Monday
As usual we started our morning in Music class! This week was nice for the students because since the concert has wrapped up they were able to go to the music room for the class. We practiced the students sight words, “like, see, the , I and a” if you write them out and put them on popsicle sticks the children love practicing them and using them in sentences. After recess we read, "A Gingerbread Christmas", which is another one of Jan Brett's amazing gingerbread creations. The kids loved it! We had a great time in gym that afternoon played freeze tag, red light, green light and finished with some good old British Bulldog. As we started on our senses last week, we started this week off with the sounds of holiday season. The children got to listen to the different sounds we hear around this time of year, with no pictures, and guess what they heard! They were incredible. Some things I would not recognize and the children guessed them right away. They really impressed me. This is a great way to get the kids into a green zone and to have the kids be mindful, as they have to be so quiet while listening to the sounds. As being mindful is a big part of what I’m working on with them, this activity was perfect. Can’t wait to explore more senses this week.
*If you would like to work on calming and mindfulness with them at home one activity we are working on is ringing a bell and having the kids listening and breathing until they can’t hear the bell anymore. This would look like the children sitting with eyes closed, or looking down completely quiet. Ring a bell, ding a glass anything to make a prolonged sound. During the sound they will be completely quiet and practicing calming themselves before an important time or activity! This has been really successful for the kids and they very much like it!*
Tuesday
This morning for math explorations, we had some holiday themed centres which were exciting for the students to come into! We had roll the dice and decorate the tree, Christmas Pattern Blocks (my favorite), Patterning with the felt board, colour by number and finish the pattern. I am so please to see how well the children are picking up on their patterns, often talking about what patterns they see.
After recess the students, along with the other primary children, headed down to the gym to watch the Mickey Mouse version of a Christmas carol. This was a great way for the kids to practice comparing and contrasting. After lunch we moved onto the next sense of the holidays which was touch. I used a mystery box (empty Kleenex), students had to stick their hand in to describe how the items felt and at the end guess as a class together. It was so much fun to hear the words they came up with to describe the feelings! They are doing such an amazing job differentiating their senses, I can’t wait to go for our walk tomorrow and look what we see!
*Using the Kleenex box at home making sure the children aren’t peeking have them describe objects that are inside. Its great for learning words to describe and create a picture in their mind. Challenge them with a variety of objects that don’t all have the same texture!
Wednesday
This morning we made a classroom book about what the children would like Santa to bring! I am hoping to have it ready for noisy reading this week because the students are so very excited to show you their work! The pictures turned out amazing and I am as usual very impressed. After recess we played a Christmas guessing game, that was on you tube, they guess the holiday picture before the times runs out as someone is drawing it. It was a hit and even ones that I didn’t initially get the kids did. We followed that by moving onto our next senses, today that was see. We read "Small, Medium & Large" by Jane Monroe Donovan. It is a wordless book, which meant lots of imagination, and the students couldn’t get enough. Wordless books are great for them to practice using the pictures to tell a story. We finished up by taking a walk around our neighborhood to look at the decorations, trees etc, that come out at this time of year. The children love being outside and they were the ones to point out most the decorations. This time of year the children are so excited for winter break the walks outside really help them to refocus!
Thursday
Today was such an exciting day for the kids and us teachers too! We started the day cutting out and traying up our gingerbread people. Each student got to choose the cookie cutter they wanted to use to make their own personalized gingerbread people. Thank you to Mrs. Streloff for letting us borrow your ninja cookie cutters.
While they were having fun with preparing the baking, Ms. Q had them making gingerbread people out of playdough and using a special app that allowed the students the chance to add an audio message to their people. We all got to watch the recordings before recess and it had everyone laughing! Following recess we worked with the rest of the school to create a lipdub for our departing principle, they were all dancing and having a fun time with their school community! As we started to read “Mouse Gingerbread” another Jan Brett creation, the timer went off for the cookies and the class discovered their people were gone! There was some notes left around the class and their imaginations took over. It was absolutely amazing to see what they came up with. I’m sure you all heard the stories! They worked with their buddies to plan traps and missing posters and hang them around the school! Today was so much fun and so interesting to see how the students took to the missing gingerbread! I cant wait for their appearance tomorrow!
Friday December 14, 2018
Well by now I know you are all aware that the gingerbread people were TAKEN BY MS. GRILLS! The children were in shocked when they found out, every reaction was priceless but it all happened so fast we quickly missed the chance to have it recorded. For those of you who joined us for noisy reading you were all made aware that the children came into some crumbs left behind by the gingerbread people overnight. Once we settled in for our morning meeting we also found a letter left from them and the students were so attentive while we read the letter. After reading the note we did some work on our journals before recess and a lot of them decided to write to or about their gingerbread men. We read "B.Bear and Lolly, catch that cookie." This helped the children to see another way that traps can be set to capture a gingerbread man. These students absolutely blew me away in the afternoon when they, with help from their buddies, built the gingerbread traps they had planned the day before! When they were finished and sharing them and setting them up around the room I was so impressed with what they came up with. The best part was the feeling of pride you could see glowing off of them.
When they finished up lunch was when the big reveal happened. The “office” phoned the class and let us know that they had some video surveillance with regards to our gingerbread people. Wow the excitement and suspense in the room was exciting. We played the video and the children were shocked!. Of course it was explained to them all that it was for fun, as Some of the children were very upset with the principal. To finish up the day the gingerbread baking was returned and they all got to decorate and enjoy their gingerbread treat! We all had so much fun the last couple days and I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to run this fun activity with the children. Next week will be my last and I am feeling very sad to have to leave this class full of such incredible students. I hope I get to come back and visit very soon!
Until next week…
Ms. Durber
Books this Week:
"A Gingerbread Christmas" by Jan Brett
"Small, Medium & Large" by Jane Monroe Donovan
“Mouse Gingerbread” another Jan Brett
"B.Bear and Lolly, catch that cookie."
School-Wide Theme Days:
