Adventures in Social Studies, Math, and Art

Yesterday I showed the students the globe to partially introduce our upcoming unit about spatial relationships as well as our Christmas in Mexico theme for the Christmas concert. What a big discussion this created! The students made a lot of connections and had a lot of thoughts to share.

Since we are finishing off our All About Me unit, students discussed and wrote in their journals about their special talent. In Math we learnt about more, fewer, and the same as through a dog themed lesson. For example, if we have 3 dogs and 4 balls do we have more balls than dogs, fewer balls than dogs, or the same number of balls as we have dogs? We role played a few examples and then students were given counters (to represent balls) and a sheet with 8 dogs on it.

 



 We ended off our day with a holiday art project. Students had to use their finger tips, toilet paper rolls, and paint to create a Christmas tree. The final products look great! Here is an example:

Some of them felt that they needed to try twice, as making the triangle shape was a bit tricky, but in the end they all look wonderful anyways! I will try to post a picture of all of them once the bulletin board is up! I hope everyone has a great weekend. Only 8 more Kindergarten days before the holidays!! December is going to be a busy busy month.

A Colourful Day

It was a very busy day from beginning to end! The morning began with messy play dough fun and ended in a bit of a flurry after an assembly and saying good-bye to a student who is moving away. Now we're back down to seven students in our room! I snuck them out one by one today to write their messages in a card for their friend. It was very sweet to listen to them express their sadness over his leaving as well as good luck wishes for the future!

 

Our first structured lesson today focused on our ability to observe people in our environment. Students were put into pairs and had to observe their partner, draw them, and then transcribe for the teacher and/or EA two details that they observed. Here's an example:

 

 

 

 

Our next task was to learn about sentences, which is a part of the PWIM cycle. I had found pre-made sentences related to the book Mouse Paint, which we had read previously. Most of the sentences followed the "I see a..." structure that the students recognize from Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See? Here is the link to the website:  http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/PocketChartPrintables.html               So, we started off the lesson by reading through a collection of sentences. Then, we looked at our PWIM picture and students each came up with their own sentences about the photograph.

We continued our colour theme in relation to our "Who Am I?" unit by reading The Land of Many Colours, by Rita Pocock. It is a quick, engaging read about three groups of people: the green, the purple, and the blue people. Each believes that they are the best and each keeps to their own, until one day they begin a war amongst one another. In the end, they realize that they are all the same inside and that life is much more peaceful and happy if they all live and work together. This message carried over in the story The Crayon Box That Talked, ,by Shane DeRoff, which is about crayons not liking one another. Then, a young girl buys the crayon box and shows them that each one of them is needed to make a picture great! This story helps to touch on art as well and the importance of using more than one colour for a picture. :) I also read a poem of the same name to the students. Then, they focused on themselves to create a rainbow that was coloured by answering questions about themselves (see right).

 

 

 

 

We also got in some Math today and learnt all about the number three! After completing our group chart and individual pages about the number three, we watched the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff.

 

 

Lots of successful lessons today! Stay tuned for the excitement that ensues on Thursday...

Happy Green Day!

Our class had their Rider pride on for the province wide Green Day today! There was a buzz right from the start of the day. The highlights from center time included students playing their own game of Fastest Letter in the West, other students writing notes on stationary, and another exploring new Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head alphabet flash cards. After our morning meeting, students took turns sharing their All About Me bags to demonstrate that they can talk about themeslves. They all did a wonderful job at sharing photos, favourite toys, and other artifacts that helped us to learn about one another! Most of them decorated their paper bags as well.

It was another frosty indoor recess day, plus the gym was busy with a presentation during our Phys. Ed class, so we got to learn some new, fun songs and dances today. The biggest hit was the Wishy Washy Washer Woman by The Learning Center:

We read another wonderful Robert Munsch book today: Purple, Green, and Yellow. It fits well with our PWIM cycle and some students could read the title, as all three colour words are a part of our PWIM word list. For math, I read Two Hungry Bears to introduce learning about the number two. We also filled in both our group and individual "All About the Number".. charts. After we did some extra work on practicing writing the numbers 1 to 5, we also watched videos to go with the songs Hickory Dickory Dock and 5 Little Monkeys.





This week we have learnt about the numbers 1 and 2

For our last class of the day, we explored our feelings using the book The Way I Feel. I encouraged students to share their thoughts on how the character was feeling on each page. Then we practiced different expressions of feelings in mirrors. Finally, students represented their experiences with feelings to create our newest class book!

Click on the picture of our book to read the way we feel and how we express our feelings.



 

I'm feeling very happy with how the day unfolded. We accomplished a lot of learning and had fun doing along the way. Hopefully we will all be feeling very excited when the Riders win the Grey Cup this weekend!!!

GO GREEN!

All about our frosty fun Wednesday...

Yesterday was a Day 5, which seems to always end up being a day that's a bit 'mixed up'. I have a prep first thing in the morning and then it is our library day. It was a frosty Saskatchewan day, so we had indoor recess all day!

For library, the students heard the story Fox and Squirrel, which teaches that we can be friends with those who are different from us. Then, we had a great math lesson. It was our first day exploring numbers through a formal lesson. I used the Math Makes Sense launch picture, which is of a variety of farm animals. Students are supposed to say how many of each animal are in the picture. To avoid blurting, and to give everyone a chance to answer, I taught them a strategy that I learnt from Whole Brain Teaching. I am not sure what it's called but I call it "Blowing Into Your Hand." The idea is that, instead of blurting out your answer, you blow it into your hand and hold your hand clenched in a fist until the teacher says "Release!", which is when student raise their hand into the air, open it, and say their answer. It works great for questions where everyone should have the same answer, and you can usually tell if someone 'releases' a different answer. After a couple of practices, they caught on and it went really well!

Then, I introduced an idea from Pinterest (love!!) to explore the number one:

After discussing all things 'one', I gave students their own "I Know Numbers 1 to 5" booklet, and they filled in the first page. Here is the example that I showed them:

 



For our PWIM lesson, students took turns pulling a PWIM word from the 'mystery bag'. If they knew the word, they could just say it out loud or they could go to the PWIM board to find the word. Then, students searched through magnetic letters to spell the word on tin stove top covers. I can't believe it, but I forgot to take pictures! After that activity wrapped up, we read L, M, N, O, Peas and played both Fastest Letter and Fastest Number in the West (pairs of students see who can say the correct letter or number on the flash card first, until there is only one student left standing).

Our day ended off with a surprise visit from the Speech and Language Pathologist, who read us two Slinky Melinky stories via the I-pad and also gave a Suri demonstration. Then we read a quick story about families to lead into our journal entry for the day. Students wrote "My Family" and the date in their journals, as well as drew a picture of their family. Here's an example of one student's work:

 

We ended the day, as usual, with our talking circle. In addition to students sharing their favourite part of the day, I am not encouraging them to reflect upon something that they learnt that day. Everyone said the same thing-- that they learnt the number one, but it's a start! :)

 

From discovering new toys to patterns and everything in between...

Thanks to staff discovering some toys that were being stored away in another part of the school, I was able to surprise the students today with some new additions to our classroom! We now have an increase in plastic food and animals, plus a shopping cart, stroller, and five dolls. Very exciting!  The influx in toys resulted in a big organization/sorting/cleaning adventure. It took up some of our time this  morning, but it was well worth it. We also had a special snack in the Grade One classroom. Thanks to the EA for the birthday cupcakes and all the students for their wonderful rendition of "Happy Birthday"!




However, we got back into a routine after first recess. I wanted to get the students into thinking about feelings and how we express ourselves, so I had pulled out all of my books about emotions. While we didn't get into one of my planned lessons because of our morning adventures, I did get to read When Sophie Gets Angry, Really Really Angry  by Molly Bang and we discussed good choices and bad choices that we can make when we are upset.

We also read Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkes. It was our first try at retelling the story and discussing setting, characters, problems, and solutions. Then we worked on making connections and everyone shared a time when they were worried. Interestingly enough, they all shared their feelings about being worried about the first day of school- just like Wemberly.  I asked them to draw a picture to represent their connection and they dictated a sentence for me to write on their picture.

 

We finished our pattern unit today with a pattern walk around the school. Students searched in the hallways, boot room, computer lab, and library for patterns. We found patterns on clothes, on paintings, on books, on bulletin boards, on the lockers, and made patterns with our selves (to name a few). Now we can make our jump into learning about numbers.

 

Patterns ARE everywhere :)

We are the same, We are different

Today, we continued working on our Who Am I? unit. We brainstormed some ideas as to what makes us the same and what makes us different. We will keep adding to the list over the next few Kindergarten days. Students shared information about themselves, which I wrote on a paper (colour of their choice) that they also put their handprints on (paint colour of their choice). This is what our bulletin board looks like so far:

The book that we read as a group today was about a ninja, bear, and cowboy who decided that even though they were very different, they could still be great friends. It was a fun book that led into learning how to play paper, rock, scissors.

We also had a visit from the Speech and Language Pathologist, who told us about the 'bad guy' Space Invader and the importance of personal space. He also read us a story on the I-pad and showed us how to make origami butterflies! Each student also got to take turns using the I-pad during our afternoon. We also did some work on extending patterns and did a cut and paste activity to spell some of our colour words.

 

They also sang Happy Birthday to me and told me all about how they will  make me cakes, cookies, cards, etc.. Too sweet! I love Kindergarten and I hope that all of my students are too. It was really great to hear parents' stories at parent teacher interviews last week about how students are talking about their learning at home. The finally filled their 'bucket' by receiving points each day for bucket filling. We will see what they decide upon for a reward. Next week will be our first 3 day Kindergarten week since the middle of October! I'm looking forward to it :)

 

Have a great weekend everyone! GO RIDERS!

Yesterday in K

Yesterday seems so long ago already! It was great seeing my Kindergarten students after nearly a week. We got to go to the library for the first time since Halloween. I read parts of the book I'm Like You, You're Like Me  as part of our Who Am I? unit, which includes lessons about appreciating our similarities and differences. Our EA also read a story to them called Because of You, which is about how we can make a huge difference in the world and create peace by accepting one another. Lots of great conversation to be had around books like these!

We also practiced extending patterns in Math and in Phys. Ed. we engaged in some activities that are part of the Early Years Evaluation that I'm filling out; balancing, kicking, catching, hopping, skipping. We also finally changed over our behavior tree to a more wintery feel.  The students were very  happy with this decision, as it didn't make any sense to them why our tree would still have leaves while the trees outside don't have any!

 

In Art, we had a discussion about what an artist is and then decorated art folders to use as portfolios for our artwork throughout the year. We also finally had another PWIM class where the Grade One teacher comes in to co-teach with me. We had our first try at sorting our words from our PWIM board, so it was mostly teacher led. I wrote a letter on the board and then students practiced printing that letter on their own white board. Next, they had to go through their individual set of PWIM words to find the words that contained that letter. We did this twice and the third time I let them choose their favourite letter. Those who finished early practiced reading their words and if they weren't sure what they were, they went to the PWIM board to match it up so that they could 'see' what the words were. It was a lot of fun and a great way to practice our letters!

 

Finally, check out our latest bulletin board!

 

 

 

Beginning to ponder, "Who Am I?"

I missed a lot of the busy-ness today, as I needed a sub to be in the classroom while I pulled kids out for an early years evaluation. However, I heard that the Speech and Language Pathologist stopped by and let the students take turns using his I-pad. Of course, everyone loved that!

They also read the book What I like About Me to assist them in writing in their journals about what they like about themselves. Some of the responses were that they are nice to other people, their smile, and their earrings. This activity was a step into our Who Am I? unit that will take up a big chunk of our learning experiences in November. They also played an alphabet bingo game and got to practice dribbling in gym.

After lunch, I was back in the classroom. We attempted a discussion about ways to describe people. After a couple of examples, most of them really started to catch on to what I was getting at. They started describing their friends; so and so is handsome, pretty, beautiful, funny, etc... When it came to describing themselves it was a bit of a harder task. Isn't it harder for most of us to think of a kind word to describe ourselves? However, we made it through that brainstorming activity. I let them each pick a piece of large construction paper in the colour of their choice. Then, I wrote the word that they choice in pencil, trying to print big letters. It was a little tricky because two of them wanted the words helpful and handsome, but those words were too hard to print in large enough letters on the paper. So, we had to come up with similar words that were shorter. I had previously cut up different pieces of coloured construction paper into small squares. Their job was to cover all of the pencil lines with the pieces of paper. Some are easier to read than others, but I think that they did a great job! They all worked really hard on this task. Here is an example:

 

It felt like a short, but sweet, day today. With a day off in lieu of parent teacher interviews and Remembrance Day on Monday, I won't see my students again until next Tuesday! I hope everyone has a great long weekend and I am truly looking forward to what we will learn together next week.

Hello November! (and Winter??)

Well, we're into the third month of school already! I had a very busy day planned for the students today as I wanted some additional work samples for parent teacher interviews this week. The first task that we tackled was doing some self assessments. I love hearing the students reflect on their learning and getting their perspective on what they feel they are good at or what they need to work on in the future.

At our classroom meeting, I read a social story about not interrupting people who are talking. We are working on it. With it being the first day back at school after the Halloween weekend, they were definitely very chatty today! So, we will see if reminders from the story help us with respectful listening and not talking over one another. We also had a good discussion when it came to our Weather Report and what season it is now. They were convincing me that it must be winter because it's so cold outside, it is snowy outside now, and the leaves are all gone. So, with that reasoning, I think it's time to change our Owl Behavior Tree and our Season picture to Winter! When I was on supervision at recess, I had to agree with them; it does feel like Winter out there in Saskatchewan today!

We worked in our journals today. The topic was what the student wanted to be when they grew up. They had to write "when I grow up" and the date "Nov. 4" in their journal, draw a picture, and then dictate the rest of the sentence for me to write in their journal. I also took pictures of all of them holding a sign that says their future goal on it, which I'm hoping to put into a collage. So what do they want to be when they grow up? A lifeguard, batman, cat woman, someone who builds obstacle courses, a dentist, a mail person, superman, and one said that he wanted to be like his dad (aww).


With Remembrance Day coming up, we had some discussions about what the day is all about. I decided to come from the perspective of remembering the men and women who died fighting in the wars so that we could have peace. Then, we attempted to close our eyes and visualize what peace means to us. Finally, students wrote the words "Peace is" on a paper that I created, they drew a picture, and then dictated their thoughts about what peace is. I put their thoughts together to create a poem..

Peace Is...

quiet flowers

sharing

holding hands, walking on the sidewalk

the sun, clouds, and flowers

talking peacefully

making flowers

playing by myself and being quiet

flowers, water, sunshine, and submarines.

 

 

 



We finished up our pumpkin observations today. I read a short non-fiction write up about pumpkins (shown above). We added a little bit to our OWL chart, which showed what we had observed before our investigations, what they wanted to learn, and then what they learnt over the past few weeks. We looked through out observation booklets to self assess how well we used our sense of sight to create sketches of our pumpkins and to discuss what changes our pumpkins went through over the six weeks. Then, we looked at the difference between a pumpkin that was still really healthy, one that was starting to mold, and the one that I cut up on Halloween that was not very pretty at all! I wish I had taken a picture of it, but after everyone reluctantly observed the differences, I wanted to throw it out right away!

For our word study, we tried out a new way to practice spelling our words:

It was a lot of fun!

 

 

Finally, we had to play I Have, Who Has? and Fastest Letter in the West, as we didn't have time earlier and they LOVE these games. Our last job was to work on our This is Me in November pictures, which I'm using to track their progress with drawing and printing throughout the year. It's exciting to see a lot of progress from their This is Me in September  pictures. :)

 

So, there you have the main highlights from our day. This month we will begin our unit on the numbers one to five and an exciting Who Am I? unit! I'm very much looking forward to it.

 

Happy Monday Everyone!