Thank you to Lucas H.'s mom, Donna, for helping us with this activity!
Today we had lots of fun making our "gingerbread" houses (actually made out of graham crackers). I think the children consumed just as much candy as they ended up putting on their creations! Hopefully the houses made it to your homes without falling apart. Thank you to Lucas H.'s mom, Donna, for helping us with this activity!
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There is no denying it, fall is in the air! For our nature walk today, we went to the east side of our field and made leaf rubbings with the fallen leaves. The children needed to make at least 5 rubbings, and were to switch crayon colours each time. The finished art pieces are beautiful and will be displayed in our classroom. Morning ClassAfternoon ClassKindergarten has been discussing how the snowshoe hares are changing from white to brown now that it is spring. We read the story, "It's not Easy Being a Bunny" which tells of a young bunny who decides to live with other animals. After trying to live with many different types of animals he decides that being a bunny wasn't so bad afterall. This illustration in the book became our inspiration for our spring rabbits art project. We used oil pastels and watercolours. To introduce students to our storytelling curriculum, I use Jan Brett's The Mitten. We read this story twice before acting it out. We identified the characters in the story, and students chose which part they wanted to play. We pretended crawling under the tables was crawling into the mitten. As I read through the story, the actors moved into the mitten at their character's time. Half the class acted out the story while the other half observed, as the audience. We then switched roles so everyone had a chance to participate. In your child's portfolio you will find a mitten your child sewed together and The Mitten characters your child coloured and cut out. During Student Led Conferences in February one of your child's tasks will be to retell you the story of The Mitten. Morning Class ActingAfternoon Class ActingWelcome back to school! We started the week with the question: Can you tell a story without saying any words? Most of the children thought you could not, some thought you could, and one couldn't decide. We then watched the story "The Snowman" based on the book by Raymond Briggs. This story has no words, it's a visual story. It created a lot of discussion among the students. We then created our own snowmen using the same art technique we used to make our Santas before the break. Your child's snowman is now in their portfolio so you can see it at our next Student Led Conferences. We continued the week with a "Snow Study", by reading “Snow”, which discussed winter weather and how snowflakes are made. We then completed give “Snow Stations”: playing at the snow table, creating winter pictures with puffy paint (AKA magic snow paint), drawing snowflakes using stencils, cutting snowflakes, and building snowflakes with popsicle sticks. Here are some photos from our explorations: Popsicle Stick SnowflakesSnow TableCutting Paper SnowflakesSnowflake StencilsSnow Painting (Puffy Paint)Here’s what we learned during our snow study:
· “When you look with a magnifying glass maybe you can see the snowflakes.” · “They have six branches.” · “Every snowflake looks different.” · “Snowflakes are made out of little ice crystals.” · “Snow is really cold.” · “It’s fun to play in the snow.” Peace Plates
Before creating our peace plates, we discussed how they should be colourful and bright. I also asked each child to finish the sentence "Peace is..." - you will see their response displayed with their finished peace plate. Painting our peace plates: Finished peace plates and peace responses: This week we have been reading stories about Remembrance Day and talking about the meaning of our Remembrance Day ceremonies and why we wear poppies. Miss Modien made a wreath with each class and the children each created a wax-resist drawing/painting of a poppy which will be included in your child's portfolio. During community circle today I asked the children to share their thoughts on Remembrance Day, soldiers, or poppies. Their responses are below (if your child is not listed, they chose not to share today).
Morning Class
Afternoon Class
Thanks for sending an apple to school for apple day this week! We used our apples for a math lesson - first we counted them, then we talked about the way the apples are similar and different, which lead to a whole group sorting activity. The children chose different attributes to focus our sorting on - for example, our morning class sorted by size, stem/no stem, colour. The children then practiced their fine motor skills by peeling and cutting apples with plastic knives to prepare our applesauce. It had to cook all day (a form of torture for the other teachers near our room because it smelled so good) and we got to try our apple sauce the following day. As the children ate, I recorded some of their comments: It tastes good. We also read the story "Who Took the Apples" on our promethean board, and each child completed their own version which was sent home earlier this week.
We concluded apple week with an art activity to learn the parts of an apple (skin, flesh, seeds, core, stem, and leaves). Your child's apple art will be placed in their portfolio... so you will get to see it at student led conferences next week! On Tuesday we read one of my favourite books - "Setting the Turkey's Free". It's a great story for retelling (which focuses on oral language development, which is a precursor for writing and understanding stories) and connecting to art. We were busy all week creating our own turkeys, which will be going home tomorrow. We also use used grocery fliers to create our own 'Thanksgiving plate'. This activity incorporates fine motor skills (cutting and gluing), while working on sorting and classifying and developing vocabulary. Each child shared their 'plate' with the class when we were finished. For our community circle, each class member shared what they were thankful for. Here are our thoughts: Morning Class "I'm thankful for...
Afternoon Class "I'm thankful for...
Roll-A-Turkey
For this math station, children rolled a die and added the corresponding detail to their turkey body. This station helps children learn to subitize - which is recognizing number sets at a glance (meaning they can look quickly at a die and know they rolled a four without having to count the dots). You can help your child with this skill at home by playing board games with them. |
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