Week of December 11th

Holiday Decorations

This week students worked at making holiday decorations for the school and classroom. Look how fast they cut, made patterns, and stapled our Christmas and Hanukkah garland together!

Loose Parts Play

Students explored with a variety of seasonal and holiday Loose Parts Play this week. They enjoyed sorting, making patterns and creating winter scenes.

Candy Cane Sensory Bin

This week we transformed the water table into a Candy Cane Sensory Bin. We added white, red and green items to coloured pasta and rice. Thank you Pinterest for giving me this great idea! :) 

Letter of the week

To form the Uppercase R:

- Start at the top

- Big line down

- Frog Jump to the top

- Little Curve

- Little line kicks out

To form the Lowercase r:

- Start at the top

- Dive down

- Swim up

- And over

(We don't life our pencil up)

Jolly Phonics

See my puppy rip the rag,

/rrr/ /rrr/.

See my puppy rip the rag,

When he pulls so hard.

Read Alouds

Students listened to two social stories. In A Bad Case of Tattle Tongue, Josh the Tattler doesn't have any friends because he is always telling on them. One night his tongue turns yellow with purple spots because of all the tattling he is doing. After reading this book we discussed the difference between necessary and unnecessary tattling. Below are 4 of the main "Tattling Rules". 

In Lacey Walker Nonstop Talker, Lacey Walker loves to talk. She talks all day, and sometimes all night. But when she loses her voice, Lacey learns the importance of listening to others and taking turns.

Big Building

Take a look at some of the very creative and thoughtful creations students made this week!

Week of December 4th

Unit of Inquiry: Materials

This week the class explored cotton, wool and plastic. Many students had wonderings about where these materials came from and how different objects were made. i.e. How are plastic beads made? Why does wool come from sheep? Where does cotton come from? We read books about these 3 materials and then watched a few short "How it's Made" videos. The class discussed the difference between natural and artificial materials. Students discovered that wool and cotton are both natural products and the way they are made is similar (there is a whole lot of spinning!). 

Wool being processed.

Literacy

Book Making was once again a very popular Centre this week. The students are really enjoying being authors and illustrators! Their writing skills are really improving with all the practice they are doing. It is so great to see how they are taking their time to sound out words and use finger spaces. We have been discussing the difference between fiction and non-fiction (along with our Special Helper Show and Share), and we have seen students writing both made up stories and real life stories. 

Letter of the Week

To form the uppercase H:

- Start at the top

- Big line down

- Frog jump to the top corner

- Big line down

- Jump to the middle

- Little line across

To form the lowercase h:

- Start at the top

- Dive down

- Swim up (half way)

- Add a hump

(we do not lift our pencil up for this letter)

Math

The class was introduced to a new math game called "Number Towers". Students used snap cubes and number cards to create their towers. 

Beading

Students worked on their fine motor and patterning skills this week at the Beading Centre. This has been a great quiet activity for students when they are feeling they need something calming to do. I have also benefitted from some very creative jewelry this week! :) 

Music with Ms. Serena

After practicing our song for the concert, the class played a game called "Naughty Babies". Once the Queen Mother leaves her babies, they do naughty things that she told them not to do. (i.e. fly an airplane, go swimming). The class thought this was a really funny game!

Week of November 27th

Trinket Visit

This week, Trinket the Therapy dog and her owner Sue came to visit during Reading Buddies. It was great to see the class interact with Trinket and introduce her to their Grade 4 Buddies.

Literacy

We introduced some new literacy activities to the class this week. 

Book Making is still a very popular choice for the students! 

Roll a Sight Word

Book Making

Matching Sight Words

Over the past few weeks, the class has listened to some Howard B. Wigglebottom stories. Howard is a bunny who sometimes makes the wrong choices, but along the way his friends, teachers, parents and other characters in the books help him out. Students responded to the books with some great ideas of what Howard could do to make the right choices. We will be using some of the strategies Howard taught us moving forward in the year. 

Library Visit

This week we had our last visit of 2017 to the Library with Mrs. Jong. She read the class 4 books about toys and then showed us a short video of Corduroy Bear. All the classes really enjoyed when Corduroy came to life and got in to some trouble at the mall! 

Creative Corner

This week students had the chance to create fall trees using strips of brown construction paper, corks and red, yellow, orange and brown paint. The finished products are hanging up in the hallway outside our classroom.