Books We Read
Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt
Follow the Drinking Gourd
Unspoken
Weekly Centres
February Portfolio
Mr. McCullough did a big lesson on what trying to spell looks like in kindergarten. It cn luk lik this if it neds to, bcse it helps us lrn to spel. Most of us tried to write all the words we could for our February Portfolio and we used our Sight Word Wall to help us!
Patchwork Quilts
After reading Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, we created our own patches for a class quilt, using brown construction paper as a background and different coloured scraps of construction paper to make patterns. It was the same way Clara made her map quilt, except that she was sewing.
Map Unscramble
We unscrambled a bunch of map pieces, putting them all back together in our group, making four maps of the Underground Railroad.
Building the Railroad
Using some of our action figures and blocks, we created hiding places for slaves looking to escape through the Underground Railroad. We then role played what an escape might look like!
Other Things We Did
We talked about how Canada is a safe place for people of all colours and types and, how a few hundred years ago, people who were treated badly in America were able to escape to Canada so they could feel safer and have a better life. Mr. McCullough taught us about the Underground Railroad, talked about how it's not right to own somebody who will do anything you want, and about how it's wrong to think you're better than somebody else because of the way they look.
Letter "A" became our letter of the week, and the first letter that had us starting in the top-middle!
We tried to figure out the story of Unspoken, a story with no words, and how it tied into the Underground Railroad.
Our messages this week had missing words that we had to either find on the Sight Word Board, or work on our sound out strategies.
We looked at our prediction of how many days there were in the school year. Some people had predicted a million days of school, or a thousand, and we talked about whether we'd even get to 200, and what that might look like?
Tuesday 25 February 2014
Wednesday 19 February 2014
Week 23: Finding Family
Books We Read
Ribbit
Violet
Weekly Activities
Family Squares
We talked about different "generations" in a family and then drew "portraits" of our family, with one level being saved for the kids, one for the parents and adults their age, and another for grandparents and older adults. It was fun listening to everybody talk about how their families looked.
Letter S
Our first Jolly Jingle became our printing letter of the week. It really helped us to think of the S as a snake as we were drawing it.
Sight Word Search
After Mr. McCullough jumbled up our message, it was up to us to find it using Word Search Strategies! We then used these strategies to help us do a Sight Word Search, where we had to find all 12 of our sight words! Everybody found some, some people were able to get 9 on the first try, and some tried it on the second day and got all twelve!
Other Things We Did
Ms. Scott, the Pape Librarian, came in to tell us about all the neat things at the Pape library. She read us a book, told us about library cards and how to take books out, and listened to some of our stories about the library!
The KinderOlympics were set up in the kindergarten playground, with events like curling, alpine skiing, hockey, skeleton and figure skating!
Using "Violet" as a base, we started talking about differences in people and how it's not okay to discriminate based on how people look. This will be very important next week, as we start talking about Black History Month and the Underground Railroad!
We had to "Hush" to learn this week's Jolly Jingle, where we put the letters s and h together to create the sh sound.
Our Friday Centre Mashup resulted in some neat creations, like marble Beyblades, Plasticine treasure boxes, heart faces, rainbows and road maps!
Ribbit
Violet
Weekly Activities
Family Squares
We talked about different "generations" in a family and then drew "portraits" of our family, with one level being saved for the kids, one for the parents and adults their age, and another for grandparents and older adults. It was fun listening to everybody talk about how their families looked.
Letter S
Our first Jolly Jingle became our printing letter of the week. It really helped us to think of the S as a snake as we were drawing it.
Sight Word Search
After Mr. McCullough jumbled up our message, it was up to us to find it using Word Search Strategies! We then used these strategies to help us do a Sight Word Search, where we had to find all 12 of our sight words! Everybody found some, some people were able to get 9 on the first try, and some tried it on the second day and got all twelve!
Other Things We Did
Ms. Scott, the Pape Librarian, came in to tell us about all the neat things at the Pape library. She read us a book, told us about library cards and how to take books out, and listened to some of our stories about the library!
The KinderOlympics were set up in the kindergarten playground, with events like curling, alpine skiing, hockey, skeleton and figure skating!
Using "Violet" as a base, we started talking about differences in people and how it's not okay to discriminate based on how people look. This will be very important next week, as we start talking about Black History Month and the Underground Railroad!
We had to "Hush" to learn this week's Jolly Jingle, where we put the letters s and h together to create the sh sound.
Our Friday Centre Mashup resulted in some neat creations, like marble Beyblades, Plasticine treasure boxes, heart faces, rainbows and road maps!
Tuesday 11 February 2014
Week 22: 100s of Valentines!
Books We Read
Chicka Chicka 1-2-3
Penguin in Love
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!
Weekly Activities
100s Day Activities
We had two great activities today. In the first one, Mr. McCullough gave us a sheet that was broken in to ten parts. It was our job to fill each part with ten dots, circles, stickers, pictures, or anything we wanted, so long as there were ten of them. After we had ten groups of ten, we were done!
Working with a partner, we filled a 100s chart with Fruit Loops! Once it was full, we created necklaces or bracelets that we could take home and, if we wanted, eat!
Letter G
Chicka Chicka 1 2 3, this week we worked on the letter G! Starting in the same spot as our C, O and Q, Mr. McCullough got us to stop when we were almost done, "breaking" the circle with a little line.
Valentine Bags
To get ready for Valentine's Day, we decorated some simple paper bags with stickers, foam hearts, glittery sticker hearts and markers. These bags were very important for...
Valentine Hearts
Everybody made as many Valentine Hearts as they wanted, using the same materials as mentioned above, plus some shiny jewels. One side of the card had the decorations, while the other had who the card was to and who is was from.
Other Things We Did
We learned that 10 groups of 10 makes a hundred, got up to 100 on our chart, and learned that, after 100, we start counting by 1s again!
Everybody brought in a bag of a hundred.... something! We had puzzle pieces, pasta, beans, corn pops, Cheerios and even stickers!
Even though we read Chicka Chicka 1 2 3 earlier in the year, we read it again, because a good book is like a favourite food - you don't have to have it only once in your life!
X (as in x-ray) and CH (as in choo-choo) were added to our phonics list! We also played a little bit of phonics roulette, randomly recalling phonics we've learned so far.
We talked about Valentine's Day, why love is important and what it actually means.
Chicka Chicka 1-2-3
Penguin in Love
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!
Weekly Activities
100s Day Activities
We had two great activities today. In the first one, Mr. McCullough gave us a sheet that was broken in to ten parts. It was our job to fill each part with ten dots, circles, stickers, pictures, or anything we wanted, so long as there were ten of them. After we had ten groups of ten, we were done!
Working with a partner, we filled a 100s chart with Fruit Loops! Once it was full, we created necklaces or bracelets that we could take home and, if we wanted, eat!
Letter G
Chicka Chicka 1 2 3, this week we worked on the letter G! Starting in the same spot as our C, O and Q, Mr. McCullough got us to stop when we were almost done, "breaking" the circle with a little line.
Valentine Bags
To get ready for Valentine's Day, we decorated some simple paper bags with stickers, foam hearts, glittery sticker hearts and markers. These bags were very important for...
Valentine Hearts
Everybody made as many Valentine Hearts as they wanted, using the same materials as mentioned above, plus some shiny jewels. One side of the card had the decorations, while the other had who the card was to and who is was from.
Other Things We Did
We learned that 10 groups of 10 makes a hundred, got up to 100 on our chart, and learned that, after 100, we start counting by 1s again!
Everybody brought in a bag of a hundred.... something! We had puzzle pieces, pasta, beans, corn pops, Cheerios and even stickers!
Even though we read Chicka Chicka 1 2 3 earlier in the year, we read it again, because a good book is like a favourite food - you don't have to have it only once in your life!
X (as in x-ray) and CH (as in choo-choo) were added to our phonics list! We also played a little bit of phonics roulette, randomly recalling phonics we've learned so far.
We talked about Valentine's Day, why love is important and what it actually means.
Thursday 6 February 2014
Week 21: Pictures, Puppets, Perseverance
Books We Read
I Will Surprise My Friend
Boo Hoo Bird
Old Black Fly
Special Activities
Matija's Goodbye Book
I was Matija's last day at Jackman on Monday, as he's now going to a different school. We made him a "Going Away Present" in the form of a book. Each page had a picture of us, our name written in big letters, and a space for us to draw a picture of a memory we had of Matija.
Letter Q
Since we did our Letter O last week, we made a whole new letter by adding a line, creating the letter Q. We also learned that, to start most words with Q's, we have to add a "u" afterwards to create a "Qu" sound.
Zodiac Puppets
We found out that we were all oxen in the Chinese Zodiac, and talked a little bit about the Year of the Horse. To celebrate, everybody got to create either an ox puppet or a horse puppet, creating it with foam, paper, googly eyes, pom poms, craft sticks, markers and stick-on jewels.
Letters to Shapes
We went back to our shape knowledge and turned some common numbers and capital letters into shapes by adding lines or by colouring in the spaces.
Other Things We Did
Reading Buddies became Math Buddies this week! We went down to the library to work with the laptops and tried out IXL! It was pretty fun and, when given the choice to keep going or read a book, most students stuck with IXL.
We had an assembly on the Olympics and talked about the idea of "Perseverance", which means trying really hard and never giving up, even if something is difficult. We talked about times we've persevered in our life, both in school and out of school.
"Yummy Yellow Yogurt" helped us learn the "Y" sound!
I Will Surprise My Friend
Boo Hoo Bird
Old Black Fly
Special Activities
Matija's Goodbye Book
I was Matija's last day at Jackman on Monday, as he's now going to a different school. We made him a "Going Away Present" in the form of a book. Each page had a picture of us, our name written in big letters, and a space for us to draw a picture of a memory we had of Matija.
Letter Q
Since we did our Letter O last week, we made a whole new letter by adding a line, creating the letter Q. We also learned that, to start most words with Q's, we have to add a "u" afterwards to create a "Qu" sound.
Zodiac PuppetsWe found out that we were all oxen in the Chinese Zodiac, and talked a little bit about the Year of the Horse. To celebrate, everybody got to create either an ox puppet or a horse puppet, creating it with foam, paper, googly eyes, pom poms, craft sticks, markers and stick-on jewels.
Letters to ShapesWe went back to our shape knowledge and turned some common numbers and capital letters into shapes by adding lines or by colouring in the spaces.
Other Things We Did
Reading Buddies became Math Buddies this week! We went down to the library to work with the laptops and tried out IXL! It was pretty fun and, when given the choice to keep going or read a book, most students stuck with IXL.
We had an assembly on the Olympics and talked about the idea of "Perseverance", which means trying really hard and never giving up, even if something is difficult. We talked about times we've persevered in our life, both in school and out of school.
"Yummy Yellow Yogurt" helped us learn the "Y" sound!
Sunday 2 February 2014
Week 20: Gung Hei Fat Choi
Apologies for the shortened blog posts as of late. A combination of time being spent on report cards and IEPs and some computer space shortage around the school. The blog should be updated on a more frequent basis next week.
Books We Read
Log Hotel
Bringing In the New Year
The Very Quiet Cricket
Weekly Centres
January Portfolios
In exciting news, some of us were able to write words all by ourselves just by trying to write the sounds on the page! For those who aren't there yet, Mr. McCullough wrote some of the words and then had us fill in blanks with our sight words!
Red Rabbit Lanterns
Using construction paper sheets and strips, along with markers and scissors, we created Red Rabbit Lanterns for our Lunar New Year Parade!
2D Shapes Buildings
We used our 2D magnet shapes and our building straws to create larger 2D shapes by combining smaller 2D shapes.
Zodiac Pointalism
Q-Tips, paint and pictures of animals from the Chinese Zodiac, we first decided what animal we were most like (not what animal we like most) and then used the Q-Tips to dot paint onto the pictures.
Other Things We Did
We adopted a Pine Seed Bug that we found crawling in our classroom. We talked about what we could do to keep him happy, what kind of things we would need to put in his house, what kind of food he might eat, and why we shouldn't be scared of most bugs...
...unfortunately, our bug didn't last too long, so we had a talk about how tough it must be for a Pine Seed Bug to survive in a class where there weren't any pine seeds. Everybody took the loss of the little guy pretty well, though.
We learned how to say "Happy New Year" in Chinese, and also talked about how we should always respect other languages, even if the sounds they have are a little different than the sounds we have.
Our Reading Buddies helped us with our first attempt at RAZ-Kids! We were able to go online, read some books with them on the computer, and then try out the fun things in our RAZ-Rocket!
On Friday, we had a "Lantern Parade" around the school, showing everybody our Red Rabbit lanterns while singing about Dragons, Horses and Lanterns!
Books We Read
Log Hotel
Bringing In the New Year
The Very Quiet Cricket
Weekly CentresJanuary Portfolios
In exciting news, some of us were able to write words all by ourselves just by trying to write the sounds on the page! For those who aren't there yet, Mr. McCullough wrote some of the words and then had us fill in blanks with our sight words!
Red Rabbit Lanterns
Using construction paper sheets and strips, along with markers and scissors, we created Red Rabbit Lanterns for our Lunar New Year Parade!
2D Shapes Buildings
We used our 2D magnet shapes and our building straws to create larger 2D shapes by combining smaller 2D shapes.
Zodiac Pointalism
Q-Tips, paint and pictures of animals from the Chinese Zodiac, we first decided what animal we were most like (not what animal we like most) and then used the Q-Tips to dot paint onto the pictures.Other Things We Did
We adopted a Pine Seed Bug that we found crawling in our classroom. We talked about what we could do to keep him happy, what kind of things we would need to put in his house, what kind of food he might eat, and why we shouldn't be scared of most bugs...
...unfortunately, our bug didn't last too long, so we had a talk about how tough it must be for a Pine Seed Bug to survive in a class where there weren't any pine seeds. Everybody took the loss of the little guy pretty well, though.
We learned how to say "Happy New Year" in Chinese, and also talked about how we should always respect other languages, even if the sounds they have are a little different than the sounds we have.
Our Reading Buddies helped us with our first attempt at RAZ-Kids! We were able to go online, read some books with them on the computer, and then try out the fun things in our RAZ-Rocket!
On Friday, we had a "Lantern Parade" around the school, showing everybody our Red Rabbit lanterns while singing about Dragons, Horses and Lanterns!
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