The Last 26 Days of School

For the last 26 days of school we did an alphabet countdown which made every day special and fun. I found some ideas online, some from friends and some just fell into place.

A is for Airplane Day: 

We created and flew our own airplanes.

B is for Butterfly Day:

On this day we released our butterflies back into nature.

C is for Children's Festival:

We went to Children's Festival and saw a play.

D is for Dance Day:

We danced the day away and Dropped Everything And Read (DEAR). 

E is for Exercise Day:

We took a walk to the park and completed some exercises. 

F is for Freeze Day:

We played freeze tag, painted our faces and had freezies.

G is for Game Day:

The children brought games and we had a fun morning playing them.

H is for Hat Day:

We wore our favourite hats to school.

I is for Ice Cream Day:

The children wrote down why they should get ice cream and then they ate a delicious ice cream treat.

J is for Joke Day:

The children brought in jokes to tell and we spent the morning laughing.

K is for Kindergarten Day:

We wrote down all of the things that we loved about Kindergarten.

I found this idea from Kelly Findsen and created my own based on my class. 

L is for Letter Day:

We created a book for the students next year by each child writing down what they think the next class will like. 

 I found this idea on Pinterest and it led me to this page. I am excited to use this book at the start of Kindergarten next year. 

M is for Marshmallow Madness Day:

We built structures out of marshmallows and toothpicks.

N is for Number Day:

We had fun playing many number games.

 I blogged about these earlier this year. I love this entire "poking" set. It is wonderful for self-checking and working on both language and math skills. It is from FlapJack Educational Resources.

 The children love completing the 100 board and have developed many strategies. 

I made this game up for number day. I found four different coloured dice and had the children roll at once. Then the colour with the highest number got a point. They played until someone had 10 points. They loved this game and requested it often after this.  

We played "battle" or "war" using the Power of Ten cards.  

O is for Outdoor Appreciation Day:

We went outside and completed an obstacle course.

P is for Picnic Day:

We went to the park and had a picnic.

Q is for Q-tip Painting Day:

We painted pictures using q-tips.

R is for Rhinos, Hippos and Monkeys...oh my!

We discussed our favourite zoo animals and had a Rice Krispie Treat.

S is for Sports Day:

We wore our favourite sports team jersey or shirt and created sports badges.

T is for Teddy Bear Day:

We brought our favourite teddy bears and created pictures using construction paper.

             

I got this idea from Sassy Dealz

U is for Under the Sea Day:

We created an ocean scene and my mom came to class. We also had our graduation that night.

We painted the ocean background and once it dried we traced an ocean scene. Next time we will colour them in with crayons or oil pastels. We tried using black markers but the paint started to ruin the markers. 

V is for Video Day:

We watched "The Lorax" and discussed why trees are important.

W is for Wacky Water Day:

We had a fun day with water. We had a water relay and played with water balloons. It was a fun morning!

X is for X-Change Autographs Day:

We wrote our signatures on individual beach balls to take home and remember our friends.

I got this idea from Adventures of Room 129.

Y is for Year End Clean Up Day:

We finished all of our projects and cleaned up the room.

Z is for Zip Up and Zoom Out of School Day:

We played some relay games and talked about what we are going to do this summer. I handed out report cards and last day of school photos. We laughed and cried and had a great last day of school! 

They had to fan tissue paper fish into the trap. 

 They had to blow a cup to the other side of the table. 

 They had vaseline on their noses and had to transfer as many cotton balls to the paper plates in 30 seconds. 

 They had to wiggle a cookie from their forehead to their mouth by just scrunching their face. 

Two parents brought the class pizza for a last day treat. Thank you!

I got the ideas for the relays from Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits.

HAVE A FUN AND SAFE SUMMER!! 

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).