Eager for Easter & April

Happy Monday everyone! March is almost complete. Hopefully one of these days it will finally feel like Spring outside! With these thoughts in mind, and Easter creating excitement in our classroom, here is a look at our newest bulletin board:

 

Our Science class even involved some Easter related fun. We continued our discussion about structures and the different ways that we can put things together. Students were asked to colour a picture of a basket, bunny, bow, and three eggs. They had to choose how they would put the pieces together with either glue, tape, a stapler, or fasteners. Here is one of our finished products:

 

 

In Math, we discussed how we can measure height and compare items using the words 'shorter' and longer'. In pairs, the students sorted items (straws, wooden pieces, cardboard rolls) from shortest to tallest. Then, they had to sort pieces of construction paper:

 

 

After lunch, we attended an assembly in the gym. Then we had a discussion about texture. Students took turns describing the different textures of a variety of items. These are the words that they came up with:

 

 

The students then had the task of creating a textured egg using a variety of materials. Here are some examples of their masterpieces:

 

 

We delved into the 5th lesson from the 7 Habits of Happy Kids:

Jumper Rabbit learnt the importance of listening and that sometimes we need to listen with our eyes and our heart, too. Here is the poster that was shared with the students, which breaks it down into language that is easier to understand:

 

 

After our discussion, student's shared their connections to the story in their 7 Habits booklets.

 

We ended off the day with our talking circle. Oh yes, we also discussed April Fool's Day during our calendar meeting (since we won't be at school tomorrow). We read a silly, fun story called April Foolishness:

 

I will meet you back here in April! :)

 

 

 

Building Structures With Food

To anyone who has been checking in the last few days, please accept my apologies for not updating the blog sooner!

Here's a look back at our adventures from Thursday, March 27th...

The Bad News: Our beta fish, Rainbow Fish, met the same fate as our other fish! So for now, we are a fishless classroom. We will see what shows up next...

The Good News: We had another exciting Science class! The class learnt more about structures and had the opportunity to create their own using food! Their choice of 'materials' were lasagna noodles, marshmallows, crackers, toothpicks, candy hearts, and icing for glue. There were a few interesting bridges, houses, and a cake display at a birthday party.

Some examples:

Coming Soon: A new class book that will show off each creative structure and the stories that each student told to go with them!

In math, we took a little look back at patterns as a review. My aim was to encourage students to decorate an Easter egg picture using a pattern. They will become a part of our new Spring bulletin board!

We also read the next story from The 7 Habits of Happy Kids and discussed the habit of thinking win-win. The students seemed to really understand the concept. The story was about a girl who wanted to grow a vegetable garden. Her mom didn't believe that she realized how much work it would be and said no. However, she really wanted to make the garden a reality so she wrote her mom a note. She promised that she would do the work required and her mom would get fresh vegetables to eat! Her mom agreed. In the end, everyone was happy. The young squirrel got to have her garden and the whole family had fresh, healthy food to eat.

 

We ended the day with a game of Fastest Sight Word in the West. Students then worked on a trace, write, and glue activity to practice some common sight words. We are building our emergent reading skills, which is very exciting. I love to see students excited about reading and writing!

 

Alright, now we'll have to see what adventures unfold tomorrow! :)

Get your ticket to the show!

 

It was really hard to leave for my prep first thing this morning, because the K's were setting up a movie theatre! They were making and handing out invitations and recording people's seats.

When I got back, we had our morning calendar meeting. Then it was time for Science. The students are loving our unit on observing characteristics of objects and materials. Today was an introduction to structures. We went on a 'scavenger hunt' throughout our classroom and the school to find different structures. We discussed how they were built and what materials were used to build them.

Math is strongly connected to Science lately. We reviewed the difference between 2-D and 3-D shapes and then discussed what objects in our classroom were 3-D. Students then had the task of recreating a familiar 3-D object. There was everything from a car to a bookshelf to a hotel.

 

 

To practice our PWIM words, we played word Bingo. Students chose 10 PWIM words from their word bags and placed them face up on a piece of paper. They took turns pulling word cards and tried different strategies to figure out what the word was, including sounding it out and finding it on the PWIM board. If the student had that word amongst their 10, then they would flip it over. The first person to flip all 10 words over would then yell BINGO and the game would be over. Somehow they all had Bingo at the same time... A good time was had by all!

 

We then read another Trucktown story called Snow Trucking.

 

 

Afterwards, we worked as a group to retell the events in the beginning, middle, and end of the story. Everyone chose their favourite part of the story, which they had to then draw a picture of and create a sentence to match their picture. We have tried similar activities in the past and this was the most successful as everyone's pictures actually represented something that happened in the story. It's so exciting to see progress!

 

We went to the library to exchange books, which didn't leave us too much time for a new Healthy Habits story. So, we ended the day off with Cosmic Kids Yoga and our talking circle.

 

Thursday I have a junior badminton commitment after school and then will be running to the city for a Kindergarten site visit there on Friday. So, I will try my best to update the blog regarding our Thursday adventures as soon as possible!

 

Until then...

 

 

Friday- Fun Fun Day!

Our morning began with some wonderful dramatic play. First off, all of the students were working away in our rice and construction/sand tables. I've never seen them all play in those sensory bins at once. However, they turned them into a bakery! I received many cupcakes, pies, pancakes, and ice cream- yum yum!

The action moved to our kitchen/drama center and then, suddenly, the math manipulatives were being placed onto one of the tables. What was happening? An animal hospital was forming! Many unhealthy animals were treated: a cat who would not eat (he was treated with some medicine), a rabbit who burnt his ears sitting on the stove (a needle did the trick), a sad lion, a fish (he required water and milk), and a group of frogs (they needed to be in individual cages). My favourite patient was a grey cat. This is the conversation that ensued:

Student 1: My cat has a tail infection!
Student 2: It's tail is broken. Let's take it's blood pressure. If it's tail is broken it could die!

After a thorough blood pressure inspection:
Student 2: "He has a broken tail bone."

I can't remember what the remedy was, but it was rather entertaining!

 

In Science, we reviewed solids, liquids, and gases. Then we talked about how a liquid can turn into a gas through evaporation. Our experiment today involved painting with a water and salt mixture. Throughout the day, the water evaporated leaving behind the salt.

 

 

For our Math class, we reviewed 3-D shapes. The students were given the challenge of building 3-D shapes out of spaghetti noodles and marshmallows.

 

We began our health class with Cosmic Kids Yoga. Then we learnt the 3rd habit from The 7 Healthy Habits of 7 Kids: Put First Things First. In other words, work first and play later. The story that we read was about Pokey the Porcupine, who chose to play with his friends instead of studying for his spelling test. This habit seemed to be the easiest for the students to understand. I forgot to get a picture of the poster/affirmation that I shared with this lesson.

 

We rounded out the day with a See/Say/Spell to review our PWIM words. Today, we spelt aloud the words using different silly voices. Then we reviewed a new visual about adding details to pictures. Again, I forgot to take a photo of this! Basically, the students are encouraged to think of an idea, draw the picture, add a background, colour the picture, label it, and then add a sentence.

This instruction led up to creating the "This is me in March" drawings. This month, I switched things up a bit and had the students write the sentence "this is me in March" by themselves. The most rewarding part was watching the students add backgrounds to their pictures so that they aren't just floating bodies (or heads!).

 

So, that was our Friday fun day! I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. Stay warm! Hopefully Spring will show up and stick around soon.

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream!

 Happy Tuesday everyone!

We had another exciting adventure in Science today. Students learnt about melting and freezing, which changes liquids to solids and vice versa. Then, we used a solid (ice) to turn a liquid (milk/vanilla) into another solid-- ice cream!!! There was also some sugar in the milk and some salt in the ice. So, the large Ziploc bag held the ice cubes and salt. We then placed a smaller Ziploc bag inside, which contained the milk, sugar, and vanilla. Then we had to shake, shake, shake!!! As you can see, it got very cold on our hands and we all put our gloves on:

 

Everyone seemed to enjoy our yummy 'experiment'!

 

 

In our math class, I showed the students a book that I made. It is called "Shapes Are Everywhere!" and has all of the pictures that I took of the students when they found shapes in our classroom.

 

Then, we had another try at playing "Which one of these things doesn't belong here?" and reviewed sorting rules, as well as the different ways that we can sort objects. Students then had the task of using anything within the classroom to practice sorting and try out their own game of "Which one of these things doesn't belong here." There was a lot of sorting by shape and colour.

 

 

Which one doesn't belong? The button without any holes!

 

For our Health class, we got back into the 7 Healthy Habits of Happy Kids. The 2nd habit is to begin with the end in mind. We read the story of Goob the Bear. He saw a bug kit in a store window that he really wanted, so he set the goal of making some money and then created a list of all of the ways that he would spend his money. Goob and his friend Jumper Rabbit make $20 at a lemonade stand, which they split (a good opportunity to talk about  math!). Whereas Jumper Rabbit spend his  money on things like food that he ate right away and a toy that broke, Goob was able to buy all of the things that he had planned, including the bug kit, and he had money left over to put into savings.

 

After reading the story, we discussed why it is a good idea to plan ahead and set goals. Students shared examples from their own lives and then they represented their ideas in their 7 Habits booklet.

 

 

 

For our PWIM work today, we reviewed our words with a fun See/Say/Spell. We also read another book about Truck Town called The Great Rescue. We ended off the day with some Cosmic Kids Yoga and our talking circle.

It Exploded All Over!

This morning, we had some excitement in our Science class. The Learning Resource Teacher came in to help us learn about gases. She demonstrated blowing air into a balloon with breath. Then, we predicted what would happen with a plastic bottle filled with vinegar and a balloon filled with baking soda. She placed the balloon over the bottle and we watched in amazement as the balloon filled up- and then SURPISE! The balloon popped off of the bottle! The LRT got a bit of a vinegar/soda shower. I'm sure the student's will remember that one!

 

 

We tried it again with a bigger balloon. The students were leery, but this one did not pop off. We predicted whether or not the balloon would lose air throughout the day and observed it until school was over. We observed that it did get smaller.

 

Something that I think I forgot to mention last day, was that we've started doing yoga through Cosmic Kids Yoga videos. They are stories that use yoga poses to tell the story.

 

 

For our math class, students took turns describing different shapes. Then we played the game of "Which one of these things doesn't belong?" In our gym class, we played some tag games and then explored different ways to move with scooters, hula hoops, and basket balls.

 

After lunch, we spent the afternoon working on a Word Work project. Using the PWIM words that were all vehicle related, students coloured pictures, printed words, matched words with pictures, and then glued them together. Using string and a paper plate, we put all of the pieces together to make a mobile! The words/pictures that we worked with were: car, van, grader, and dump truck.

 

 

It was a busy, fun Friday. I'm looking forward to seeing the student's dressed in green on Tuesday!

 

Have a great weekend everyone. :)

 

Liquids, Shapes, Buckets, and Being Proactive!

Happy Wednesday everyone! Today's Science lesson was all about liquids. We tried an experiment using all different types of containers that all held the same amount of water. We asked the students to predict which containers held more water, less water, or the same amount. Everyone was surprised to discover that they all had the same amount of water!

 

I forgot to photograph our learning!

This book is a great resource!

In Math, we reviewed 2-D and 3-D shapes. We worked on a sorting activity as a group and then students did some individual work on shapes, including brainstorming objects that we find in real life that look like circles, squares, etc...

 

For our Health lesson, we read a story from The 7 Habits of Happy Kids to help us learn about the first habit: Be Proactive. The story focused on Sammy Squirrel. He was very bored and looked to all of his friends to find something fun for him to do. One of his friend's grandma's helped him to realize that it was up to him to create his own fun and it was his choice whether he was having fun or not. We followed up the story with some questions and then students represented the connections that they made to the story. I also read aloud the words on this visual:

 

 

Another exciting highlight from the day was the arrival of new book orders! I need a bigger bookshelf, but for now the extra buckets of books would do. Speaking of buckets and books, one of our newest additions was Bucket Filling From A-Z. It was a great reminder of bucket filling discussions that we had at the beginning of the school year. The students really relate to bucket filling and bucket dipping.

 

More books! Yay!

 

After school I worked on a surprise for the student's that they will see Friday morning. It is a new sensory bin that connects with our third PWIM cycle! I've also re-photographed our PWIM board, as two new words were 'shook out' of the picture.

 

Construction time!

These are the  words that we will be working with in our Word Work activities over the next month and a half.