Friday, November 8, 2013

Discovery!

My kids have suddenly become interested in the Word Wall! Hooray! It's like a new discovery has been made! The only problem is they think every word they need will be there! LOL! It's kind of adorable when they look at you in stunned silence when you tell them the word they are looking for isn't on there! The look is kind of a "oh great what do I do now?" kind of look! 
SO, we talked about the word wall and what kinds of words are on the wall and what to do when the word they need is not on the wall. So far, I am very pleased with their progress and gives me hope that their writing will begin to improve! At least they are suddenly interested in writing. 
I love how they help each other find words! 

Adult writing translation:  My favourite animal is a dog. Do you know why because I am not allergic.
I used to be allergic to strawberries but now I am not allergic. 

My Favourite part of the spooky bus was everything!

I like bears. They are cute. They are black. They have cubs. They are brown too.

I like deer. I like that they have fights. 
I like muskrats because they live in holes. 

I am proud of my little writers! Right now I am focusing on the content of their writing and getting a complete thought down on paper. I am also helping my children to learn the difference between beginning work, acceptable work, proficient work and mastery work. I have exemplars on the wall and they can compare their work to the ones on the wall to see where they think their work falls and then they can see what they need to do to improve their writing.  I also have a little writing conference with each child to discuss their writing and how to improve. 
We also have an author's chair where the children can share their writing with the class group and everyone listens and can offer suggestions and comments. It is so sweet when they give each other positive comments. 


Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Random projects!

Lots to share tonight! Pretty random sharing, with no real theme, just lots of fun pictures!
                                            We have been studying big beautiful bats! 
The kids looked at lots of books and then drew a picture of a bat and then painted it. 
                                    Each bat painting was totally unique and amazing!
I also had the children measure their bats wings with unifix cubes! Gotta get in a little academics with their art! LOL! 


We also read the story "Where's my Mummy?" by Carolyn Crimi and then we retold the story and made our own little mummies! They turned out so adorable! 


Captain Capital! 
Today the children met their new superhero! Captain Capital! He is a pencil with an eraser head and a cape! He loves to help the children with their printing and he always looks for capital letters! The children loved him and they each took one home. 


Sunday, October 27, 2013

Little Fuzzy Bats!

On Friday, my little "bats" created their own little bats! They were created with sparkle pompoms and fun foam wings and wiggle eyes! They are adorable! As an added bonus, while the children were gluing the pieces they had to count to 30 for each wing, so the glue would hold. It was great practice in counting out loud orally. It was also an exercise in patience and building up stamina! This project showed who was able to persevere and who gave up very quickly and who needed more encouragement to keep going. All in all a very good project! 

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Cornstarch GOOP!

Science Thursday was a lot of messy fun today! We made cornstarch GOOP! It is always fascinating to watch my kids little faces, when they make a new discovery! Unfortunately, I can't show you their faces! Which is too bad because the faces of discovery are awesome! They LOVED playing with this stuff! It can be both a solid and a liquid! It can even make a snapping sound when you try to bend it! Super fun! Super amazing! I was surprised that the experiment time lasted an entire hour! That just shows how engaged they were! 


A, E, I, O, U, Vowel Bat!

I love Vowel Bat! It is hands down the best song to learn the vowel sounds! Shari Sloane from Kids Count 123 has a great Youtube video with the song. This year I had my kids make their own vowel bat! I provided a cardboard cut out and the children wrote the vowels on the bat inside circles. Then we outlined the bats with our favourite colour of smelly marker. Then we added details, like a smile and fangs and of course wiggle eyes! The children LOVED it! Once we completed making our Vowel Bats, we just HAD to sing the song and fly our bats around!



Saturday, October 19, 2013

We are learning about Bats!

We are learning about Bats in our classroom. The children are so excited about it and super motivated! Last Thursday we made little stuffed bats to hang from the ceiling in our classroom. They are adorable! We made them from black children's socks that I purchased from the Dollar Tree. The children stuffed the little black socks and then glued on felt wings and ears and wiggly eyes. Some children made cute little paper fangs! Our classroom now has a whole colony of little black bats hanging from the ceiling. 


We will continue our Bat study until Halloween! Then the children will get to take their little bats home to roost! I love to do bats in the month of October! It is a great study and an awesome replacement for Halloween activities. I tend to save Halloween activities for the actual day of Halloween. 

Pattern Party!

To celebrate the end of our first Math unit, the teacher next door to me and I,  planned a Pattern Party for our kids. We had some wonderful parents who came to help out or sent in food. Fun was had by everyone! Below are some of the photos of the fun we had and the various centres we had at the party! 
The children could visit: 1. Pattern snakes, which was made with Crayola Model Magic air dry clay, wiggle eyes and chenille stems cut into small pieces. They turned out so cute! 
2. Make a Slap bracelet with stickers!
                                     3. Make a crown with stickers and bulletin trimmers
                                          4. Edible fruit patterns!
                                          5. Necklace patterns
                                          6. Draw a paper pattern flag
                                          7. Fruit Loop Necklaces
We also did pattern picture frames or door hangers with fun foam and markers. We also painted pattern fish and Pompom caterpillars! There was 10 centres in all to choose from. 
The children really enjoyed themselves!