Showing numbers to 10

We have learned to count objects to ten, and are learning how to show numbers up to ten on a 10 Frame.

Shapes

We have been learning to recognize, name and create some basic shapes. We have started with circle, square, triangle and rectangle.

We read two books where shapes were the main characters.
Circle, and Square.

The students said that cutting out a circle would be so easy! It was harder than they thought it would be :)

We will learn about some other shapes shortly -- the pattern block shapes (hexagon, rhombus, trapezoid). But we aren't expected to know the names of those ones.... yet.....

Germs

Germs make us sick!

We've had so many in our class away sick lately. Ms. Emerson and I have both been sick too :(

We had a demonstration of how germs spread. We all put some hand cream onto our hands, I sneezed "germs" (glitter) into my hand, and high -fived a student.  Then they touched a friend, and before we knew it everyone had "germs" (glitter) on their hands!

 

 

 We then washed our hands, and realized that, to get the "germs" (glitter) off, we had to use soap, warm water and rub our hands together a lot!

Five Little Monkeys

We have been exploring numbers 0-5.

We practice filling five frames every day when our helper puts their name in the five frame, or beyond!

 

We read Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, and had the opportunity to explore counting the 

 Monkeys again in our Math Center.

Along A Long Road

We read Along a Long Road by Frank Vita, and learned that a road might go on and on and on....  it will go many places

We created some long roads. We had a choice to use crayons, markers, paint, or oil pastel.

Where will your road take you? 

We are continuing our exploration of roads. Here, HK made a road out of our colourful magnet shapes. We didn't have a car small enough to drive on it. Maybe we can draw one? Or draw a bike? Or a person. You don't have to drive on a road. You can walk along one too!

Fire Drill!

Today we had our first fire drill of the year. It went very well!

We learned what to do when we hear the fire bell.

 Ding ding ding! Ding ding ding!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We made some turkeys in Library, then we read some books about what people might be thankful for.

Then we thought about what we are thankful for.

Some of us said we are thankful for our families, for kisses, for hugs, for healthy food, for our beds!

Talk like a pirate...

September 19 was "Talk like a pirate day".

The children thought it was pretty funny to hear Ms. Brown "talk like a pirate", and they tried to talk like pirates too. Next we asked them what they knew about pirates.

They knew a lot!

They we asked the students what pirates said. They came up with so many sayings. 

 (Shiver me Timbits was a very popular answer. We broke into lots of giggles over that)

We read some pirate books and added to our lists. (We also explained that pirates were around a really long time ago, so we don't need to be afraid of them, because there aren't pirates around now) (we didn't talk about modern day pirates - and did not talk about any scary things that past pirates have done)

We came up with some things that we wanted to know about pirates.

 
Currently, we are still exploring pirates and pirate maps. This goes hand in hand with our exploration of roads! 

Lockdown practice

At school we have to practice for some different safety situations. The two "official" ones that we must practice are Fire Drills and Lockdowns.

This week we practiced our Lockdowns in Room 9.  Then the whole school practiced our Lockdown Drill.

Our lockdowns involve securing ourselves in the classroom (i.e. locking the doors and windows and covering all windows), and sitting silently in a safe location away from the windows.

We don't want the children to worry about Lockdowns, so we discuss some scenarios that might happen so we would have to lock the door and stay in the classroom. Perhaps an animal, like a strange dog or raccoon has come into the school. We don't want it in our classroom because we don't know if it is friendly. So we lock the door.
Perhaps some "big kids" are playing outside and get into a fight, or maybe are throwing stones. Then we would have to close our windows and pull down the blinds, just in case a stone hits a window and breaks it (we don't want glass to fall on us).
When we hear someone saying that there is a LOCKDOWN (over the PA), we stop what we are doing, move to our safe spot, and sit quietly like mice. (Meanwhile the teachers check the hallway for stray students, lock the doors and windows and pull down the shades).

We talked about what to do:
If you are in the bathroom finish quickly, then walk quietly to our safe corner (the block corner).
If you are in the hallway, go into the closest classroom.
If you are eating snack, put down your snack and walk quietly to our safe corner (the block corner).

We made an infographic so we would remember what to do.

We did a GREAT JOB during the actual practice lockdown! (and afterwards someone asked what kind it was -- was it a dog or a raccoon? :)

We will discuss and practice our Fire Drill procedures and then let you know how it went!

(if you have any questions about the lockdown or fire drills, please email Ms. Brown)

Five Point Check

Who is sitting in a Five Point Check?
I am sitting in a Five Point Check!

When we sit for whole group learning (very briefly - we begin to lose interest after ten minutes!), we get the students' attention by asking if they are in Five Point Check. (We also understand that some students find sitting cross legged very difficult, so we do have a lot of leniency :)

First days of school

We have had a great first few days of school!

We LOVE the outside nature area:

"I made pizza!" (A.W.)

"We made a fire"

We are making a potion with poison raisins" (S.B.)

"I'm stepping across a river!" (S.L.)

"This wood slices sand." (J.T.)

"I found roots"(J.T.)

"What are these things? I found them on a branch!" (J.T.) (we will investigate this more!)

It feels like summer..... but it is starting to look like fall :(

Summer (teacher) Reading

This summer I focused on the power of play; inquiries and investigations; and on outdoor learning.

Parents! Please read Balanced and Barefoot by Angela Hanscom. It addresses the importance of unrestricted outdoor play for children. Please send your children outdoors to play!
(Toronto Public Library has this book available in print and by ebook!)

Worms

We have been observing some living things.
When it started to get warm (back in February :) we noticed some worms in the soil. Mrs. Nilgun helped the students begin an inquiry into worms!

 

 

 

Mrs. Nilgun brought in some Hornworms! While not an actual worm (it is a caterpillar), they were very cool!

We learned that worms don't like the light, so we discussed if this was the best habitat for worms in our classroom. We decided that after the weekend, we would make a better home for our worms. (We fed our worms an apple core. On Monday it was gone!)

 

So,  Ms. Brown brought in a bin and a drill and we created a habitat for worms! We filled it with newspaper and leaves and some soil and we added some more food for our worms (apple cores and some veggies from a snack that fell on the floor)

 

 

Please take some time to look at Mrs. Nilgun's slideshow about the worm project!

2D Shapes

In March we learned about 2D Shapes.

We read a lot of books about shapes, including City Shapes by Diana Murray.

 

 We discussed where we find shapes around us -- inside and outside.

Then we looked at some work by artists who used shapes in much of their work. One of these artists was Paul Klee.

We noticed that Paul Klee's work looks like buildings.  Maybe it is a city? ( When we looked at the title of the work, we found that yes indeed, it is a city!)

We came up with some names of places where you would see buildings. On a street. In a neighbourhood, in a community, in a town, or in a city. Then we created our own streetscapes or cityscapes using shapes and then adding details with oil pastels.