Dear families,
This week we continued our inquiries on Spring and 2- and 3-D shapes.
Spring: The children practised symetry skills by designing two matching eggs, fine motor skills by tracing Spring stencils, patterning with Easter stickers, reading Spring poems, and observing the natural world by looking at real birds' nests, then making their own for their eggs. We will compare the nests of several birds next week and learn more about how the natural world changes in Spring.
Shapes: The children did a search of classroom items that are circles, squares, rectangles and triangles, then tallied their results and wrote the total number. With shape tiles, they designed an object and then drew what they designed. We are learning how to accurately draw simple 2-D and 3-D objects. With their Reading Buddies, they made a 3-D design with the shape tiles and then drew it. The children tied the two inquiries together by mixing blue, green and white play doh to form a sphere called Earth :). The children also matched the name of the 2- and 3-D shapes with the written name, and matched up pictures of household 3-D shapes with similar shapes (i.e. can = cylinder, vase = cylinder).
The grades K-3 children had a wonderful time in the gym watching the Duffelbag Theatre production of Robin Hood!
Our Kindergarten yard got a new layer of wood chips which the children were very excited about. They are learning that the wood slowly turns into soil and gets compressed, so we need more.
The children have brought home their new April words list and April Homework Bingo.
The words of the week are WHAT and NEW, like "What's new?" The children completed a WHAT mini read and write booklet.
The children sang "Like a Lion" at this month's Sharing Assembly. Congratulations to Andrew, Cole and Ellie who received certificates for Honesty.
Thank you so much to Catherine who brought in her book about Feelings. We had a talk with the children about "the golden rule" of treating others as we would like to be treated.
Thank you also to Iris who brought in a beautiful bird nest (now we have three in our Science Centre!), to Stella's mom who helped the children in the Computer Lab and to Andrew's mom who was our Mystery Reader this week.
Thank you so much for bringing in the eggs! The children loved dipping them in "magic" foam (shaving cream with food colouring!). They have also made beautiful paper from the foam for their Mother's Day cards (shh!) :) The children will use the egg shell halves for an eco-friendly mini-planter. Stay tuned!
I apologize for the mix-up with the dates for Computer Lab volunteers. I learned that the April 15 PA Day would in fact NOT bump all the days ahead, after Stella's mom had kindly (re)-organized all the volunteers! The original dates are back in place. Thank you Theresa and thank you so much volunteers!
Next week we will be continuing our Inquiry into Spring/Earth (April is Earth Month, April 22 is Earth Day), and we will finish our Inquiry into shapes, with the childrens' folder going home on Friday.
The April Scholastic order is due on April 7, the 8th by the latest. Thank you!
I hope you have a lovely weekend!
Friday, April 1, 2016
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Week of March 28-April 1
Dear families,
I hope you are having a lovely Easter Weekend with family and friends!
Spring is in the air in Room 166! The children have been looking for "signs of Spring" in the playground and on their walk to school. The crocuses came up a few weeks ago, and daffodils, hyacinths, day lilies and tulip leaves are popping up in our Kindergarten garden. I cut several pussy willow branches from my garden at home and put them in a vase. The children looked at them carefully and we passed the branches around. We talked about looking carefully at nature (April is Earth month) and how we would paint them. The children drew the vase and painted them with four different water colours. Then we wrote several adjectives down on chart paper and the children turned them into a poem. (March 21 is World Poetry Day and we wrote another poem about Spring). We read several books about Easter and Spring, and read Jan Brett's beautiful book "The Easter Egg" about a rabbit who takes care of a fallen robin's egg. The children learned that to make "Easter" pastel colours with paint, they just need to add white! Each child painted designs on a large piece of paper, and then I showed them how I made an egg-shaped template which I used to trace a large egg shape on the back of each "poster." Then the children cut them out and we hung them up in the classroom. They look beautiful!
The children read and wrote a booklet called "Here is a..." with drawings and mixed-up Spring words that they had to "decode" and write correctly (i.e. unybn = bunny). We talked about how to do this and did this together first. The children then read the booklets. With their Reading Buddies, they started another booklets called "I Know it's Spring". I also set up an Easter/Spring card writing centre with helper words such as DEAR, TO, FROM, LOVE and several sentence starters as well as Spring words and a class list of names. They love the centre and I'll keep it open for another week or so.
We also talked about Spring weather and wrote about why we do or don't like rain. The children wrote their answers and drew a picture. These are on display on the class bulletin board. We also completed this month's "This is me in... (March) and the children completed the March calendar. These are on display on the hall bulletin board.
Our Science Centre has all natural objects now, as we talk more about the Earth. Stella and Samantha brought in two very different birds' nests which the children looked at and discussed. What did the birds use to make their nest? What kind of bird do you think built this nest? Why? How?
For Numeracy, the children took turns sorting, counting and graphing jelly beans. The children also used elastic bands and a 5x5 peg board to create 2-D shapes, which they then had to draw. We will continue this exercise next week, and will go more in depth about 2- and 3-D shapes. Please encourage your child to look for shapes in their home and in the natural world.
We had our Spring Craft Party on Wednesday. Thank you so much to the mom's of Elizabeth, Martel, Riley, Theo and William who volunteered their time and materials! The children had a wonderful time! It's nice to see the children transitioning independently from one activity to another.
Miss Nisker sent home instructions on how to make the St. Patrick's Day science experiment at home. Thank you!
Thank you to Tessa who shared her sea shells with us, to Matthew who showed and shared his awesome rock collection, to Christopher's mom who helped the children in the Computer Lab, and to Martel who stapled and stamped this month's Scholastic order forms. The next Scholastic order is due April 8. Thank you as well to Iris who brought in more electronics for our ever-popular "Take Apart Centre."
Next week we will continue our SPRING theme in the mornings and 2-D and 3-D SHAPES inquiry in the afternoons. Please send in a hollowed-out egg or two next week. We will decorate them with a magical mix of shaving cream and food colouring, and we'll also use them for making eco-friendly seed planters. One whole hollowed-out egg and one empty egg shell (please send in the larger half of the broken egg) would be terrific. Thank you!
It was our turn to play with the iPads this week. The children take 15-minute turns so that everyone has an opportunity to play with them. The children also enjoyed playing with the Easter coloured play-doh that Matthew's mom made, using various rollers and Spring shapes. Small motor skills are an important part of early learning, and they Juniors especially have made enormous progress here.
This Thursday will be our March Sharing Assembly, celebrating "Honesty." If your child will be receiving a certificate, I will email you.
That's my news for this week - see you on Tuesday!
I hope you are having a lovely Easter Weekend with family and friends!
Spring is in the air in Room 166! The children have been looking for "signs of Spring" in the playground and on their walk to school. The crocuses came up a few weeks ago, and daffodils, hyacinths, day lilies and tulip leaves are popping up in our Kindergarten garden. I cut several pussy willow branches from my garden at home and put them in a vase. The children looked at them carefully and we passed the branches around. We talked about looking carefully at nature (April is Earth month) and how we would paint them. The children drew the vase and painted them with four different water colours. Then we wrote several adjectives down on chart paper and the children turned them into a poem. (March 21 is World Poetry Day and we wrote another poem about Spring). We read several books about Easter and Spring, and read Jan Brett's beautiful book "The Easter Egg" about a rabbit who takes care of a fallen robin's egg. The children learned that to make "Easter" pastel colours with paint, they just need to add white! Each child painted designs on a large piece of paper, and then I showed them how I made an egg-shaped template which I used to trace a large egg shape on the back of each "poster." Then the children cut them out and we hung them up in the classroom. They look beautiful!
The children read and wrote a booklet called "Here is a..." with drawings and mixed-up Spring words that they had to "decode" and write correctly (i.e. unybn = bunny). We talked about how to do this and did this together first. The children then read the booklets. With their Reading Buddies, they started another booklets called "I Know it's Spring". I also set up an Easter/Spring card writing centre with helper words such as DEAR, TO, FROM, LOVE and several sentence starters as well as Spring words and a class list of names. They love the centre and I'll keep it open for another week or so.
We also talked about Spring weather and wrote about why we do or don't like rain. The children wrote their answers and drew a picture. These are on display on the class bulletin board. We also completed this month's "This is me in... (March) and the children completed the March calendar. These are on display on the hall bulletin board.
Our Science Centre has all natural objects now, as we talk more about the Earth. Stella and Samantha brought in two very different birds' nests which the children looked at and discussed. What did the birds use to make their nest? What kind of bird do you think built this nest? Why? How?
For Numeracy, the children took turns sorting, counting and graphing jelly beans. The children also used elastic bands and a 5x5 peg board to create 2-D shapes, which they then had to draw. We will continue this exercise next week, and will go more in depth about 2- and 3-D shapes. Please encourage your child to look for shapes in their home and in the natural world.
We had our Spring Craft Party on Wednesday. Thank you so much to the mom's of Elizabeth, Martel, Riley, Theo and William who volunteered their time and materials! The children had a wonderful time! It's nice to see the children transitioning independently from one activity to another.
Miss Nisker sent home instructions on how to make the St. Patrick's Day science experiment at home. Thank you!
Thank you to Tessa who shared her sea shells with us, to Matthew who showed and shared his awesome rock collection, to Christopher's mom who helped the children in the Computer Lab, and to Martel who stapled and stamped this month's Scholastic order forms. The next Scholastic order is due April 8. Thank you as well to Iris who brought in more electronics for our ever-popular "Take Apart Centre."
Next week we will continue our SPRING theme in the mornings and 2-D and 3-D SHAPES inquiry in the afternoons. Please send in a hollowed-out egg or two next week. We will decorate them with a magical mix of shaving cream and food colouring, and we'll also use them for making eco-friendly seed planters. One whole hollowed-out egg and one empty egg shell (please send in the larger half of the broken egg) would be terrific. Thank you!
It was our turn to play with the iPads this week. The children take 15-minute turns so that everyone has an opportunity to play with them. The children also enjoyed playing with the Easter coloured play-doh that Matthew's mom made, using various rollers and Spring shapes. Small motor skills are an important part of early learning, and they Juniors especially have made enormous progress here.
This Thursday will be our March Sharing Assembly, celebrating "Honesty." If your child will be receiving a certificate, I will email you.
That's my news for this week - see you on Tuesday!
Sunday, March 13, 2016
Week of March 14-18
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!
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!
Sunday, March 6, 2016
Week of March 7-11
Dear families,
I hope you are enjoying this lovely weekend.
It's hard to believe that there is only one week until the March Break! We still enjoyed the snow last week though and did a lot of snow-themed activities. To finish our Book Study on The Snowy Day, the children completed an art project with a pop-up scene that had five different elements of the story. They coloured, cut and glued the pictures and then had fun glueing cotton wool "snow" on it. The children also wrote and illustrated a little book about snow, and I taught them all the compound words we can make with "snow." The SKs wrote them out and also matched the pictures to words. We learned a poem called "Snowman" and the children also drew a picture of themselves wearing their snow clothes. Then they made a "snowstorm" on their picture using marbles and white glitter paint. Their art is on the hall bulletin board. The children also made chalk art of a snow scene at night. The SKs competed a winter word match and the JKs counted "frosty friends" and practised counting and writing numbers. The children also finished their "text-to-self" connection work, comparing themselves with Peter from the story. This week's they drew "I dream" and "I feel sad." Empathy is one of the TDSB character traits and this story teaches it well. Finally, we finished our comparison of The Snowy Day to Thoams' Snowsuit, and the children completed the sentence, "This book is funny because..." This finished Book Study folder went home in Friday's mailbags.
The JK homework for this weekend is to cut and paste snowman melting sequence. They did a similar exercise in class this week. The SK homework is to unscramble and write the sentences.
This week's snowstorm was an easy introduction to the saying that March "comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion!" In Friday's mail bag you will also find the new March words and homework bingo.
This week we also continued our Jan Brett author study, starting with her retelling of the Ukranian folktale "The Mitten." We watched a video of Brett drawing the bear from her story. Following the theme of mittens, I gave each child a paper left and right mitten and asked them to colour and decorate them the same (symmetry is the math skill here). They did a fantastic job and I was really impressed with how carefully they matched their mittens. They are on display on our classroom bulletin board. With their Book Buddies, the children and coloured a booklets called " Where are my mittens?" The JKs read the booklets, and the SKs had to fill in blanks by writing. I prepared mittens on card stock with a dot-to-dot alphabet, but instead of using a pencil, the children practiced their fine motor skills by threading through each hole punched where the dots would be. I think they really enjoyed this activity and were surprised at how challenging it was! In the classroom I use dull tapestry needles, which you get at a craft store.
Thank you so much to Chloe's mom who was our Mystery Reader this week.
The Scholastic order is due by Monday at the latest. Thank you.
The children also made mini read and write books of the sight words BY and COME. When they are finished I always ask them to spell the word for me.
A note about safety - please remember that the Kindergarten Yard is closed after school and is for the use of the B and A program. Children need to be supervised at all times and to follow the playground safety rules posted on the fence. On weekends, the yard is not to be used as a dog park. Thank you.
Next week we will continue our Author Study of Jan Brett in the mornings, and in the afternoons we will do lots of fun numeracy and literacy St. Patrick's Day activities. We'll also make rocks with gold coins in them and will learn about rainbows in Science. In Art we'll make a leprechaun.
I hope you have a terrific week!!
I hope you are enjoying this lovely weekend.
It's hard to believe that there is only one week until the March Break! We still enjoyed the snow last week though and did a lot of snow-themed activities. To finish our Book Study on The Snowy Day, the children completed an art project with a pop-up scene that had five different elements of the story. They coloured, cut and glued the pictures and then had fun glueing cotton wool "snow" on it. The children also wrote and illustrated a little book about snow, and I taught them all the compound words we can make with "snow." The SKs wrote them out and also matched the pictures to words. We learned a poem called "Snowman" and the children also drew a picture of themselves wearing their snow clothes. Then they made a "snowstorm" on their picture using marbles and white glitter paint. Their art is on the hall bulletin board. The children also made chalk art of a snow scene at night. The SKs competed a winter word match and the JKs counted "frosty friends" and practised counting and writing numbers. The children also finished their "text-to-self" connection work, comparing themselves with Peter from the story. This week's they drew "I dream" and "I feel sad." Empathy is one of the TDSB character traits and this story teaches it well. Finally, we finished our comparison of The Snowy Day to Thoams' Snowsuit, and the children completed the sentence, "This book is funny because..." This finished Book Study folder went home in Friday's mailbags.
The JK homework for this weekend is to cut and paste snowman melting sequence. They did a similar exercise in class this week. The SK homework is to unscramble and write the sentences.
This week's snowstorm was an easy introduction to the saying that March "comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion!" In Friday's mail bag you will also find the new March words and homework bingo.
This week we also continued our Jan Brett author study, starting with her retelling of the Ukranian folktale "The Mitten." We watched a video of Brett drawing the bear from her story. Following the theme of mittens, I gave each child a paper left and right mitten and asked them to colour and decorate them the same (symmetry is the math skill here). They did a fantastic job and I was really impressed with how carefully they matched their mittens. They are on display on our classroom bulletin board. With their Book Buddies, the children and coloured a booklets called " Where are my mittens?" The JKs read the booklets, and the SKs had to fill in blanks by writing. I prepared mittens on card stock with a dot-to-dot alphabet, but instead of using a pencil, the children practiced their fine motor skills by threading through each hole punched where the dots would be. I think they really enjoyed this activity and were surprised at how challenging it was! In the classroom I use dull tapestry needles, which you get at a craft store.
Thank you so much to Chloe's mom who was our Mystery Reader this week.
The Scholastic order is due by Monday at the latest. Thank you.
The children also made mini read and write books of the sight words BY and COME. When they are finished I always ask them to spell the word for me.
A note about safety - please remember that the Kindergarten Yard is closed after school and is for the use of the B and A program. Children need to be supervised at all times and to follow the playground safety rules posted on the fence. On weekends, the yard is not to be used as a dog park. Thank you.
Next week we will continue our Author Study of Jan Brett in the mornings, and in the afternoons we will do lots of fun numeracy and literacy St. Patrick's Day activities. We'll also make rocks with gold coins in them and will learn about rainbows in Science. In Art we'll make a leprechaun.
I hope you have a terrific week!!
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Week of February 29-March 4
Dear families,
My apologies for not being able to update my blog last week due to illness -
A lot has been happening in Room 166! The week before last it was our turn to use the iPads. Each child had 15 minutes to play educational games on the device and we can't wait until it is our turn again! Thank you to Parent Council for providing the iPads.
It was a pleasure meeting with you for parent-teacher interviews. If you didn't get a chance to book an interview just send me an email and we will coordinate a time.
The 100th Day of School Party was a terrific success - thank you so much to the volunteers! The children stacked 100 cups and pennies, dabbed 100 dots, ate 100 snacks, paint-dabbed 100 dots, and also made two Valentine crafts. They also wrote "A friend is..." and "If I had 100 dollars I would..." We also did a dance to "Zero the Hero" (on YouTube). The children did an amazing job writing 100 words, and also wrote about something they didn't know 100 days ago but that now they do.
We are almost finished our book study of Ezra Jack Keats' Caldicott-award winning book "The Snowy Day" to honour black history month. Published in 1962, this was the first children's book to have a black child as the main character. The children have made several text-to-self connections in different formats, they have compared this book to Munsch's classic "Thomas' Snowsuit," making text-to-text connections. Thank you Theo for sharing your copy of "The Snowy Day." The children also made text-to-self connections by comparing what Peter does to what they do, and made a pop-up scene to help them retell the story. The children also painted themselves using various skin-coloured paints. This story lend itself very well to learning about the beginning, middle and end of stories, and we connected this to watching real snow melt. We also made Olaf puppets to celebrate finally getting some snow!
Some of the centres they did were monkey math, marshmallow math, snowball numbers, bananagrams, and popcorn words. The JKs also traced wooden letters with whiteboard markers. The SKs also wrote -IT and -At family words.
It is quite wet outside this time of year - it would be a good idea to put an extra pair of pants in your child's backpack, as well as waterproof mitts/gloves. Thank you.
The next Scholastic order is due March 4.. Thank you to Stella for preparing the booklets. Thank you also to Avery's mom who helped in the Computer Lab. Our Mystery Readers last week were Tessa's sister and Theo's cousin
The l;atest sight words of the weeks are FROM, UP, WE, FIND, BY and CAME.
Next week I am introducing a "take=apart centre" in the Measuring Centre, with out-dates electronics. Contributions are welcome! Please ensure what you send in is not toxic (i.e. no batteries) and is suitable for the children to take apart with screw drivers. Thank you!!
The children did a beautiful job at the Sharing Assembly on Friday, singing "What a Wonderful World."
That's the news from this week - we'll enjoy this early Spring weather!!
My apologies for not being able to update my blog last week due to illness -
A lot has been happening in Room 166! The week before last it was our turn to use the iPads. Each child had 15 minutes to play educational games on the device and we can't wait until it is our turn again! Thank you to Parent Council for providing the iPads.
It was a pleasure meeting with you for parent-teacher interviews. If you didn't get a chance to book an interview just send me an email and we will coordinate a time.
The 100th Day of School Party was a terrific success - thank you so much to the volunteers! The children stacked 100 cups and pennies, dabbed 100 dots, ate 100 snacks, paint-dabbed 100 dots, and also made two Valentine crafts. They also wrote "A friend is..." and "If I had 100 dollars I would..." We also did a dance to "Zero the Hero" (on YouTube). The children did an amazing job writing 100 words, and also wrote about something they didn't know 100 days ago but that now they do.
We are almost finished our book study of Ezra Jack Keats' Caldicott-award winning book "The Snowy Day" to honour black history month. Published in 1962, this was the first children's book to have a black child as the main character. The children have made several text-to-self connections in different formats, they have compared this book to Munsch's classic "Thomas' Snowsuit," making text-to-text connections. Thank you Theo for sharing your copy of "The Snowy Day." The children also made text-to-self connections by comparing what Peter does to what they do, and made a pop-up scene to help them retell the story. The children also painted themselves using various skin-coloured paints. This story lend itself very well to learning about the beginning, middle and end of stories, and we connected this to watching real snow melt. We also made Olaf puppets to celebrate finally getting some snow!
Some of the centres they did were monkey math, marshmallow math, snowball numbers, bananagrams, and popcorn words. The JKs also traced wooden letters with whiteboard markers. The SKs also wrote -IT and -At family words.
It is quite wet outside this time of year - it would be a good idea to put an extra pair of pants in your child's backpack, as well as waterproof mitts/gloves. Thank you.
The next Scholastic order is due March 4.. Thank you to Stella for preparing the booklets. Thank you also to Avery's mom who helped in the Computer Lab. Our Mystery Readers last week were Tessa's sister and Theo's cousin
The l;atest sight words of the weeks are FROM, UP, WE, FIND, BY and CAME.
Next week I am introducing a "take=apart centre" in the Measuring Centre, with out-dates electronics. Contributions are welcome! Please ensure what you send in is not toxic (i.e. no batteries) and is suitable for the children to take apart with screw drivers. Thank you!!
The children did a beautiful job at the Sharing Assembly on Friday, singing "What a Wonderful World."
That's the news from this week - we'll enjoy this early Spring weather!!
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