PJ Movie Day

Reminder!

Tomorrow we are having our movie day, with popcorn and of course PJ's!

We will be going outside for regular recess, so please dress your child appropriately for the cold weather. 

ie. warm jammies or long pant jammies

Also, please send in utensils with your child's lunch, as our supplies of plastic utensils has been depleted. If, after the holidays you have left over plastic spoons and forks we would gladly restock our cupboard.

Be sure to check the blog often for new pictures and important  memos. Please feel free to leave a positive comment, we would love to hear your feedback.

Santa letters

Santa Letters!

We would like to thank our Grade 7 peers for helping us write our letters to Santa. 

We are anxiously awaiting a return letter. 

After we wrote our letters, we talked a lot about how the letters would get to the North Pole. Maybe by plane. Maybe the postman. Maybe a train. Maybe an elf would come get them. This prompted a great idea for a dramatic play area. We created our own Post Office. We made a mail box, and mailboxes for each child. We carried letters in a bag to deliver. We wrote notes, addressed envelopes, stamped packages! It was amazing to see all the printing, the reading, the co operation among friends, the resoursfulness to spell words and names!

Autumn Harvest

An Autumn experience that unfolded into so much more!

We gave the children a pumpkin and watched to see where the inquiry went. They learned that pumpkins are harvested in Autumn, which is another word for Fall.

They had the opportunity to touch the insides, and came up with great descriptive words, such as; gooey, slimey, it smelled sweet, slippery, it was cold, sticky, it drips from my fingers.

They worked together, took turns scooping and holding the bowl. There was great communication between the children.

Some math skills where developed. They sorted the seeds and the guts. They estimated how many seeds where inside. We weighed the pumpkin full of guts and weighed it again when it was emptied.

While sorting, fine motor muscles where getting a work out.

I wonder what would happen if we planted a pumpkin seed? What does it need to grow? We gave it soil, water and sun. And guess what? It grew! The children have been amazed to see the seed break open and a small vine begin to grow. Sequencing was being learned.

Many children had the opportunity to enjoy this inquiry. Once they finished with it, they dumped it back in the pumpkin and did it all over again!

And then of course, we had to cook them! We had a fun cooking experience where we learned how to roast the seeds. Kitchen and oven safety. And tasting!

We just had one, or maybe 2....or 5!

Marshmallows and Toothpicks

"I'm making stars."
What a great opportunity to bring out a book about space and stars and show him what a constellation is. We introduced new vocabulary, new concepts and acted on the students interests and inquiry.

"I made an airplane house"

"I made a town"

"I want to make a square. Now it's a cube. I have 3 cubes!"

       She started out with 2 dimensions and figured out how to make 3D creations.

"I made lots of squares"

"I have lots on my stick"

"I'm making a sea monster"

"I made a doggy house"

Christmas Concert

Thank You St. Anne's Band and Vocal Group for performing such a beautiful Christmas concert for us.

Lately we've been discussing different musical instruments. What an opportunity to get a close look. 

As you can see the kids were very mesmerized by the musicians  and the conductor

The excitement of the children, their love for music, their need to dance, and to sing out loud brings tears to my eyes. It was nice to see everyone enjoy the Christmas spirit!

From these videos, I think we may have a few new contestants for Canadian Idol!

I only wish I had a better spot to have viewed more children and record them. 

Snowmen at Christmas

  

Snowmen at Christmas

We read a beautiful story about how snowmen spend their night before Christmas.

We asked the children "What do snowmen do at night?" We wrote down their ideas on our fun snowman chart and here are just a few of their creative ideas:

they have tea

they have a party

they play eye spy

they play tag

they melt

they grow bigger

they go ice skating

they play hockey

they have snowball fights

We decided to draw our own snowmen the way we see them doing their night time games.

The children used chalk for the snow and black paper for their dark starry night. They wrote what their snowman was doing. 

Here is our story! This is a read along of the book that you could share with your child. 

This was a great way for the children to recall a story, share ideas, make connections and make  extensions of the story using their own ideas. 

Nice job young readers!

I wonder what kind of snowmen we will build when the snow comes!

Literacy Hour

Literacy Hour

To help kick off the book fair Clifford came for a visit

We would like to thank all the parents who were able to come and volunteer as readers to the children

There is nothing better than a group of friends sharing a story adventure together

It's nice to share your favorite story and tell it in your own way. This helps create a love for new stories

As I tell our friends..."treat your books like your best friend, and you'll have them forever to enjoy"

Through reading we are promoting imagination, pre-reading skills, introduction to print, and a love for story telling

And another special guest came to visit. The children where so excited to see Elmo.