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.
0 Comments
Kindergarten 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. St. Patrick's Day is one of my favourite celebrations! The children loved reading stories about leprechauns and creating leprechaun traps in hopes of catching one and getting his pot of gold! Here are some pictures documenting the process: Morning ClassAfternoon ClassWelcome 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.” 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. Noodle NamesFor this activity, children were given a strip of paper with their name already written on it. Their job was to cover the letters with white glue and place coloured noodles on top - creating their name written in noodles. We do this at the start of the year to familiarize children with their names - some kiddos come to kindergarten already printing their names, others are beginning to print their names, and others need practice recognizing their names. This task also gives the adults in the room an opportunity to observe a child's: fine motor skills, their understanding of left to right progression, possible sensory aversions, and letter formation knowledge. Name Sorting, Counting Letters, and Class GraphOn Friday each child was given squares of paper with the letters in their names written on them. Their job was to use these letters to build their name. Some children were able to do this without looking at their written name, others needed the support of having their written name in front of them. Both is fine, children all come in to kindergarten at different places on their literacy journey :)
Next, we glued these letters on a page to spell our names. We then counted how many letters are in our names and tried our best to print the number from looking at the ones written on the board. Today we will create a class name graph which will be displayed in our bootroom. Photos to come soon... |
Archives
May 2016
Categories
All
|