Winter is for Snow!

Of course we had to read this story today! We were greeted this morning with a lot of extra, wet snow. Everyone was very excited to go outside and play in it. Here are some other highlights from out day:

 

*In Phys.Ed. we practiced our kicking skills.

 

*We learnt a new jolly sound/song/action to go with the sound /u/.

*We read Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns That We Can All Get Along and then discussed ways that we could all get along with one another.

 

*We played several different math games today, including students using math manipulatives to show a number, more than or less than a number given, a number before or after a given number, and we even got into some patterns. I also gave students number cards that had the number, the number shown in a ten frame, and the number word. Students had to work together to put them into order.

 

 

 

*The two biggest activities in Free Choice Center time was creating with pattern blocks and role playing that involved the creation of a movie theatre!

 

*We were invited to watch the Grade 1 and 2s perform some reader's theatre.

 

*We read Chapter Three of My Father's Dragon.

 

*We checked out our new classroom!! We get a bigger classroom starting next week, so I now have the task of moving everything over to our new space in the next couple of days. I'll be back with 'before' and 'after' photos once the job is done!

:)

 

 

On to a new week!

Happy Monday! I do not have many photos to go with today's blog entry, so I'll do a quick and easy run down of the highlights from out day:

 

* Phys. Ed--> We played "Follow the Leader" and practiced throwing, catching, and dribbling basketballs through a variety of drills, races, and free exploration time.

 

*Calendar Meeting--> We learnt our newest Jolly Phonics sound /o/. Of course we practiced tracing the letter in the story, learnt the action and song, and practiced sounding out some new words!

 

*Art--> Students worked on their "This is me in January" self portraits. This month I've really noticed progress in this activity! :)

 

* Math---> We had a longer math class today so that we could get a few activities and assessments completed. We played a quick game first. I would draw a certain amount of shapes on the Smartboard and students would write the number on a white board. Next, students worked on matching numbers with sets of objects on their own. Finally, they completed a cut and paste activity to show which sets were 'more than' or 'less than' five.

 

*Free Choice Centers---> The main activities today were some drama/role playing, pattern block exploration, and we also worked on some pictures and a "We'll Miss You" card for a classmate who will no longer be attending our class.

 

*ELA---> We watched a video of the story "The Three Billy Goat's Gruff". We also read the second chapter of My Fathers Dragon. I was impressed at how much the students remembered from chapter one! We were also treated to one more travel story from a classmate before heading to the library to exchange books.

 

 

*Another highlight for the students was that we got our Go Noodle champ Rad Chad to the highest level! We had to pick a new champion and the students chose Bart Reynolds. :)

 

 

*Talking Circle---> We ended off the day with the talking circle, as usual. Students are now encouraged to share their favourite part of the day as well as how they either a) filled another student's buck or b) how another student filled their bucket throughout the day.

 



That's how our day unfolded! We will be back to school on Wednesday and then our students will have an extra long weekend, as staff will have a non-instructional day on Friday. With that, January will be over! Time does fly when we are busy with our Kindergarten Adventures. :)

Where in the world have YOU been?

Today was a great day in K! Many students took part in the smoothie program, as well as hot chocolate and cookie sale that the SRC put on today. We learnt another sound: /g/ and practiced the action, the song, and tracing the letter.

In math, we practiced counting backwards from 5 by acting out a little poem, 5 Little Snowmen. Students enjoyed switching numbers, acting out the poem 5 times!

Afterwards we reviewed the different ways that we can show the same number on our fingers (for example: 5 can be all fingers on one hand or 4 and 1, 3 and 2). We also practiced a little bit of what is more than and less than five.

Our main activity today was sharing travel stories! Students shared photos, videos, souvenirs, and stories from their favourite holidays. We looked up all of the places using Google  maps and the globe. We discussed which direction each place was, if it was near or far, and the best mode of transportation to take. It was very interesting and they were so excited when the realized that many of them had been to the same place (West Edmonton Mall). We heard stories about many places near and far including Holland, Jamaica, Mexico, Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Toronto.

 

Someone noticed the satellite map option, so we looked at that. What was even more interesting was when we took a look at the street view maps for our town. We found our school and some other familiar places, including a student's home, a restaurant, a gas station, and a place where two student's grandmothers work! We could have looked on there a lot longer.

 

There was a lot of creativity happening today during center time, including making a bird from pattern blocks, selling lollipops and hot dogs, digging for gold in the sand, and construction workers were also fixing here, there, and everywhere.

I love watching my students co-operating with each other! The weather has been co-operating too~ it was so lovely outside at recess. :)

 

I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!

Maps!

We began our day with a Raider of the Month assembly in the gym. We sang Oh Canada with the entire school body. Then the students celebrated Bus Driver Appreciation Day by offering cards (signed by the whole school) to the bus drivers, along with an enthusiastic "Thank You". The Grade 1 and 2 class planned their assembly activities around the bus driver theme. They sang "The Wheels on the Bus" for the school. Never, everyone was broken up into four groups to perform a relay race. Students had to complete a puzzle by running one piece of the puzzle at a time to the opposite end of the gym. We also announced the Raiders of the Month and sang Happy Birthday to the people who will be celebrating their birthdays in February. We had a little bit of time left over after the assembly was finished, so we had a short Phys.Ed. class in the gym.

During our calendar meeting, we learnt a new sound, song, and action: /d/. We had snack, followed by math. I introduced the concept of representing a number with a ten frame. Students then played a game where they took turns tossing a bean bag onto a snowman that had the numbers 1 - 10 written on him. They had to say what number they landed on (or closest to) and then represent that number in a large ten frame.

Afterwards, students had an opportunity for individual practice representing numbers in ten frames with a holiday themed sheet.

 

 

As students finished, they had the choice of looking at different types of maps or colouring maps. They collectively decided that the most exciting option was to use the treasure maps to find treasure!

X marks the spot!

Looking for treasures...

We found treasure!

 

Next, we opened up our latest package from Little Passports. The characters Sam and Sophia wrote to us from Egypt! I showed them the stamp on the envelope and students guessed a dessert, then a pyramid, and then ancient Egypt! As promised, I also showed them photographs of when I travelled to Paris and went up the Eiffel Tower. My hope was that it would get them excited to share their own travel stories/photos on Thursday.

We also brainstormed what we know about maps (what we use them for, information on them). The students then each drew a map. Most of them chose to draw a map of how to get from the school to their house.

 

At the end of the day, we began a chapter book called My Fathers Dragon. There is a map in the book, which I have printed out, that helps us follow along with the main character's adventures. In Chapter One, we were introduced to a boy who is telling a story about his father. When his father was a boy, he befriended a cat that told him he had a way for the father to fly. He also told him of a trip that he had taken to the Island of Tangerina and Wild Island, where he saw something that made him want to cry! That's where the chapter left off, so we will have to see what happens next. We did take a peek at Chapter Two, which is titled "My Father Runs Away". Students predicted from the picture that the father leaves on a ship. We will have to see what really happens in Chapter 2 on Thursday!

 

Pajama Friday!!!

Today was the much anticipated pajama day! Everyone looked very cozy. A lot of students in the elementary end have not been feeling well and our class is no exception, so we were down to 5 students today!

 

We did learn a new sound, song, and action: /m/.

 

 

We also played a game using the chalk board and white boards. I started by drawing different numbers of shapes. Students had to say how many shapes there were and then practicing writing the numeral on their white board. Then, students wanted to take a turn so they each wrote their favourite letter on the chalk board. Their classmates had to recognize the letter and then print it on their white board. We also talked a bit about different words that begin with the letters that we were printing.

 

 

 

Our main lesson today was about different types of lines. Students were asked to try their best to make different lines on a large piece of white paper. Then we traced over them with marker and painted using water colour paints. The students were encouraged to use many different colours for their painting.

 

Artists at work!

The finished products look fantastic!

 

We also spent some time on GoNoodle today, practicing songs and learning about different track events (javalon, hurdles, sprinting etc...). There are definitely some songs that will be stuck in my head over the weekend! Our Go Noodle champion is Rad Chad. For every 10 points you get, Rad Chad grows. It's exciting for the students and we also practice our number recognition!

 

 

 

I hope that everyone has a wonderful weekend and that we all return to school happy and healthy on Tuesday! :)

 

The Mitten

Hello blog readers!

Our class had a treat this morning~ Mr. P. came to visit us with his I-pad! It was perfect timing too as we were just talking about the /r/ sound. He showed the students some apps where they could do some related activities, such as practice printing the letter r and play matching games with words with the /r/ sound.

 

We also read The Mitten this morning. This story generated a lot of good conversation, ranging from predictions to hibernation to what talons on an owl would be helpful for.

After the reading of the original story by Jan Brett, I introduced an emergent reader that is a simpler version of the story. (ex: Baba made mittens. Nikki lost his mitten. A mole climbed in. etc...) Each students were given a picture of each animal. As their animal came into the story, they placed their animal into the paper bag mitten. The second time we retold the story, students (acting as the animals) climbed into a giant mitten shape that was taped onto our carpet as their part in the story came along. It was great fun!

 

To round of the lesson, students drew a picture of an animal that could crawl into the mitten. Then they completed the sentence, "A _________ crawled into the mitten because ______________."

 

In the afternoon, students engaged in their free choice time. We had puppet shows, mansion building, lego building, role playing, and story reading.

 

We rounded off the day with some Go Noodle dancing and sports related body breaks, as well as our talking circle. It was a busy day and we were treated to some warmer weather, too!

 

We'll be back in Kindergarten on Friday, which is also pajama day! Yay!

Snowmen and Mittens

Today was another frosty day outside! We continued on with some winter themed activities, but first we had gym. We're practicing our manipulative skills and today we were focused on throwing. Students rotated through 3 activities: tossing bean bags into hula hoops, throwing soft balls at pylons, and trying to get basketballs into the baskets (or a milk crate).

 

During our calendar meeting, we talked about another jolly phonics sound: /h/. We reviewed the story, action, song, and then tried to sound out a few words.

I came across some posters that go with each of the jolly sounds and students started practicing their sounds as soon as I hung them up!

 

We read another snowman story:

This story is great for discussing the seasons and what we do for activities in the summer vs. the winter. Students then worked on a 'name snow man', where they had to cut out the same number of circles as the number of letters in their name, plus one more for the snowman's head. Then, they had to write their name on the snowman's body and decorate them with scarves and hats (some chose to give them legs as well!). It was a great activity to combine Science, Math, and English Language Arts. I also had students complete the sentence, "I have ____ letters in my name."

 

Here are the finished products:

 

 

As students finished, they had a choice of some winter themed activities or they could explore anything in our writing or art center. Many of them liked trying out the mitten lacing activity that I set out this morning.

 

 

 

We also read the story, One Mitten. We discussed how a prediction is a guess about something that will happen and students offered their prediction as to where the girl's other mitten was!

Here are their predictions:

While reading the story, we discovered that the other mitten was underneath a sleeping cat! :)

 

We also tried out something new today- the Go Noodle website. Everyone loved it! So far they are a fan of the track star activities. With each activity, a real life Olympian athlete comes on the screen to help us warm up and prepare us for the track activity. Then students get to move through the actions as the character acts it out on the screen. We tried the hammer throw, hurdles, 200M sprint, and the high jump! We will definitely be using the Go Noodle activities in the future.

 

We rounded off our day with a talking circle and then it was time to get ready for home! We'll be back on Wednesday with more Kindergarten adventures. :)

There's No Business Like Snow Business!

It was another snowy, blustery day outside! We had another day of winter/snow inspired activities. Here are the highlights from our Thursday:

 

In Math, students used their numeracy skills to put together puzzles that showed pictures of snowmen and children playing in the snow.

 

 

We read the story Snowmen At Night.

 

 

Before doing so, we predicted what we thought snowmen might do at night! Here are some ideas that the students came up with:

Next we created some visual art to show what snowmen at night may look like. Ours are looking up at the snow that's falling from the sky. :)

 

 

In the library, I asked students if they wanted another snowman story or one about ice fishing. They chose ice fishing so we read a funny little book by Robert Munsch called Give Me Back My Daddy.

 

I hope that everyone has an amazing, warm and fuzzy weekend!

Welcome 2015!

 

Welcome back to school and welcome to 2015! I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday. It sure has felt like winter lately with the super cold temperatures, so it seemed fitting that we went right into exploring all things winter!

 

We worked on winter landscapes today. We took things one step at a time. First we created 3 layers (yellow, orange, and red) for the sun and then added blue all around the sun.

 

Later in the day, students added a horizon of snowy ground. We created the tree trunks and branches using pieces of cardboard.

 

We also talked about snowmen. The Snowmen at Work book is also very handy for discussing different types of jobs, as well as working on our viewing skills by inferring what job the snowmen were doing by viewing the details in each illustration. I love these snowmen books! They are so creative and the students seemed to be really engaged with this one as well.

 We also brainstormed everything and anything that we could think of to do with winter and I wrote them on the body of a snowman. I was impressed that some words such as predator (when discussing why rabbits would change colour) and hibernation came up! Love it!

 

We also did a quick review of patterns in math. As a group, students had to guess what would come next in these patterns:

 

 

Then, they worked on completing Christmas themed patterns (reindeer, stockings, Santa hats, etc...) Some other highlights of the day were indoor recess all day, great dramatic play today (lots of different characters: bank robbers, rich people with crowns and jewels, animals, cowboys, and firemen), taste tests of smoothies that the will be sold on Thursdays, and a lot of excited discussions about what everyone got for Christmas (of course!). It was a great day back and everyone got right back into the swing of things. Winter doesn't seem to be going away any time soon, so our discussions of this frosty season will continue on Thursday. :)