It is SO exciting to be at school on Halloween!!!
The boys came to school in costumes. To integrate our math counting and number awareness skills as well as science senses curriculum into everyday activities, we baked and decorated cookies. We divided into four groups so we would all have time to learn from the activity. When not in the kitchen, the boys were involved in literacy based centers - grade ones were reading with Mrs. Lower and kindergartens were involved in letter and sound activities. This afternoon, the grade one boys did some math activities talking about different strategies they can use to solve simple addition problems. They discovered 6 ways:
Today we did some illustrating and either labelling or writing sentences about our drawing. The kindergarten boys are learning how to identify the coordinating letter sounds the grade ones are identifying beginning word sounds or trying to string letter sounds together to spell whole words. Many of the boys are also working toward using finger spaces between their words to clarify their sentence meanings.
in the afternoon, the grade ones have been learning about The Zones of Regulation. There are four different zones - blue, yellow, green and red. Ask your son to explain the different zones and some ways to switch from one zone to another. REMINDER for tomorrow Costumes are welcome - no masks or weapons. If parents would like to take pictures first thing in the morning, you are welcome to come into the classroom to do so. The weather is predicted to change. PLEASE ensure your son is dressed appropriately for the cold weather that is coming. Also, please label all clothing so we can do our best to make sure the boys go home in their own jackets, toques, mittens, ski pants and boots. Kids Talk
We didn't blog yesterday because Mrs. Lower was at an afternoon conference.
We will update you on TWO days of our learning. We have been learning about how to draw a picture and label it so other people know information about our illustrations. Today we drew pumpkins Our pumpkin investigation the last two days included more information about the life cycle, how to measure a pumpkin and how to roast the seeds. Before we roasted the seeds we practiced counting by tens. In preparation for the Family Halloween Dance tonight we painted two pumpkins... see our pictures so you know what we created. The boys were VERY excited about choosing the designs and painting the pumpkins. We went to our whole school assembly where the grade fours talked about pumpkins decaying/disintegrating /falling apart. Alex brought us some wonderful Halloween cupcakes! THANK YOU ALEX (and his Grandma) Kindergarten Kids Talk
What an exciting day as we continued our pumpkin investigation.
The boys made predictions about whether a pumpkin will float or sink (ask them about the result) and how many seeds they think are in each of our classroom pumpkins. We talked about heavy and light; big and little as well as made many other comparisons between the pumpkins. We read the book From a Seed to Pumpkin written by Wendy Pfeffer to learn about the life cycle of a pumpkin. The grade ones worked hard this afternoon sequencing the steps and writing/drawing in their journals. We will be decorating our pumpkins over the next two days. If you have a paint shirt (old t-shirts) that you are able to send in for the remainder of the week we would appreciate them. THANKS Kids Talk
We are starting our investigation into pumpkins! We talked about what we know, what we wonder and what we would like to learn regarding pumpkins. Over the course of the week we will be embedding disciplinary literacy tasks, science, math and social studies curriculum into our learning.
This afternoon with the grade ones we discovered different ways to make ten. Please ask your son what he learned and how many ways he can recall to create ten. Kids Talk
WE worked hard on Literacy centers today.
Kindergarten Kid Talk I liked making the letters using different shapes - PH I liked learning how to listed and earning a stone for doing such a fantastic job - NC I liked the shapes that we used to build with - CT I liked helping clean up after using the centers - LS I worked hard to make letter out of play dough - LC Hello Parents,
This morning Mr. Bergman ( one of our student teachers) read the story The Darkest Dark. We talked about when we were brave, how to conquer fear and with hard work our dreams can come true. Ask your son about when they felt they were brave. We also planted some apple seeds from the apples we made juice with yesterday as the boy were curious if apple seeds will grow in Calgary. This afternoon with the grade ones we discovered that adding white to a colour makes it lighter and adding black to a colour makes it darker. Kids Talk We drew a picture of when we felt brave. AD I liked talking about when I was scared and what I was scared about - BM I liked when we were drawing the pictures about when we were brave - ZW I liked planting the apple seeds - DB I liked mixing the colours to see what happened - CS Today we continued discovering about things that can be done with apples.
Last week we tasted apples and made apple sauce. Today we answered one of the questions that came up last week.... how do you make apple juice? Mrs. Lower brought her juicer so we could actually see how apple juice was made! Step 1 - wash the apples Step 2 - cut the apples Step 3 - take the seeds and core out Step 4 - put the apples the juicer Step 5 - DRINK We used three kinds of apples - red delicious, Gala and Granny Smith. We wondered if the juices would look and taste different for each kind of apple. Guess what? The juice did taste different. Kids Talk The Granny Smith apple juice was sour - BM I liked the Granny Smith and red apple juice combined - AD The red apple juice tasted sweet and sour - ZW I liked watching the apples being juiced because I saw the skins coming off and the juice coming out of the spout on the juicer - EC I liked learning how to make apple juice- SV I liked the green apple juice best - CS I liked learning about making the apple juice and how the apples were smashed to make the juice - SG I liked drawing the apples after DB Hi Parents,
This morning we all focused on adding detail to our pictures by singing "Mat Man". Please ask your son to sing the song to you and help him to remember that a picture is always more interesting when details are added. Adding details to work and being able to label pictures are all steps in developing literacy skills. This afternoon in grade one, we were learning about the difference between repeating patterns and growing patterns, The boys also worked in partners to work on spelling. They are focusing on using what they know about letter sounds to spell words they are unfamiliar to them. Kids Talk I liked singing and learning about Mat Man - CS We watched the grade five and six boys paint the compound with spray paint and stencils so we can play games - EC I learned what a stencil does today! - SV I liked thinking of words and trying to spell words that start with the letter F. - AD I really like to blog at the end of the day - DB |
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