Monday:
We started the day with a sharing circle. We talked about the importance of listening to each other and passed a stick around and whomever had the stick received the full attention of their classmates and teachers. Each student shared their favourite thing about their winter holiday, no surprise this became a "What did you get from Santa?" circle.
The students were also excited to talk about the new year and how this year they will be going to Grade 1. We talked about goal setting and read the story, "Squirrel's New Year's Resolution". The kids each decided on a goal for the new year. I let them know that I had many goals for the new year, some related to school, some for home, and some for my health and wellness.
One of my school goals was to keep up with counting how many days we have been at school. I was notorious for forgetting to do this each day.
Tuesday:
The students started the day with some Winter Themed Literacy centres. We have a new Winter Word wall. For math we learned a new game. I showed the students a card with dots on it. Some arrangements were familiar (dice arrangement) and some were new. When I showed the card the students had to quickly try to decipher how many dots. They first showed me the number of dot using their fingers and then used counters to try to recreate the dot pattern on the floor. In Math this term, we will be focussing on making 10, using board games, card games, counters, dice, and dominos. We will continue to work on recognizing dot patterns at a glance. As we learn new games I will let you know how to play so that you can play at home, too.
We made squirrels to attach our New Year's Resolutions to. The kids were all very creative when it came to decorating their squirrel. You can see them up on the classroom bulletin board.
Wednesday:
We started the day with some new Winter themed math centres.
We read one of my favourite stories, "The Mitten" by Jan Brett. The students then cut out their own mitten and animals to help them retell the story at home. You can use the read aloud link below in the stories to have the kids follow along with their animals.
Thursday:
On Thursday we started with Story Workshop. I set up some winter themed scenes. I introduced the challenge of trying to write some letters on their page to label their pictures.
We played a new game with matching cards where the students each received an animals card, but didn't tell what kind of animal they were. They had to walk around and ask questions to each other about their animals to try and figure out if they could find their match. Ex. Can your animal fly? Does your animal have fur?
Friday:
The kids enjoyed Toy Day. Mr. Dekerf (our new principal) made a visit and some of the students had a chance to tell him about the item that they brought in.
We read a non-fiction story about what some animals do to survive when it is winter.
In gym this week, we introduced a new freeze tag game and had the students working together to use their bodies to represent different animals and letters of the alphabet. We also used various gym equipment including balls, scoops, hoops, and rings.
In the afternoon, we had buddy reading with Mrs. Leeper's class. We read the story "The Balloon Tree" by Phoebe Gilman and we hung a balloon from our classroom branch and repeated the magic words from the story: "Moon balloon, moon balloon, tickle the tree. Four balloons, more balloons, blossom for me." We will see on Monday if our magical words worked.
Books this week:
The Sharing Circle by Theresa "Corky" Larsen-Jonasson
Under the Snow by Melissa Stewart
Songs this week:
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