A Wonderful Week in May

Our favourite part of the day:

On Monday we learned about the Whistling Whale and the number 8. 

On Tuesday  we labeled the butterfly and did pin poking. 

On Wednesday we went to the Glenbow Museum. 

On Thursday we did a butterfly life cycle craft and talked about shapes.

On Friday we learned about caterpillars and the "z" sound. 

Caterpillars & Butterflies

Our caterpillars have all made cocoons and now we are waiting for the butterflies to come out.

We talked about the life cycle of the butterfly and completed a craft.

We completed a caterpillar activity and learned more about them.

Both of these activities will be placed in our butterfly lapbooks.

Glenbow Museum
We went to a program at the Glenbow Museum where we learned about Tipis and heard stories about the First Nations People. The guide taught us about the symbols on the tipis. The bottom pattern usually represented where the family was from for example: bumps meant hills and triangles meant mountains. Near the top was the sky for example: 7 circles for the big dipper, 5 circles for the 5 brothers and a few lines together represented a rainbow. If an animal is painted on it meant that that animal gave them the tipi usually in a dream. We were able to make our own tipis after.

The guide told us about the importance of the buffalo for food, clothes, tipis and so much more. We were able to look at some artifacts and even touch them. These included: a rattle, knife, moccasin and bowls. 

The World
One of our year long projects has been learning about the seven continents. We traced and pin poked out each of the continents, glued them in place and labeled. The children worked so hard and the finished projects look great.

Animated Literacy:

We learned about two new characters this week:
Whistling Whale who performs tricks with his wheelbarrow in a whirlpool.
Zackary and Zena Zebra who zip and zoom and Zeke the Zoo Keeper in the town of Zanzazoom.

Please go over the handouts that have been sent home with your child to review the sounds and letters. They can colour the picture and then circle the special sound within the song at the bottom. Remember that Animated Literacy focuses on the sound (phonics) and the writing (graphemes) so for Whistling Whale we focus on the "wh" as seen in the words white and whale.

This week we drew a picture of a prize ribbon and wrote a sentence. We continued learning about nouns and adjectives. After we drew and labeled our ribbon we added an adjective to our label and showed the connection with an arrow. We will be doing this more as the year progresses. A couple examples are shown below. 

Handwriting Without Tears
We practiced writing the number 8 this week. When you have a moment practice writing numbers, the alphabet or simple words with your child. Please watch for size and spacing. 

Don't Forget:

Feel free to contact me anytime with any questions or concerns. I can be reached at the school, by email or just drop in (I am usually around before school). 

May Fun

Our favourite part of the day:

On Monday we talked about ducks and learned the number 6.

On Tuesday we had centres and Rafael (the librarian) was here. 

On Wednesday we learned the number 7 and worked on puzzle pieces.

On Thursday we learned about the parts of a butterfly and decorated cookies. 

On Friday we had centres and we drew a horn.

Duck Wrap Up
We wrapped up our unit on ducks by talking about all of the things that we learned about them. The children wrote down four things that they learned. It was a hard writing activity but it turned out quite well. They are getting ready for grade 1!

Caterpillars & Butterflies

Our caterpillars are growing! This week many of them even formed their chrysalis. Hopefully next week we will start to see our butterflies.

We discussed what we already knew about butterflies to start our unit. The children knew much more than I thought they would.

We learned about the parts of the butterfly this week. 

Mother's Day!
It will be Mother's Day this weekend so we have been working hard preparing a gift for our mothers. I found a great craft from Princess Pinky Girl. We placed two of the children's handprints on a mug and added their name and the year. It is a wonderful, useful keepsake. We filled the mugs with herbal tea and a decorated cookie.

The idea for our cards was found here.

Puzzle Pieces:
Our social puzzle pieces are coming to an end. For the final piece the children had to say what made the student of the day special. Then that student wrote down all of the wonderful things on the last puzzle piece called "I'm Special".

Now I will be putting their puzzles together so that they are ready for the end of the year. It has been a wonderful project and memory.

Animated Literacy:

We learned about three new characters this week:
Quentin Quail who is a quarterback. His sound is "kwah" and can be written "q" or "qu".
Joy and her noisy toy who needs oil. Her sound is "oy" and can be written "oi" or "oy"
Orty Orsen who is an orangutang who likes playing sports and wearing shorts. Her sound is "or".

Please go over the handouts that have been sent home with your child to review the sounds and letters. They can colour the picture and then circle the special sound within the song at the bottom. Remember that Animated Literacy focuses on the sound (phonics) and the writing (graphemes) so for Sheriff Shadrack we focus on the "sh" as seen in the words shirt and fish.

This week we drew a picture of a horn and wrote a sentence. I introduced nouns and adjectives to the students as well. I told them that nouns are people, places or things (ex: Lisa, Toronto, horn) and we created lots of examples. Then on Friday we discussed adjectives (they are words that describe a noun). For example: pink shirt, fast car and noisy toy. After we drew and labeled our horn we added an adjective to our label and showed the connection with an arrow. We will be doing this more as the year progresses. A couple examples are shown below. 

Handwriting Without Tears

We practiced writing the numbers 6 and 7 this week. When you have a moment practice writing numbers, the alphabet or simple words with your child. Please watch for size and spacing. 

Don't Forget:

Feel free to contact me anytime with any questions or concerns. I can be reached at the school, by email or just drop in (I am usually around before school). 

Ducklings Are Here!

It has been awhile since my last post. Time just flew by and the next thing I knew it was May! So here is what we have been up to:

Our favourite part of the day:

On Monday the ducklings arrived and we wrote the number 4.

On Tuesday we watched the ducklings swim and we wrote about it.

On Wednesday we watched the ducklings swim and we learned about Victor Vampire.

On Thursday we went to the park and played addition bingo.

On Friday we did a Mother's Day craft and we watched the ducklings swim.

DUCKS ARE HERE!

I brought two ducklings in from the farm. The children were so excited! 

The first day we watched the ducklings and decided on their names. The children decided on Fluffy and Squeeky. Fluffy tends to sit and be cute while Squeeky always has to cheep and make himself known.

The rest of the week we let the ducklings swim every morning. At first they were a little apprehensive and didn't swim much but by the second day they were diving and racing each other. They loved to dive and splash. The children thought it was so funny and love to get splashed by the ducklings. 

We drew pictures of what we saw and the children tried writing on their own. I was so impressed with their creative spelling! 

The girls made some pictures to decorate their home. 

We had to say goodbye to the ducklings today but the children had fun and learned so much. This will be an experience that they will always remember. 

They liked to try and catch her hair. So cute!

Caterpillars

We also received caterpillars this week. They are growing before our eyes! Soon they will be forming chrysalis' and turning into butterflies. We will focus on them more next week and start our unit on butterflies.

Measurement:

We measured items with different units (popsicle sticks and cubes). Then we compared our answers and discussed why we thought the answers were different. We spend the rest of the time solving story problems. We are done our unit on measurement and will be starting a review of what we learned next week. This will mostly be done through problem solving. 

Animated Literacy:

We have learned many new characters.
Ike who rides his bike up high in the sky at night. His sound is the long i and it can be written "ie", "igh", "-y" and "i_e".
Grouchy Owl who tries to pounce on Brown Mouse. Their sound is "ow" and it can be written "ow" or "ou".
Abe the Hare who likes to race on skates. His sound is the long a and it can be written "ai", "a_e" and "ay".
Sheriff Shadrack who shaves with a sharks tooth in the shower and has a shaggy sheep. His sound is "sh".
Whirling Irving who rides his scooters in circles by jerking the wheel. His sound is "er" and it can be written "ir", "ur" and "er".
Victor Vampire who plays his violin outside of his van. His sound is "vvv".
Yakety Yak who eats yellow yams and plays with a yo-yo. His sound is "yuh".

Please go over the handouts that have been sent home with your child to review the sounds and letters. They can colour the picture and then circle the special sound within the song at the bottom. Remember that Animated Literacy focuses on the sound (phonics) and the writing (graphemes) so for Sheriff Shadrack we focus on the "sh" as seen in the words shirt and fish.

We also drew a picture and wrote a sentence to go with our animated literacy program. This week we drew a duckling. A couple examples are shown below. 

Handwriting Without Tears

We practiced writing the numbers 1-5. This has been a good review of numbers but is also a great help to the students who have been writing numbers backwards. When you have a moment practice writing numbers, the alphabet or simple words with your child. Please watch for size and spacing. 

Don't Forget:

Feel free to contact me anytime with any questions or concerns. I can be reached at the school, by email or just drop in (I am usually around before school).