had another two weeks of great learning at the OJCS. Spring is finally here so we started exploring the vocabulary, reading stories and short poems, creating sentences with the words and doing fun and educational activities. We also visited the restaurants that Grade 5 created. We saw the menus, we spoke with the owners, ordered food and drinks in French, and we voted for the best restaurant. The kids enjoyed it a lot.We celebrated the 75th anniversary of Israel by working in different stations, making the salads for the pitas and the falafel,l and dancing traditional dances. Finally the students learned the song ”tête, épaule, genou et pieds” because the body is our next topic. On Friday they did reading buddies with Grade 5. Grade 1 proudly read to them, wrote a few simple sentences related to the story, and played word games. As we are slowly heading to the end of the school year, I see my stars truly SHINE!.Their talent to switch from Hebrew to French and vice versa is staggering.They learn from me, and I learn from them!!!!!!
It was a special week at school. On Yom Hazikaron, we remembered the brave Israeli soldiers who fought for Israel.
Yom Ha’atzmaut was a day full of celebration on Israel’s 75th birthday. We started by decorating our classroom doors and lockers in blue and white. We think we did a pretty good job, don’t you?
All the classes had the opportunity to visit different stations. We learned a special dance, played Twister with JNF, sang karaoke, played musical chairs, and did Israeli Just Dance.
At lunch, we ate delicious falafel. Special Thanks to Levi’s dad for helping make the falafel!
We finished the day with the whole school in the gym doing the special dance we learned in the morning. A birthday cupcake was the special treat we got to eat. It was such a fun day!
JNF Art Contest
The Jewish National Fund has created an art contest that students and families may participate in. Check out the pamphlet below to learn more about it!
Contest:
Kitah Alef’s Model Seder took place this past Monday. It was a memorable day: many children said it was their favourite day of the school year. Moreh Saar and Morah Ada were so proud of the children. They read and sang so beautifully.We hope the children sing beautifully as they celebrate together with family at the Seder tonight.
Wishing everyone a Chag Pesach Sameach!
The Grade One Team
We found the afikomen!
Our Innovation Day projects have been inspired by the book Make Way for Animals! A World of Wildlife Crossings by Meeg Pincus.
The students’ challenge was to design and build a structure to help animals cross busy roads. All projects needed to be strong enough to hold 100g, and at least 30 cm long.
The class got busy planning, designing, cutting cardboard, and gluing. Many designs changed during the building process, but ultimately they all worked. Students practiced their patience and perseverance and were proud of their accomplishments.
Innovation Day was exciting. Showing the projects to the parents and other classes was lots of fun. Now the students want to keep building and planning with more STEM challenges. As a teacher I have to admit these challenges are so much fun.
Hey there Grade 1,
It’s almost Pesach and I figured a bit of showing off our conversational skills is in order.
As a part of my methodology I find it extremely important to anchor the learning in real life, as language is a “use it or lose it” skill. That’s why I decided to connect Hebrew studies with Israeli culture. As you might know, the students surely realized it by now, Israelis are loving, passionate and welcoming, however they are also loud and full of Chutzpah!!
Taking this into consideration I decided to teach the kids several different ways to ask and answer people “how are you doing?”, some are formal, some are good old fashion cheeky!! Please feel free to listen to them answer about their day and ask me how I’m doing. It was a calculated risk, but boy am I bad at math, the kids can definitely talk, but now I got a classroom full of cheeky Israeli sounding kids.
Have a great Pesach vacation,
Saar.
La beauté de la langue française!!!
Alors les amis, why celebrate la Francophonie? I can think of thousands of reasons why but it comes down to one thing: we love the french language because it is smooth, rich, and flowing: we love speaking french because, with its nasal vowels and melodious intonation, it sounds very musical to a non-native ear. We want to learn French because it is also called the language of love, cooking, fashion, theater, visual arts, dance, and architecture.
During la francofête at our school, we had the pleasure to admire all the students from JK-grade 8 sing, dance, act, and recite poems in french!!!! All the teachers worked hard to make that happen. The students were proud of themselves, and their energy and passion were evident throughout the afternoon. During the week of the francophonie, they read books, heard stories, watched movies, played games, learned the ten magic words, and tasted french treats. Alors mes amis as the legendary teacher Dorothy Grace Boyajian once said, “Let us keep the flame of knowledge alive so we can light the candle of our children.”
A très bientôt!
