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). 

We Are Learning!

Our favourite part of the day:

On Monday we wrote the poem in Handwriting Without Tears and learned about Old Joe Crow.

On Tuesday we measured with cubes and labeled the parts of a duck.

On Wednesday we labeled the duck life cycle and learned about Leaping Eve.

On Thursday we measured toys and went to the park.

On Friday we drew a bee and had snack.

Ducks!
We labeled parts of a duck:

We discussed the duck life cycle and labeled a picture:

The children learned that ducks have waterproof feathers and so the water and rain just falls off of them without making them wet. Next week we are going to discuss how to take care of ducks because we will be getting duck eggs after Easter.

Measurement:
We continued learning about length (long and short). The children started to learn about estimation/prediction because they had to predict how long the object would be in cubes and then write down the exact measurement after. The children are doing well with using cubes for measurement so next week we will practice measuring with different types of units (popsicle sticks, paper clips, hands, feet, etc).

Measuring Our Toys:

Spring/Easter:

We have started making crafts for Spring and Easter. They really brighten up the room. 

Brain Gym:
Last week I attended a workshop about Brain Gym and Dance. I left with many good ideas. I incorporated this into  our day. The children enjoy the exercises. Here is a look at the routine/activities:
1: Tactile: touch all body parts in various ways (tap from our heads down to our toes).
2: Breathing: take in deep breaths and breath out in different ways (ie: let all the air out while hissing like a kettle). 
3: Core-Distal: stretch away from center and back in (ie: create a starfish and a ball)
4: Head-Tail: move the head and the tail and arch forwards and backwards (ie: cat and cow)
5: Upper-Lower: move the upper body while stabilizing with lower body and vice versa
6: Body-Side: Move the right side while stabilizing the left and vice versa (ie: puppet string attached to your knee and hand)
7: Cross-Lateral: move or connect opposite arm and leg 
8: Vestibular: swing, tip, rock and roll

Animated Literacy:

This week we learned three new characters.  Two of these characters have easy phonemes but the graphemes are tough because there are many ways to write them. We learned about Leaping Eve who dreams of leaping over tall trees and buildings. Her sound is the long e and it can be written "ee", "ea", "ie", "e-e" and "-y". Next we learned about Old Joe Crow who likes to row his boat. His sound is the long o and it can be written "oa", "-o", "o-e", and "ow". Finally we learned about Winkie Walrus who likes to waddle to the wishing well and eat wiggly worms.

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 Chauncy Chipmunk we focus on the "ch" as seen in the words chin and itch.

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

Handwriting Without Tears

This week we wrote a poem and practiced writing sentences. We only have numbers 1-10 left and will be practicing what we have learned for the remainder of the year. When you have a moment practice writing 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). 

Duck, Duck, Fun!

Our favourite part of the day:

On Monday we played four corners and talked about ducks.

On Tuesday we measured worms and the kids.

On Wednesday we learned the parts of a duck and played seven up. 

On Thursday we had a letter writing centre and reviewed parts of a duck.

On Friday we do not have school.

Ducks!
We started a new unit on ducks this week. I asked the children what they already knew about ducks and they came up with quite a list.

After that we created a list of things that we wanted to learn about ducks.

As the unit continues I hope to answer all of their questions and more. To start off the unit we learned the parts of a duck. We played various games with the vocabulary words to help us remember.

tail, head, webbed feet, wing, eye, neck, breast and bill

We will be getting ducklings at the end of April. The children are very excited about this! It should be a fun adventure.

Measurement:
We continued to learn about length (long and short). We focussed on ordering items from shortest to longest. The children found this to be a difficult concept so we did many activities with this. We did ordering with worms, our names and ourselves. I told the children that I wanted to see a slanted line when we were all done not mountains or zigzags. By the end of the week they started to understand this. We will do some more activities with this next week as well.

Here are the completed worms. 

April Fools!

I read the book "April Foolishness" by Teresa Bateman on Monday to explain to the children what April Fool's day was. Then on Tuesday the children were in a tricking mood all morning and so was I. The calendar read April 1, 2012 and I wrote a note, our math facts and special helper's name backwards. It was a fun filled morning.

 

Animated Literacy:

This week we learned two new characters.  We learned about Chauncy Chipmunk who likes to chop chocolate chips and cheese into chowder and Ichabod Ichthyosaurus who is itchy from inchworms. After learning these new sounds we practiced reading some words.

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 Chauncy Chipmunk we focus on the "ch" as seen in the words chin and itch.

Handwriting Without Tears

This week we wrote a paragraph that had different punctuation and turned h's into b's creating new words (for example: hug turned into bug). When you have a moment practice writing the alphabet or simple words with your child. Please watch for size and spacing. 

Don't Forget:

On cold days please make sure to send hats and mittens. Also, on days where there is snow or it is slushy please send boots and snow pants. Thank you!

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).