Happy COLD New Year!

Flashlight Friday was a hit!

The students pulled out their book boxes, found a comfortable place 

to sit in the room,

and enjoyed the fun of reading a good book!

As the year goes on, the students are working to add

more strategies to assist them when they are 

'stuck on a word.'

The old 'sound it out' strategy just doesn't work.

Try sounding out 'enough' or 'because'

The first strategy that the students learned was to 

use their 'Eagle Eye.'  The students are encouraged

to look at the pictures to help them figure out an unknown

word.  For example a little girl was reading to me

about a cat who was sleeping on a _____.'

She didn't know the word couch, but she could look

at the picture and be successful in knowing that the

word would match the picture.

Once the students know the sounds made by individual 

alphabet letters, they work on the 'Lips the Fish' strategy.

If the picture looks like a dog, but the word starts with

a /w/, the students are encouraged to say the sound...and 

perhaps find out that the word was 'wolf.'

Stretchy the snake helps the students stretch out the

sounds of the letters and then put them together to make a word.

It would look like this:

/s/......./a/......./t/

/s/.../a/.../t/

/sat/

Before Christmas break we were focusing on CVC words

three letter words that start with a consonant, have a vowel in the

middle and end with another consonant.

They would be words like /cup/. /mat/. /bed/. van/. /red/

In the new year the students are now practicing using the

strategy of 'chunking the word parts' with Chunky Monkey.

This would be the closest strategy to sounding it out.

The students are now working on the Phonics Dance for

Hunks and Chunks.  This program was developed by Ginny Dowd.

Here's the first two we learned /sh/ and /ch/

SH ...sh, sh, sh. with fingers to the lips

CH...ch, ch, ch with chicken wings!!

There are two sounds for /th/

Once is made with the tongue behind the teeth and one with the tongue between

the teeth.  We say 'That is a thorn and this is a thistle' so that both are made.

WH wh, wh, wh

It's a question word....who, what, when, where, why and which!

(By the way, /sh/ /ch/ th/ and /wh/ are all digraphs....you'll hear

that term as your kiddos get older!)

OW makes two sounds as well.

Here the students are using their fingers to make the /o/ and the /w/

and then they make a fist and hit the other hand to say 'ow!'

They do the same actions but then say the long sound of O (it's own name)

and make their fingers be snowflakes as they chant "Let it snow!"

It's difficult to get clear pictures in the gym, but the kiddos loved

being joined by some Grade Four students as they are learning how

to skip.  They are learning the 'bounce-bounce' pattern of skipping

There's a lot to remember....keep the hands out, keep the back straight,

keep the feet together, and bounce twice between each turn of the rope!

A few are starting to get it!!

Here was our proud boy showing off what he brought for

our 'We Belong' sharing activity today.  He is a member of the

Green Lanterns Soccer team!

The way we embrace technology and other ways to learn

Ginger loved watching the students as they worked

within the classroom using various types of technology.

They were intrigued by OSMO, which is an interactive

device that can be set up with my iPAD.  The little red

part at the top 'knows' what the students put in front of it.

Here the student is making an amount that equals the amount on

the bubble on the screen so that the bubble pops and gives points

to the player.

Some of my iPADs have stories downloaded onto them, so that 

students can 'listen to reading'.

The SMARTBoard in the classroom is interactive, which means

that the students can answer questions and the board can

give them a positive sound when they are correct.  Very positive

reinforcement!

Not everything great is high tech!  Good fun is being had with

cookie sheets and magnetic alphabet letters as these kiddos

spell words.

Stretching words is still a new skill and here a little car

is the motivator.  The students 'drive' along the letters, saying the

sounds (see the digraph /sh/ we have recently learned?) and then...

they lift up the flap to see if their decoding skills helped them read 

the word correctly.

This activity is called 'Read Around the Room'.

There are are cards set up around the class, and the

students, armed with a pencil and clipboard, walk around,

find the card and then write....sometimes words, sometimes numbers...

it's just a way to get students up and moving.

They are still learning but it seems a whole lot more fun than

staying in a chair.  In this activity, they were looking for

important parts of the 'Gingerbread Man' story.

I think Ginger is very excited about making gingerbread houses

tomorrow with our Grade 3 buddies!

Great collaboration makes us learn

Remember how we learned that when a gingerbread cooky gets wet,

it will be soggy and break apart?

Our next challenge was to build a bridge over the river

so that the gingerbread could get across and not have to ride

on the fox's back.

The students had the choice to work on their own or with a partner.

What was so great to hear were the conversations that the partners

carried on with each other.

There was negotiations and explanations.

They tried out different ideas.

Some found it difficult because the materials that they were 

using were toothpicks and marshmallows.

Not the strongest materials but it was important to 

'think outside the box' on this challenge.

How can the obstacles be overcome?

Here's an example...the original design had the bridge sag in the

centre, so these two are adding supports to each marshmallow,

with the hope that the middle won't be sagging when they turn it over.

I feel I should be saying "We interrupt our scheduled show for this

important message!"

Really I just wanted you to see the lovely angels that the students made

with their handprints.

I think these two are stumped....which is great because that is

part of the process.....its not working, so how do I fix it?

Even though this didn't work, I pointed out to all the students that 

the two boys had used triangles (see the toothpicks crossed on the

left, and that the triangle is the strongest shape in construction.

The students got to share their design and then try to have the

gingerbread man (cooky) walk across the bridge.

They were very honest, sometimes starting with

"The bad news is...."

or with "I thought that ...."

Some students are chatty and some have to be coaxed to share.

In the end, though, I do believe that they learned a lot from this hands-

on approach to learning how things are built.

The students created glyphs...a representation of something

about themselves.

Each part of the gingerbread person showed aspects of the

student who was creating it:

bow tie colour was the month he or she was born

mouth was favourite pet

nose colour was age

eye colour was gender

leg stripes were number of sisters

arm stripes were number of brothers

buttons were favourite activities

Let's see if you can figure out if this is your child...

or is it this one

or maybe this one!

We took a poll and we now know that our elf's name is Ginger!

(Here she is watching the class when they sit on the rug)