Word Family ag

Let's try the word family "ag"

Please remember that some of the JK's might not know their letter sounds yet (and that's okay, and as it should be -- it is developmental!). We can still do word family work and focus on naming the letter as well as the sound before we put the letter to the word family ending. For example:
"This is a b, it makes the sound b, b, b. Can you make that sound? Now put that b sound at the front of "at" -- b,at; bat.

Morning Message for Tuesday, May 12

Watch Ms. Brown's Message to you HERE!

Before you read the message you need to look outside and decide what the weather is! Is it Sunny? Cloudy? Rainy? Snowy? Windy? or a mix of 2 (or 3)?  Where the blank space is in the message, you have to say the weather. 

Grace! You are our helper! You can take the attendance to the office :) Grace, you can write the names of the people who are home right now and bring your paper to someone else. Even your brother! You need to be extra helpful today. What will you do?

Who is today's Mystery Friend ?

Clue #1. Our mystery friend has 2 n 's somewhere in their name.
Clue #2.  Our mystery friend has a y somewhere in their name. 

Who is our mystery friend? You will often find our friend at the Writing and Drawing Centre! 

Living Things ... Animal Homes!

*** Parents : The Needs of Living Things is a curriculum expectation of Grade 1. In Kindergarten, I am introducing the concepts, but not in as much detail **** 

First of all - How are your seeds doing? 
Sometimes the seeds get moldy and they don't grow. If that happened to you, that's okay, just compost them! 

We have learned that plants need certain things to grow. Can you remember what plants need?
Plants Need:
Air
Water
Nutrients (Food)(mostly from soil) 
Sunlight 

Do animals (including humans) need the same things to stay alive? 
(Parents - let your children answer the questions :)
Do you need air? Yes! We need to breathe!
Do you need water? Yes! We need it to drink!
Do you need food? Yes! We need to eat!
Do we need sunlight? We need to eat plants, and they need the sun, so yes, we do!

Think about our goldfish, Gumball. 
Does Gumball need air? hmmm -- she does, but she gets her oxygen (oxygen is in air) from the water - she breathes through her gills!
Does Gumball need water? Yes, of course she does! She lives in water! 
Does she need food? Yes! We feed her every day.  
Does she need sunlight? Just like people, she eats plants, and plants need the sun, so yes, she needs the sun. 

There is something else that many animals need to live. It is something that we talked about last week. Animals need somewhere to live. People need shelter. Do you remember when we talked about our homes? They protect us from the weather (and from other animals).

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
  Let's talk about animal homes!
 Some of you listed some animal homes when we made lists of different kinds of homes.
Can you think of any more?

Try it!
Make a list of as many animal homes as you can think of!
 

Why do you think that the animals that you chose live in that home? For example, Why do you think a bird sleeps in a nest in a tree? Why doesn't a horse sleep in a nest in a tree? 

 (The area that an animal lives in is its habitat. An animal might have a separate home in its habitat where sleeps or has its babies)

This story is by one of my favourite-author illustrators,  Il Sung Na.
Read along to Welcome Home Bear.

Where did bear end up choosing for his home? Why do you think he chose this place?
 
This book is a  nonfiction book about Animal Homes. A nonfiction book is an information book. This one uses photographs to help us learn about animal homes.
 

Here is a great video song for all of you who like to sing! 

Everyone needs a home!

 

Try it!
Do you have an animal stuffie or a toy animal? Can you build a home for it? You can use whatever material you like, or mix them up! You could use cardboard or paper or boxes or socks or Lego, or blocks....
Explain to someone why you built the home the way you did. Why was the way you built it important to the animal that will live there?
 

Morning Message for Monday. May 11

Watch Ms. Brown's Message to you HERE!

Before you read the message you need to look outside and decide what the weather is! Is it Sunny? Cloudy? Rainy? Snowy? Windy? or a mix of 2 (or 3)?  Where the blank space is in the message, you have to say the weather. 

Thomas! You are our helper! You can take the attendance to the office :) Thomas, you can write the names of the people who are home right now and bring your paper to someone else. Even your brother! You need to be extra helpful today. What will you do?

Who is today's Mystery Friend ?

Clue #1. Our mystery friend has a v somewhere in their name.
Clue #2.  Our mystery friend has 4 letters in their name
Who is our mystery friend? You will often find our friend building with Lego or snap cubes!

Ten Black Dots

*** There are 2 Math Blogposts today - the second one includes more dot card activities for you to try throughout the week ***

Please watch the reading of Ten Black Dots!

What can YOU do with 10 black dots?

You will need two pieces of paper, a black marker, some scissors and some glue.

First we need some dots:
(If you have a large circle punch, then punch some dots out of black paper! If you have black paper, then trace some circles and cut them out. If you have no circle punch and no black paper, then you will need to draw, colour and cut some dots. And by circle punch, I don`t mean a hole punch! A circle punch punches larger circles -- 1inch or 3 cm is great)

Take a piece of  paper and draw 10 black dots. (Parents can help or do this!) You might want to take something small like a lid and trace around it with a pencil, and then colour it in. (about 3-5 cm across). Now you have to cut them out (parents can do this!)

Put some dots on a blank page. Try to imagine what they could be. You can add more dots, or take some away . Now, draw a picture around the dots and glue the dots to the page.

Please make your picture in "landscape" form so you can take a picture and send it to me and then we can make a book!

How many dots did you use?

At the bottom of your page, write 
 ____ dots can make a ________
(number)                                  (what you made)

More Dot Card Activities

We are still trying to develop our number sense.  
When we use our "number sense" we think about and use numbers flexibly. When children have good number sense, they can use and apply different strategies to solve problems. They can make reasonable estimates. They can easily and efficiently solve mental math problems. They can subitize.  

Last week we learned about subitizing with our dot cards.

You can also use the dot cards to have your child physically recreate the positions of the dots with other objects. Bread tags, coins, circles of play dough, Cheerios...

Or, show the number in another way (a different formation)

You can play memory match with the dot cards. You need to use two of each amount from the dot card deck. 

You can play Which one doesn't belong? 
Set out four cards, face up. Three should show the same number, and one will not. You could add a numeral card in with this, or a number word card

(ask which number doesn't belong! Because there are actually many different justifiable answers to this question. Technically, it could be said that the numeral 4 doesn't belong because it is the only numeral, or it isn't shown with dots -- We will do some problem solving like this another day! )

Morning Message for Friday, May 8

Watch Ms. Brown's Message to you HERE!

Before you read the message you need to look outside and decide what the weather is! Is it Sunny? Cloudy? Rainy? Snowy? Windy? or a mix of 2 (or 3)?  Where the blank space is in the message, you have to say the weather. 

Winston! You are our helper! You can take the attendance to the office :) Winston, you can write the names of the people who are home right now and bring your paper to someone else. Even your dog! You need to be extra helpful today. What will you do?

Who is today's Mystery Friend ?

Clue #1. Our mystery friend has a y somewhere in their name.
Clue #2.  Our mystery friend has an r somewhere in their name. 
Clue #3.  Our mystery friend has a c somewhere in their name.
Who is our mystery friend? You will often find our friend at the Dramatic Play Centre!