Week 24: Building Our Underground Railroad

Weekly Centres
February Portfolio Writing
We added another page to our Portfolio this week!  With over half the year gone, it's neat to see how far we've come with our drawing and printing.

Harriet Tubman Books
We started colouring books about Harriet Tubman, with interactive pieces that involve Harriet hiding in various spots.  Next week, we'll be building the books with our Reading Buddies!

Weaving Pattern Quilts
Using strips for construction paper and glue, we "weaved" together quilts with multi-colour patterns.

Jigsaw Maps
We took a variety of Underground Railroad maps that Mr. McCullough had cut up and put them back together, using our jigsaw puzzle building skills!

Building and Underground Railroad
Using "action figures" and some of our blocks, we created "hiding spots" in our block centre and role played escaping from the Southern USA to Canada!

Week 23: THe Underground Railroad

Due to the (once again) shortened nature of the week, our traditional activity centres will be returning next week.  This week will involve some group based activities, but also more independent based centre activities.

Books We Read

Unspoken

The Patchwork Path
Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt

Song of the Week

This Little Light of Mine

This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine!

This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine!



Example from our Code Quilt



This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine!

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!

I'm gonna take my light around the world,

I'm gonna let it shine!

I'm gonna take my light around the world,

I'm gonna let it shine!

I'm gonna take my light around the world,

I'm gonna let it shine!

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!

I'm not gonna let anyone blow it out, I'm gonna let it shine!
I'm not gonna let anyone blow it out, I'm gonna let it shine!

I'm not gonna let anyone blow it out, I'm gonna let it shine!

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!

Centres of the Week

Printing

We are working on our letter O and our letter C, remembering that they should both curve, but we have to close the O and leave C open. 

Underground Railroad Quilts

Using pre-designed patterns based on actual "Code Quilts" used during the time of the Underground Railroad, we made two-colour patterns and put them together to create a signal quilt.  The two we worked on were the "Shoofly" and the "Monkey Wrench".

AT Labels

Using some of our simple "AT" words we've learned, we've begun to label pictures, using the sound we know is the same for all of the words in the activity (AT) and adding the sound to the start of the word that makes sense.

Sight Wordsearch

We found our 13 sight words in a giant wordsearch, and also practiced writing them down.  Some of us even found other words and wrote those down, too!

Other Things We Did

We talked about our Family Day long weekend and shared our favourite moment with the class.

We used our tongue to practice the "TH" sound for a bunch of words and tried to find "TH" combinations in our message!

We revisted Martin Luther King Jr. and talked about how excluding people because of how they look is not okay.

We jumbled up our daily message so well that we needed to use newly learned Wordsearch strategies to figure it out!

For Show & Share, we saw a snake skin, a Scooby-Doo sight word book collection, a homemade bean shaker and a talking, portable computer!

Thanks to the efforts of the Jackman daycare students, the house centre was turned into a doctor's office, and a lot of students went in to have a look at all the neat "medical gear" during free centres.

We started looking at the RAZ-Kids program on the library computers!  Lots of books that we can read on the computer, at home, with our family!

Week 22: The Week of 100 New Years, With Love

With the 100th Day, Valentine's Day and Lunar New Year all in one week, we're changing our week around slightly.  We will have different centres each day of this week, with the whole class participating, rather than our colour groups.

Books We Read
Ms. Bindergarten Celebrates the 100th Day
Wolf's Chicken Stew
Chicka Chicka 123
In The Library
Teatime in Space
Frog and the Stranger

Song of the Week
Valentine's Day
Valentine, Valentine, Valentine's Day.
The day that I'm sending a letter to say
I love you!
Yes, I do!
Hope you will send me a Valentine, too!

Made you a Valentine, made it today
For you are my friend and I wanted to say
I love you!
Yes, I do!
Hope you will send me a Valentine, too!

Here is the postman, a Valentine came,
All tied with a ribbon and signed with your name!
I love you!
Yes, I do!
Hope you will send me a Valentine, too!


100th Day Activities

We created 100 Dots painting using our awesome Pointalism techniques.  Ten colours, ten sections, ten dots in each section!

We used 100s grids and Fruit-Os to create necklaces with 100 pieces of cereal!

We learned that 10 groups of 10 make 100!

Lunar New Year

Using our snakes, our songs, and red ribbon for "Dragon Fire", we walked through the halls of Jackman, singing out Chinese New Year Parade song.

Valentine's Day
Using paper bags, foam heart, glitter hearts, fuzzy hearts, crayons and magic markers, we created Valentine Bags for the Valentine Cards that people brought in on Friday.

Substituting paper bags for construction paper, we made Valentine cards for a special person at home, whether it was a mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, brother, sister or pet.

We had words like love, hugs, happy, friends and Valentine posted on our wall so we could try to use these words in our cards if we wanted.

Week 21: Crafting the New Year

We will attempt to start "live updates" when it isn't report card and IEP week.  =0)

Books We Read
Bringing in the New Year
This Next New Year
Gung Hei Fat Choi

Song of the Week
Lunar New Year (sung to the tune of Frere Jacques, with repeating lines)
Chinese Dragon.
Breathing Fire.
Happy Happy New Year.
Gung Hei Fat Choi!

Here's our snake.
It's his year!
Watch him slide and slither.
Gung Hei Fat Choi!

Weekly Centres
Writing
We are working on our letter Y and our letter Z!

Pointalism Art - Our REAL Animals
We are continuing our pointalism art from last week, only this time, we're creating the two "animals" that make up this class.  Can you guess what they are?  We use a variety of shapes to make the faces before dotting them with paint and q-tips.

Number Snake Making
Using contstruction paper, crayons, markers and butterfly fasteners, we're making number snakes for our class Lunar Festival Parade!

Lantern Making
We'll be cutting our own lanterns using construction paper, coloured pencils and markers. 

Building Boxes

With all of our centres being very guided this week, the building boxes will be a free play centre.

Other Things We Did
We talked about how Chinese New Year and Lunar New Year are the same thing, and it's not just people from China who celebrate it!

We got very close to 100 on our day count - only one day away!

We talked about how Rats (18 of our students) are intelligent, quick-witted and creative, and how Pigs (2 of our students) are noble, kind and honest.  We also learned that Pigs are best friends with Horses, and Rats are considered the enemy of the Horse.... and Mr. McCullough is a Horse!!!

So we also talked about how these things aren't always true or accurate. 

We started "Jolly Phonics Roulette" near the end of snack time, where we would randomly go over phonics we've learned before, as well as introduce new phonics. 

We practiced walking and singing at the same time so we could do our parade on Monday.

February Calendar & New Colour Groups

 

Julian Jet Vita Rae

Cameron Henry Emily Kyra

Kalen Angelo Marlee Ava

Judah Kai Marilisa Alison

Nathan Lachlan Elizabeth Daphne

 

Week 20: What are you like?

Books We Read
In-Class
Lin Yi's Lantern: A Moon Festival Tale
When Cats Go Wrong
Library
We will now be tracking books Mr. Hanson reads in the library to allow parents a chance to expand their home libraries.
Owl at Home

Song of the Week
Here We Go Willoughby
Here we go Willoughby, Willoughby, Willoughby,
Here we go Willoughby, All Night Long
Step back Sally, Sally, Sally,
Step back Sally, All Night Long
Now ladies and gentlemen and children, too
We’re going to put on a show, just for you
We’re going to turn around and touch the ground
We’re going to stretch up high and reach the sky
To the front to the back to the s-s-side!
To the front to the back to the s-s-side!
 I called up the doctor to the doctor I said….
Ooh ah, I got a pain in my head!
Ooh ah, I got a pain in my neck!
Ooh ah, I got a pain in my side!
Ooh ah, I got a pain in my leg!
Oops, si-wah-wah, Oops, si wah-wah, Oops, si wah-wah,
All night long!
Oops, si-wah-wah, Oops, si wah-wah, Oops, si wah-wah,
All night long!
Oops, si wah-wah, all night long!
Oops, si wah-wah, all night long!
Oops, si wah-wah, all night long!

Weekly Centres

Writing
We added our January page to our portfolios and we took away the dotted lines we were using to write our names!  We also continued drawing pictures and telling Mr. McCullough what we have drawn.

House Centre Shapes
We sorted the different items in our house centre, deciding if they most closely matched triangles, squares, rectangles or circles.

"Pointalism" Art
Using shapes, q-tips and acrylic paint, we created some shape art.  First, we traced the shapes.  Then, we dabbed the q-tip in paint and, finally, we went dot-dot-dot along the shapes to create our art!

Chinese Zodiac Animals
After talking about the difference between "what we like" and "what we are like", students chose the Chinese Zodiac animal they most identified with.  They then coloured that animal and gave Mr. McCullough a description of why they were like that animal.

Building Shapes
Using the blocks in the building centre, everybody created a shape to show Mr. McCullough before being allowed to free build.

Other Things We Did
We had a big talk about the difference between "what we like" and "what we are like".

We also did a share in the circle where we told the person sitting next to us which animal they reminded us of, and why.

Since some students have been saying words other than "zip" when we've been noticing sight words, we made a lot of different words that end with the "ip" sound.

We're still counting to the 100th day!  It's so close!

We learned the letter L sound on our Jolly Phonics CD.

Mr. Hanson let us use the computer lab to try our hand at Plumo at the Zoo, which had a lot of fun matching and math activities!