Part #2

The students worked with their table partner.

It looks like a lot of fun, and I believe if you asked

them, they would say it was....

but projects like this involve discussion,

problem solving,

attempting to put ideas into action,

some compromise

and the willingness to not give up!

Co-operation is key.

The blog doesn't want to allow .mov

so I am going to try and send some little videos to

families using e-mail.  If it doesn't work...oh well!

How did it get to be the end of April? PART #1

Since the class returned after Spring Break, Mo Willems has been our 

favourite  author!  We spent lots of time with his Elephant and Piggie

series.  I like to have the students read these books at this time of year, 

because they almost forget about the words, and become just the voice

of the characters.  The children do not sound like robots,

but instead, you can hear Elephant being scared, or Piggie being silly!

After a couple of weeks of those magical stories,

it was time to introduce the students to Mo Willems

other famous character....Pigeon!

When I think that the students cannot be any more engaged

in the stories, Pigeon shows me that he is even more

popular.  Gosh!  They do laugh at his antics!

When we are reading these books we really paid attention

to the mannerisms of the character, drawn by Mo Willems.

We discussed how we knew that Pigeon was angry,

or upset, or pleading. We then matched how the words

are read, to the pictures.  This adds the emotional component,

or expression to the reader's fluency.

The student's got a chance to add speech bubbles

 to the Pigeon characters that they made.

"I'm going to see my best friend in the afternoon."

Oh hi guys! I just still want to drive the bus, 

but I changed my mind. I want to drive the truck."

At the end of this week, we explored the latest Pigeon

story "The Pigeon HAS to Go to School!"

(They all knew how to read the title and emphasize

the word HAS."

We tried to create Zip Lines so that the Pigeon

wouldn't be late.

Thanks to Brooke Brown for sharing this engaging

activity with me.

Go to PART 2 to see how the students did!

March madness!

It's a mad time of year because these Littles are making so

many connections!  All the ground work, the foundation,

the important beginning steps are helping them to 'put it all together.'

They understand that they are 'growing their brains',

and are able to recognize how far they have come!

When the students share their Evidence of Learning folders

with their families I hope they do it with pride, because I

sure am proud of them!

March brought us the chance to start to read 'larger' books.

Each student can read most of 'The Cat in the Hat', 'Green Eggs and Ham',

'One fish, Two fish, Red fish, Blue fish' and they love ' Wacky Wednesday'.

Consider picking these books up at the library, which I hear is

open again.  Let your Little one shine!

The students are working on different sentence writing aspects.

They shared their ideas with the sentence starters...

The Cat in the Hat is.....can.....has

Look closely because they are using adjectives for is, verbs for 

can, and nouns for have.  Of course at this level, they

are not being introduced to those parts of speech in the same

way that they will be in later grades, but they can understand the differences.

They chose one idea from each of the areas on their

graphic organizer (where they organize their thoughts

as we work as a class on ideas).

They then wrote a complete sentence for each and

WOW!  it starts to look like a story!

Now you know why I say this is a mad time of year!

That doesn't mean that they don't make mistakes....

...and not everyone gets it the first time,

BUT we are making progress!

We made some wonderful crafts....Cat in the Hat directed drawings

adding some red watercolour paint, the children from the story

and those crazy helpers, Thing 1 and Thing 2!

We are truly blessed with this weather!  We took advantage and

went outside to 'search' for ideas about senses.

They were drawing what they could see, hear, smell, touch

and what they SHOULD NOT taste!

They were so very focused!

Don't you love it!!?

ONE HUNDRED DAYS! HOORAY!

You might have heard that we made snowmen!

The snow outside wasn't sticky enough so rice and socks were

the materials that we used.  The students used their snowmen

friends to complete a descriptive writing assignment.

They also used their snowmen to become the model for a

tryptic...three pictures (sketches) that go together.

The students drew their snowman looking forward 

(with their model patiently sitting right in front of them),

looking to the  right and finally the artists chose their final

snowman pose to complete the series.

Thank you parents for having to have not one, but TWO

special shirts ready for this week!

The students in my class walked 'the runway' with head held high,

shoulders back and confidence, before striking a pose in the 

middle of the carpet in the library.

Thank you for all the hard work.  The best ones were

the ones that the children had a hand in creating

themselves.  They were so proud!

Don't you just love their poses?

Oh how far they have come since that first day in September!

Here they all are...my Littles(Yep...they are smiling under those masks!)

If I lived in a snow globe...

It seems like it was so long ago that we read this story by Jane O'Connor.

It was a great opportunity to compare and contrast because in this story,

there is a large regular who lives in a house (probably in the Victorian times)

as well as a family who lives in a snow globe in that house.

This inspired the idea of imaging that WE might not have 

the same life if we lived in a snow globe.  The question that

was posed to the students was "What would you miss if you lived

in a snow globe?"  Here are some of their thoughts:

I would miss going to school.

I would miss going golfing.

I would miss going to a waterpark.

I would miss having friends to play with.

These 'Littles' are getting bigger!

I love how this little took me very seriously.  I had told the class

that we would be acting like detectives so she brought a magnifying glass

to school 'because that's what detectives use.'

I have a stash of small magnifying glasses so everyone else in the

room got one too!

What were these littles searching for?

It goes back to what we were learning.

The students have practised 'stretching' out CVC words,

such as 'kit'

Now, using their 'eagle eyes' they are finding out

that when a word has an 'e' at the end, the

vowel sound 'flips like a dolphin', to the

long sound.  The word still has three sounds, because the

'e' is silent as shown in the example....kIte.

(Long I sound)

The students used their magnifying glasses to search for

words with the 'magic e', also known as the 'silent e', super 'e'

or bossy 'e'.

The names have their uppercase beginning letter underlined, 

and all of the 'e' at the end are circled.  Those three words

at the bottom have been put 'into jail' because they don't

follow the rule.

Earlier this week I sent out a message to ask for parents'

assistance in helping their little 'hear' the rhyming words

with the long vowels.  Most students were challenged to hear

that consonant sound at the end, so words such as 'like' and 'ripe'

were suggested as rhyming.  The students heard the 'I' but ignored

the 'k' and 'p'.

The students can only get better at this skill when they practice,

so thank you mamas and papas for just saying words and having

your kiddos provide rhyming words throughout the day.

Sneezy the Snowman by Maureen Wright tells of a snowman

who is cold, wants to be warm, but does not understand that

when snow is warm, it melts.

The importance of this activity is that the students were not

provided with tracers or pre-created shapes in order to make Sneezy

holding up the sign.

The students used the paper provided but had to draw, cut and

assemble on their own.  This is a BIG step for them.

It involves planning, spatial awareness, and shape recognition.

Some Sneezy Snowmen were tiny.

Some papers were vertical instead of horizontal.

Some added detail and others did not.

Activities like this demonstrate the students' learning over time,

and their ability to apply that learning to another situation.

That really is the end goal of all learning.

You can add....now how much will the 3 items in your grocery cart cost?

You can subtract....now do you have enough money to pay for those groceries?

You can read....what did that sign just say?

You can write....will you be able to fill in the required paperwork?

These may be Littles....but they are on their way to BIG accomplishments!