Week 19: 2D Shapes

Books We Read
Martin's Big Words
Elliot Jones, Midnight Superhero

Song of the Week
These are the Shapes I Know
Sung to the tune of "These are the Daves I know"
 
These are the shapes I know, I know. These are the shapes I know.
Count the sides! Only one! It’s a circle, round and fun!
These are the shapes I know, I know. These are the shapes I know.
Count the sides! Only three! A triangle, so pointy!
These are the shapes I know, I know. These are the shapes I know.
Count the sides! Four the same! Square, square, that’s it’s name!
Count the sides! 2 short, two long! It’s a rectangle to end the song
These are the shapes I know, I know. These are the shapes I know.

Weekly Centres
Printing
We worked on the letter "W" this week, using the "V" we did last week as a base.

Shapes & Data Management
We went back to our graphing activity, but this time we sorted triangles, rectangles, squares and circles into columns.  Then, we figured out which one we used the most and which one we used the least.

Snowflake Art
Using q-tips, glitter, plastic wrap and gule, we created snowflakes that we used to decorate our classroom windows.

Sight Word Tornado
With a small top, a plastic bin and six sight words, we did a graphing activity where we spun the top, saw where it landed, and recorded the word on a tracking sheet.

Sandbox Shape Sorting
We had circles, rectangles, squares and triangles buried in our sandbox and we had to dig to find them, then sort them into different bins.

Other Things We Did

We talked about fairness and if it was okay to exclude people because of the way that they look.  We decided that it wasn't.

We talked about our four simple 2D shapes and figured out the difference between a square and a rectangle.  We then used that information to find out if our gym was a square or a rectangle. 

We worked a bit with our "o" sounds, figuring out the difference between words like "no" and "do".

We saw Mr. Hanson three times this week!  So many stories, so many books!

Week 18: Most, Least, Equal

Blogger is having some photo upload issues, so you'll have to use your imagination for this post.

Books We Read
The Great Race: The Story of the Chinese Zodiac
Superdog: The Heart of a Hero
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Elliot the Moose Gets Stuck

Song of the Week*
 Round The Village


Go round and round the village (repeat x3), as we have done before.
Go in and out the window (repeat x3), as we have done before.
Now come and face your partner (repeat x3), as we have done before.
Now follow me to London (repeat x3), as we have done before.
*Ask your child if they remember the dance

Weekly Centres
Writing
Our letters we worked on this week were V and U!

Data Management Art
We created pictures using tissues paper squares and then talked about what colour we used the most and which colour we used the least.

Fine Motor Centre
We used some simple "Connect-the-Dot" pictures of things like trucks, owls, wagons and yo-yo's to practice connecting dots, staying in lines and cutting with scissors.

Building Centre
We worked on building stuctures of different sizes and then tried to see who used the most blocks.

Sand Centre
This was our free centre of the week, where students could do as they wished.

Other Things We Did

We learned the new sight words "for", "he" and "was".

We looked at our daily message and found out which sight word was used most often.

We built a small building with coloured blocks and kept looking to see if the colour we used most or least changed with each block that we added.

We used most and least when we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar to see what the caterpillar was eating and one what day.  The we sang about Herman the Worm again, except this time he was eating snowpants, Lindt chocolate, our snack and boots!

We build more words, except this time with the "et" sound at the end, and we practiced our G and E sounds as well.  I bet you can't get all the words that we let get made!

Week 17: After The Holidays

Books We Read
A Is For Musk Ox
The Very Cranky Bear
I Want My Hat Back
Tumford the Terrible

Song of the Week*
Round The Village

Go round and round the village (repeat x3), as we have done before.
Go in and out the window (repeat x3), as we have done before.
Now come and face your partner (repeat x3), as we have done before.
Now follow me to London (repeat x3), as we have done before.

*We'll actually be doing this next week as well, so we can work on the dance routine involved.

Weekly Centres

Writing
We worked on TWO letters this week - the letter K and the super easy letter L

Math
We sorted small paper squares into a simple graph and then counted how many items were in each bucket.  Then we circled the line with the most with green and the least with orange.

Winter Trees
To contrast our autumn trees, we created winter trees with winter colours like white, grey, blue and, of course, brown for the tree trunk.

Holiday Memory
We drew a picture of our favourite memory from our two week holiday!

Drama Centre

This was our free play centre, though we did put the focus on what happened during the holidays and re-enacting that.

Other Things We Did

We shared our favourite moments from our holiday break.

We reviewed the idea of "How's Our Engine Running" and reminded ourselves of a few class rules.

We started learning about the difference between the most, the least and equal.

We majorly changed our everyday routine to adjust for the most horrible thing about winter... SNOWPANTS!!!  We're now leaving our boots outside of the classroom on snowy/muddy days and finding our own spot in the room to get our snowpants on in. 

Big thanks to the moms and dad(!) who came in this week to help out with our art projects!

Week 15 & 16: The Holiday Season

Books We Read
Malke's Secret Latkes
Howard P Wigglebottom and the Power of Giving
The Spirit of Christmas
How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Song of the Week
Winter Holiday

Ding ding ding,
A winter holiday.
Ding ding ding,
A jolly holiday.
Some call it Christmas, some call it Hanukkah.
Presents for Christmas, presents for Hanukkah.
Ding ding ding,
A winter holiday.
Ding ding ding,
A jolly holiday.

Ding ding ding,
A winter holiday.
Ding ding ding,
A jolly holiday.
Some call it Christmas, some call it Hanukkah.
Candles for Christmas, candles for Hanukkah.
Ding ding ding,
A winter holiday.
Ding ding ding,
A jolly holiday.

Ding ding ding,
A winter holiday.
Ding ding ding,
A jolly holiday.
Some call it Christmas, some call it Hanukkah.
Parties for Christmas, parties for Hanukkah.
Ding ding ding,
A winter holiday.
Ding ding ding,
A jolly holiday.

Centres and Activities

Writing
We finished another page in our year-long portfolio, and most of us are able to write our names!  Pretty amazing!

Water Lily Art
Using a Monet picture as a basis, we used a combination of food colouring and acrylic paint to create our very own water lillies!

Data Management
We looked at how many letters were in each of our names, and then we created snowmen that had the same number of circles.  Some of us were able to cut the circles ourselves!

Reindeer Faces
Using popsicle stick triangles, we created reindeer faces using paint, markers, pipecleaners, glitter, glue, jewels, beads and googly eyes!  We even had three moms there to help us out!

Friendship Ring
We created a Holiday Friendship Ring, using construction paper strips and magic marker, where we talked about how we can be a good friend during the holidays.  We then put the ring on our holiday tree!

Other Things We Did

We talked about how the most important thing at the holidays isn't getting presents or making snowmen, but being with our family and friends.

We presented our holiday items in a Show & Share with our Reading Buddies.

We started kept "catching" sight words on our daily message.

Our carpet went out for cleaning, so we took our class mobile and did a parade around the school, singing songs we learned this year.

We worked on adding letters to the "AT" sound to make words like cat, mat, pat, rat....  lots of words!

We helped Mr. McCullough make a pair of wonderful holiday sweaters!