Good Afternoon!

Today's activities included:

The excitement for the end of our day was that due to the high winds, our power service was interrupted at around 3 pm so free play time was done with natural lighting.

Letters of the day: "m" and long "e" sound - utilized and identified in the morning message along with a shared reading story. (JK) Phonics writing and recognition activity, (SK) "m"is for..." personal picture dictionary.
As we go through the alphabet again, students will be using their own personal set of sound sticks to create words based on the sounds used each week.  Students began today with "m" and long "e" sticks and created the word "me".

Words of the day: "they" and "have"- utilized and identified in the morning message along with being identified in a choral reading.

Shared Reading Stories: "Monkey and Me" by Emily Gravett, "The Water Hole" by Graeme Base and "The Elephant and the Grasshopper"

Poems/Songs: Fee, Fie, Foe, Fum, Birdies, It is Living, and Windy Months

Drama:  We practiced our Eqaswarth Day dramatic presentation based on the story "The Water Hole."  We ran through the whole story and finalized roles and parts.
Math Activity: Measurement-Mass- We begun the session with a review of measurement terms (length, height, mass, light, heavy, balance and equal)  utilized thus far in the unit. Focusing on heavy and light, students determined which household item would be fit based on the need for 1 or 2 people to carry it.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

For Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Good Afternoon!

Tomorrow is our first of four trips to the Alliston Nikolettes Gymnastics Club.  Please see your child's communication book in regards to attire for the event.  Thanks to the many screened parents who have offered to volunteer for the trips.  In order to give all those wishing to participate an opportunity to do so, a volunteer schedule was created and sent home.

Today's activities included:

Letters of the day: "ing" sound - utilized and identified in the morning message along with being identified in a choral reading and a shared reading story. (JK) Phonics writing and recognition activity, (SK) "ing" as in..." personal picture dictionary.

Words of the day: "said", "mom" and "dad"- utilized and identified in the morning message along with being identified in a choral reading.

Shared Reading Stories: "Speeding Seal", and "I Know It Is Living" by Sheila Rivera

Poems/Songs: Birdies, It is Living, and Windy Months

Science: Living and Non-Living- Students each completed their own page for our class book.  Each student chose something that was either living or non-living, identified it's category and why it fit into that one. 

Here is our gallery of pages prior to being bound:

SK Class Science Book Pages

JK Class Science Book Pages

Math Activity: Measurement- Weight- Students free play explored weighing items (crayons, pencils, glue sticks, and scissors) using balance scales.
Enjoy the rest of your day!

Tuesday April 10, 2012

Good Afternoon!

Just a reminder that tomorrow is the deadline for gymnastic forms. Thanks to those that have already returned theirs.

Today's activities included:

Letters of the day:  "ing" sound

Words of the day: "said", "mom" and "dad"- utilized and identified in the morning message along with being identified in a choral reading and a shared reading story.

Shared Reading Stories: "It's Spring! Blue" by Adam Peltzmen, "LMNO Peas" by Keith Baker, and "The Longest Necklace" by Caroline Farr 

Poems/Songs: Birdies and Windy Months

Journals: Students journaled from our read-aloud prompt about who they are from the LMNO Peas story.

Math Activity: Measurement- Length- Students identified the longest and shortest fish in the Franklin Fishing activity.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

For Thursday, March 22, 2012

Good Afternoon! Today's activities included:

Today's activities included:

Letter of the day: short "u" vowel sound - As a tie in activity to our vowel letter sound emphasis, students made an "ug" word wheel.

Words of the day: "that" and "little"- utilized and identified in the morning message and in a a choral reading poem. 

Shared Reading Stories: "Lucky Duck" by Marie Fleming, "When Will It be Spring" by Catherine Walters, and "Ten Lucky Leprechauns"

Poems/Songs: Bunnies, Leprechauns and Five Little Shamrocks

Science: Seasons- After reading about a bear who was learning about the signs of spring, we took our bears out of hibernation and went with them on a walk around the perimeter fence at the school looking for signs of spring.  Here are some of the signs that we saw:

Clovers against our outside wall

 

Flower buds on a tree in our play yard

 

The grass is turning back green again

 

The trees are beginning to leaf out

We also heard different birds singing and calling as well as seeing a pair of goldfinches eating seeds of a cedar tree.

Math Activity: Numeracy -  Students completed a backword counting activity with the JKs using a cut and paste version and the SKs using a numeral writing version.

Today was  Dance with Theresa and library book exchange.  Tomorrow the students will be sharing their little dance pieces at 12:15 PM with Ms. Wood's and Mrs. Heagy's class. 

Enjoy the rest of your day!

For Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Good Afternoon!

It was a hot one today.  Please be aware that with the warmer sunny weather and less clothes means that students will need to be wearing sunscreen.  Also a reminder about the school's dress code when selecting clothing regarding the width of top straps (3 finger guide) and the tops length (covering their bellies) with shorts falling at or below finger tips. A notice will be coming home in next month's school newsletter with full details.

Today's activities included:

Letter of the day: short "o" vowel sound - Students completed "A Frog" mini book using "og" word family words.  Be sure to have your child read it to you as they are quite proud of their reading abilities.  JK's might need some prompting with the sight words especially "take".  Other than fluent readers, students are to all use their peter pointer under each word strategy as they are reading.

Words of the day: "that" and "little"- utilized and identified in the morning message and a choral reading poem. 

Shared Reading Stories: "Frog On A Log" by Usborne, "Mouse's First Spring" by Lauren Thompson, and "There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a One" by Dr. Jean

Poems/Songs: Bunnies, Leprechauns and Five Little Shamrocks

Journals:  Students completed their March yearbook and signature pages.

Dina Dinosaur: Ms. Stockley had Dina lead the students in a discussion about problem solving common scenario problems that they might encounter.  Students identified how they would feel in a particular situation and then how they could possibly solve the problem.  After the circle discussion, students each had a problem card and chose a facial expression icon to indicate how they would feel and then chose a solution icon as to how they might solve the situation.

Math Activity: Numeracy -  As a whole class, we coral read the "Old Lady Who Swallowed a One" and followed along by using our ladies for counting and retelling the story. The ladies will be coming home tomorrow.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

For Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Good Afternoon!

Today's activities included:

Letter of the day: short "o" vowel sound - As a tie in activity, students completed the "og" word family dog.

Words of the day: "that" and "little"- utilized and identified in the morning message and a choral reading poem. 

Shared Reading Stories: "Todd's Odd Day" by Maria Fleming, "Zero" by Kathryn Otoshi, and "There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a One" by Dr. Jean

Poems/Songs: Bunnies, Leprechauns and Five Little Shamrocks

Journals: Students free-choice journaled with many choosing to share their recent March break experiences.  Emphasis continues to be one stretching out the word sounds and writing what they are hearing for juniors.  This strategy is also used for seniors with added emphasis on utilizing sight words, spacing between words and adding more details to their stories by writing 2-3 sentences.

Math Activity: Numeracy -  The other half of the class completed their "old lady who swallowed a one" counting retell character. We will be using our ladies for counting and retelling the story over the next day.

SK's Ladies

Jk's Ladies

Students had their first day of dance with Theresa.  They will be dancing on Thursday and there will be a three class presentation at 12:15 pm on Friday.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

For Monday, March 19, 2012

Good Afternoon!

I hope that everyone had a fun and relaxing March break.  By the sounds of students' sharing, many had some interesting adventures.  I can't tell you how good it is to be healthy and back with the class.

Today's activities included:

Letter of the day: short "i" vowel sound - As a tie in activity to our vowel letter sound emphasis, students matched and glued "ig" word family puzzle pieces.

Words of the day: "that" and "little"- utilized and identified in the morning message and utilized in a word play writing activity. 

Shared Reading Stories: "Big Pig on a Dig" by Usborne, "One" by Kathryn Otoshi, and "There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a One" by Dr. Jean

Poems/Songs: Leprechauns and Five Little Shamrocks

Word Play Writing Activity: Classmates Name- We identified, stretched out, clapped out, cut up, put it back in order, counted the number of letters, wrote out and graphed another name of a classmate.  Besides writing out the name, each student also wrote out the sight word "that" on their white boards.  There is such a huge improvement in letter formation printing of the class from the first time we tried using the white boards. Such a proud teaching moment!

Please continue to encourage your child to start letter formation from the top or middle line as required for each letter when they are doing writing activities at home.

Math Activity: Numeracy -  Students made an "old lady who swallowed a one" counting retell character. Due to the level of teacher support required for this activity, it is set up in two rotations.  The other half of the class will get an opportunity to make theirs tomorrow.

You will see that mailbags were stuffed today as we sent home a lot of student displayed literacy and winter art pieces and student work. Our class version of some spring cleaning. LOL!

I noticed that the Scholastic Book Order forms did not go home with the calendar in my absence.  I will send these home tomorrow.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Red & Pink Colour Day

Happy Valentine's Day!

Much fun and excitement filled the day today as students donned red and pink for our colour day.  It was great to see all the alphabet and name practice working in authentic literacy practice as students all distributed their Valentine's into the mailbags of fellow students in our Senior and Junior table mailing system.  Thanks to those who sent in some sweet treats! They were much appreciated by all.

I hope you all enjoy the keepsake hand print hearts that students made in their colour choice of either red or pink. These were so adorable and I apologize that I forgot to get a photo of them for the blog in all the action of today.

Students participated in the school fundraising dance-a-thon by dancing to the tunes provided by "Rockin' Rick".  Many members in our class were fortunate to have their names drawn for fundraiser prizes by the school council.

Other activities today included: 

Words of the day: "he" and "on"- utilized and identified in the morning message 

Shared Reading Stories: "The Day It Rained Hearts" by Felicia Bond, "Red is Best" by Kathy Stinson, and "The Night Before the 100th Day of School" by Natasha Wing

Poems/Songs: We Can Count by 10's, Making Valentines, and Love is... 

Class Book Writing: Students each created a page by drawing and writing about something red either that is a favourite red coloured item of their own or from the story.

(photo to come)

Math Activity: Valentine's inspired math centres- Students did 2 0f 4 centres which included: graphing with cinnamon hearts (JK: 1-6 and SK:5-10), measuring length and perimeter with candy hearts, and  counting hearts with all allowing for numeral writing practice as students recorded their number findings.  There was also a counting dot-to-dot heart and colouring activity.  Students will complete the other 2 rotations later this week.

As with other Colour Days, we each filled out a square on our class Colour Day Graph if we were wearing that colour today.

Just a reminder that it is 100 Day tomorrow and students will be sharing their 100 collection.  If possible, please send in canned goods for our 100 can Food Drive.  The cans will be counted and used in a weight and measurement activity centre tomorrow.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

For Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Hello All!
Today's activities included:

Letter of the day: Uu - (JK) Letter Book writing and reading practise, (SK) "Uu" is for ... personal picture story writing and reading practise.

Words of the day: "here" and "are"- utilized and identified in the morning message along with being identified in a choral reading.

Shared Reading Stories: "Umbrella Bird's Umbrella" by Heather Feldman and "One Snowy Day" by Tammi Salzano

Poems/Songs: Ice, Colourful Mittens, It's a Rectangle, It's a Circle, It's a Square, We're a Square, and This is a Triangle
Science: Students demonstrated their understanding of how humans adapt to their habitat's seasonal changes by sorting clothing into appropriate sections for summer or winter clothing.

Miss Claymore joined our class for the afternoon last block of the day as I was away.

Math Activity: Geometry- Students who did not share yesterday had the opportunity to share their 3D shapes from home with the class today.  Again it is so fun to see the diverse choices for objects and how students can describe their shapes according to the attributes learned.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

For Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - 3D Shape Sharing Day

Good Afternoon!

Today was the Health Unit Dental Screening day and students visited with the dental hygienist.

Today's activities included:

Letter of the day: Tt - we continued with our turtle crafts.  The students are quite excited to bring these home to share.

Jk Turtle Puppets

SK Turtle Puppets

Words of the day: "here" and "are"- utilized and identified in the morning message along with being identified in a shared reading story.

Shared Reading Stories: "And Here's to You" by David Elliot

Poems/Songs: Colourful Mittens and Ice

Journals: Students completed their yearbook name and numbers page along with their signature for January.

Math Activity: Geometry- 3D Shape Sharing Day! We split the class into two groups with students getting to share their shapes from home with their classmates. There were a diverse selection of items and the children were so proud to share theirs.  Some students still have to share theirs tomorrow so for those who forgot theirs at home today, they too can have an opportunity to share them tomorrow.

Enjoy the rest of your day!