Tuesday, 5 March 2013

Week 25: 5 Days Until Break

Books We Read
Follow the Drinking Gourd
Is That a Coconut?  Yuck!
Revenge of the Dinotrux.
Let's Play In The Forest While The Wolf Is Not Around

Weekly Centres
Printing
We worked on our letter Q (which we made by adding a line to an O) and the letter G (which we made by continuing our C and turning in)

Make 5
We covered the tables in our math and language centre with five strips, gave small five strips as well, and created fives by either colouring, adding small items like bears or blocks, or creating other things based on five in the centre.

Sandbox Sorting
In the sand centre, we searched for items in the sandbox and sorted them into groups of five, using whatever sorting rule we wanted.

Drinking Gourd Maps
Using pictures of hills, soldiers, dogs, safe houses, fields, lakes and rivers, we created maps that allowed people to "Follow the Drinking Gourd" to get to the freedom of Canada.  This will be important when we follow the drinking gourd on Friday!

Other Things We Did

Everybody was asked to "Make 5" any way they wanted at the start of the week.  We had people using fingers, crayons, bears, blocks, letters and, in some cases, combining items into groups of five.

We searched for five in our daily message.  Some people found the word, some people found words with five letters in them, some people found five sight words and one person noticed that the S and the 5 look almost the same!

We looked back at Follow the Drinking Gourd and used our memories to remember the different obstacles characters in the book faced.  We then co-operatively drew a map.

We figured out that there were five days until March Break, and counted down each day, both at the beginning of the day, and at the end.

We went around the school on Friday afternoon, following the drinking gourd to safe houses, up hills, across rivers, past old forests, hiding from guards and dogs, all the way until we got to the safety of our classroom!

Sunday, 24 February 2013

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!

Monday, 18 February 2013

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!

Monday, 11 February 2013

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.

Sunday, 3 February 2013

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