Week 32: Life Cycles and Moving Towards 50

Weekly Centres

April Portfolio

We're still working away at our portfolio drawing and writing.  Now everybody is writing as much of their words as possible with, when needed, some phonetic clues from Mr. McCullough.

Sunflower Snap Cubes

We measured our sunflower, comparing the height from last week (3 snap cubes) with the height this week (9 snap cubes).  We then had to make a prediction about how tall it would be next week, using snap cubes to represent the new height. 

Making 50

Similar to our "100 Dots" activity from the 100th day of school, we worked with a page that has been split in five section, adding ten items of our choice to each section. 

Spring Word Books

Our Spring Word Books were so big and detailed last week, we couldn't possibly get them all finished at once.  So we're finishing them this week, tracing our words, reading them with our friends, and adding pictures to each page.

Class Caterpillar

Some paint and some toilet paper rolls were used to create a body for our class caterpillar!

Books We Read

Little Red Riding Hood
A Froggy Fable
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
From Egg to Butterfly

Other Things We Did

We worked with the idea of 50, learning that 5 groups of 10 makes 50!  However, we also learned that 10 groups of 5 makes 50!

More "That's Not A Number!", this time with the numbers 6 and 9!

We talked about the life cycle of a butterfly.  We started with the egg, then went to the caterpillar, then proceeded to the cocoon, and ended up at butterfly.  We also played a metamorphosis game that involved switching between the different stages (though not always in order).

We talked about summer and how, even though it's really warm this week, we're not there yet.  We also used our sound-spelling strategies to creatively spell the other seaons.  We were pretty close!

We figured out if we were being good friends to our worms.  We decided we hadn't, since we hadn't fed them in a while.  So we gave them some cucumber and predicted if it would still be there by Monday.

May Calendar

Notes:
May 6th:  We will in the music class to sing with Chris Hadfield in the International Space Station as part of Music Monday!
May 10th: Officer John will be visiting our classroom to talk about neighbourhood safety!

New colour group postings will be out mid-week!

Week 31: Celebrating Earth

Weekly Centres

Spring Books
We started making books about spring!  On each page, there was a different spring word like "flowers" or "buds" or "butterfly".  We had to write the word using the outline and then draw a picture of that spring thing!

Little Earths
Using round coffee filters, as well as blue and green food colouring, we created mini-Earths by painting the colours on.

Recycling Sort
We sorted our recyclable bins into hula hoops, choosing how we wanted to sort them.  We'll talk at the end of the week about the proper way to sort recyclables!

Frog Life Cycles
After talking about the life cycle of a frog, we created our own frog life cycles using plastecine.  We made frog eggs, tadpoles and, of course, frogs!

Stories We Read
Hansel and Gretl
Never Put a Frog in the Kitchen Sink
The Lorax
The Life of a Tadpole

Song of the Week
Never Put a Frog in the Kitchen Sink
Never put a frog in the kitchen sink,
The kitchen sink, the kitchen sink.
Never put a frog in the kitchen sink,
or your mother's gonna yell!

Who put a frog in the kitchen sink?
The kitchen sink, the kitchen sink?
Who put a frog in the kitchen sink?
Your mother's gonna yell!

Other Things We Did
We celebrated Earth Day with the whole school, watching skits and songs about what we can do to help the Earth.  We then went back to the class to talk about what we saw and different things we can do.

After reading "The Lorax", we talked about why it's important to protect the environment and how, if we try to get too much from something, we can sometimes end up with nothing at all.

Our class sunflower has started to grow!  It's currently three cubes high!

We're adding to our garden by planting beans in the classroom!  Each student will be adding water to their bean every day, waiting to see how it grows!

Our favourite game show, That's Not A Number, was played again, with the number "6" being the ticket to our dance party.

Week 30: Writing About Worms

Pictures to come soon!
Weekly Centres
Train Station
Our drama station was turned into a train station, complete with a working train, a conductor's microphone, a ticket counter, a snack stand and a waiting area!

Plastecine Shapes
We kept working with 3D shapes this week, this time using only pieces of plastecine to create spheres, cylinders, cones, cubes and prisms!  We then matched the shapes up with a pre-made model.

Sunflowers
With paper plates, glue, crayons and goldenrod paper, we created sunflowers to put up in our window.

Worm Facts
Using non-fiction fact books, we drew pictures of worms and then wrote what we knew about worms underneath.  Everybody wrote their own words!

Writing To A Friend
Using Handwriting Without Tears style tracing sheets, we each took a paper with a classmate's name on it, wrote their name, and then drew a picture for them that we thought they'd like.  We then gave them their name and the picture!

Song of the Week
In Our Garden

Other Things We Did
After working with the number 5 in a whole bunch of ways, we all showed Mr. McCullough a different way to represent five then we did a few weeks ago.  We had groups of fives, drawings of five, shapes with five sides, addition statements and the actual number five!

We kept working on the idea of Fiction vs Non-Fiction so we knew what books to pick (and which ones not to pick) while we were doing our worm writing.  We did this by playing a movement game where we had to make lines behind Fiction or Non-Fiction books.

We kept adding missing letters to our daily message!  Where are those letters going?

A magician came to the school on Thursday afternoon and showed us some amazing tricks with cards, rings, paper bags and bouncing rubber balls!

Our Reading Buddies helped us out on Friday afternoon for our Community Clean-Up!  With rubber gloves and instructions in hand, we cleaned up a large area of the Jackman schoolyard!

Week 29: Numbers Stories and Respect

Weekly Centres

Sight Word Writing

Using removable Sight Words from our Sight Word Wall, we've been practising writing some of these words on grids that Mr. McCullough made for us!

3D Shape Making

With toothpicks and plasticine, we've tried to recreate a variety of 3D shapes.

Magnificent Tree, Now in 3D!!!

To help show the difference between a 2D shape and a 3D shape, we used recycled materials like boxes, paper rolls and plastic containers and bottles to create free-standing versions of our Magnificent Trees!

Spring Flower Sketching

We've tried drawing some of the flowers in our class collection, trying to make them as realistic as possible.

Number Stories with Dots

Given no more than 5 dots, we created simple number stories, like 3 bees flying to 2 flowers to pollinate them.  Some of us were able to write parts of our story all by ourselves!

Books We Read

The Greedy Triangle

My Princess Boy

Oliver Button is a Sissy

Keep Climbing, Girls!

Song of the Week - The 3D Dee Dee

Sung to the tune of Hokey Pokey, with 3D shapes being substituted for body parts

You put your cube in,

You take your cube out.

You put your cube in,

And you shake it all about.

You do the 3D Dee Dee and you go and seek one out.

That's what it's all about!

Other Things We Did

On the International Day of Pink, we talked about bullying, how it's never okay to make fun of somebody for being different, and how there's pretty much no such thing as clothes or colours that are just "for boys" or "for girls". 

There was a surprise fire drills, which we all did very well at, even though it was cold outside!

With the 3D Dee Dee song in the background, we searched our room for objects that were, or were similar to, spheres, cubes, pyramids, cones and triangular and rectangular prisms.

We kept playing "That's Not a Number" and having our Number Dance Party while practising our number printing skills!

We talked about the difference between a regular story (These bees are flying to those flowers) and a number story (Three bees are flying to two flowers). 

We started leaving letters and words out of our Daily Message to see who could fill in the missing spaces.

Week 28: Magnificent Spring

Weekly Centres
Spring Trees
Keeping with our theme of a tree for each season, we painted our spring trees this week!

Magnificent Trees
Using the book "The Magnificent Tree" as a guide, we used 2D shapes to create our own "Magnificent Trees" on the carpet.  We then told our friends what features the trees had!

March Portfolio
We kept working on our drawing in our March Portfolio, but we also working some more on adding labels.  A few of us were even able to add some simple sentences!

Books We Read
The Artist Who Painted A Blue Horse
The Magnificent Tree
Voices in the Park

Song of the Week - Robin in the Rain
Robin in the rain, such a saucy fellow.
Robin in the rain, mind your socks of yellow.
Running in the garden with your nimble feet.
Digging for your dinner with your long, strong beak.
Robin in the rain, you don't mind the weather.
Showers always make your day!
Bet the worms were wishing you would stay at home!
Robin on a rainy day!

Other Things We Did
Janeen, a local artist, came in on Tuesday and helped us make Acrylic Hearts!  They'll be coming home at the end of next week!

We talked about how the different feelings can make us feel, and how changes in the seasons can make us feel a bit funny.

Our worms ate all the food that was left in their container and left behind castings!

We've mixed up our message a bit.  Now, we're saying it a little bit faster, but also saying it more often and in different groups (boys, girls, people wearing blue, people with short hair) to help increase our reading fluency.


We started using "Number Tickets", or sheets with different numbers on them, to practice our number printing.  If we finished it before the song playing was over, we got to participate in our number dance party!

We worked a bit on the difference between the "R" sound and the "W" sound.

Our new, favourite, in-class game show, "That's Not A Number!" took place!  We looked and numbers and letters that were similar (like 5, S & 2) and had to identify the number and, if it wasn't a number, say "That's Not A Number!"

April Calendar