Happy March Break! I hope you are having a wonderful and relaxing start to your holiday. I am off tomorrow to Montreal for a few days for a mom-daughter trip with our youngest to celebrate her 16th birthday.
Last week was busy and productive in Room 166! In the mornings we focused on and finished our Jan Brett author study, reading and comparing The Mitten, The Hat, Annie and the Animals, and The First Dog. This week for The Mitten, we wrote ideas of what the animals in the story would be thinking (empathy) and the children shared how they call their grandmothers -- the grandmother in the story is called Baba. The children did a wonderful job designing and matching the patterns on two mittens, making them symmetrical (math concept). They also matched cut and pasted mittens, and solved a mitten mix-up problem. They traced a dot-to-dot number mitten (fine motor, numeracy), and retold the story with their own words. For the story The Hat, the children traced the letter H items related to the story (fine motor) and we compared characteristics of farm and wild animals. This carried on to the next Jan Brett book, "Annie and the Wild Animals. We shared and wrote "What makes a good pet?" and the children made and squirrel and bird feeder (like Annie) our of bread. Please help your child hang them from a tree or fence. This ties in nicely to what we'll focus on when we return from the holiday, which is Signs of Spring. We re-read The First Dog and then the children drew a picture and wrote about their favourite Jan Brett book. Many of her books are available to re-visit on YouTube.
The afternoons this week were all about rainbows and St. Patrick's Day. In Science, the children looked for as rainbow through a prism using flashlights, learned the basics of how rainbows are formed, and painted rainbows. I sent home instructions on how to see a rainbow using a pan of water, a mirror, and a flashlight. We also turned pennies into "gold" by putting them in a mixture of vinegar and salt. We predicted, observed and learned (concluded) which mixture (of water, water and salt, vinegar, or vinegar and salt) would turn the penny golden the quickest. The instructions for this went home in their St. Patrick's Day folder too. Miss. Nisker also did a baking soda and vinegar experiment with the children making "magic rocks." With their Book Buddies, the children read and drew St. Patrick's Day symbols. In math, we played a fun game with rainbow Skittles and ten-frames in which I showed the children a number between 1-10 and they represented it on the 10-frame with rainbow Skittles. They didn't eat them because they were all sharing them! :) We also did Rocket rainbow candy colour graphing and counting/sorting. In Guided Reading, the children read and coloured a little poem booklet called "Leprechaun" and we practised the poem "The Tiny Little Leprechaun" as well as a few cute finger plays and other poems. In Art, the children made a leprechaun poster, cutting pieces out and using a fork to make the orange beard/fork. They also made golden glitter coins. In Literacy, the children helped me spell St. Patrick's Day words on chart paper, and shared what they wish for, and then they wrote their ideas and pictures down and finished the sentence "I Wish..." in their own words. Thank you to Catherine who brought in a real Irish tam as well as a necklace and pin from St. Patrick's Day. The children's folders went home in Friday's mail bag.
Friday from 2-3 p.m. was Earth Hour at LKS. We will talk a lot more about Earth Day as it approaches (April 22).
A big thank you to Claire who brought in an item for the Take-Apart Centre - a clock! Donations are still welcome - it's a popular centre and I'll keep it open the week we come back. Then I'll turn it into a flower shop (tied to our upcoming unit on Canadian Currency). Thank you as well to Matthew who made Easter colours of play dough, to Hannah's mom who helped out in the Computer Lab and to Avery's dad who was our Mystery Reader.
The popcorn words this week were SAY and WITH. The homework for this week is to have a wonderful March Break and to write about what you did in your journal (SKs). :)
If you get green plastic fruit baskets from the grocery store please send them in for an Easter activity. Thank you.
That's the news from our room! The week after the holiday we will be doing several Easter/Spring-themed activities - our Spring Craft Party will be on Thursday (thank you in advance to the parent volunteers!) and then Easter weekend is that weekend! What a busy March it has been.
I hope you have a WONDERFUL March Break with your children!
