Apologies for the lack of blog posts recently. We have been working really hard in class, but I haven't been taking many photos. I've also had a lot going on this week, things should start to get back to normal soon! I am in the process of piecing together my graduating project for my Masters degree. It feels so good to be in the home stretch!
Here's a look at the week in review....
We've been focusing on the development of a story the past two weeks. As a way to demonstrate our comprehension of a story, we have been drawing and orally telling about what happens at the beginning, middle, and end. We are learning to tell the main events (and not every single little detail) and to try to summarize the different parts of the story with enough detail so that the story can be understood. We have done this same activity twice now, each time with a different story. The first time (pictured here), I shared the pictures that I would draw for the beginning, middle, and end. The second time (not pictured) I did not. The kids were on their own. We will continue to revisit this activity with different stories in the coming weeks. At home, when you are reading together with your child, take a few moments at the end of the story and ask your child to tell what happened at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the story. This is good practice that helps support the development of comprehension skills.
Here's a look at our L sharing from Tuesday:
lips
leg
lunch
and a girl with an L name
lunch kit
light
leaf
here's the light again as it glows different colours
ladle
lunch kit
loony
lock and lunch kit
lips
leg
These pictures were taken to help us remember which coloured cone we ended at during gymnastics. I didn't manage to take any other photos today, during gymnastics. It was our last day today. We had 8 wonderful sessions. The kids' skills and confidence grew tremendously over the three weeks.
I just included this because I think it's too cool not to share. This is a collaborative blanket made by the Grade 5 class at Brooksbank (Mr. Earland's class). Mr. Earland teaches his students to knit and they each knit a square to add to the blanket. They give me the squares and I connect them all to make them into a blanket. This is the finished project! The best part is, when it is done, the class takes the blanket to the downtown eastside (the Strathcona neighbourhood) and donates it. They took the blanket today (and did a lot of other cool things while they were there). So great!
some building
In math (not pictured) we have been working on combining numbers to make addition equations. Today the kids rolled dice to determine how many squares to colour and then used that information to make an equation. They did really well!
We have also been working on writing. In our journals, the kindergarten kids are encouraged to try to write the beginning sounds of the words from their pictures. Some kids are starting to write words and some are even writing sentences and multiple sentences. The Grade ones are writing sentences to accompany their pictures. They are learning to leave finger spaces between their words, to start the sentence with a capital letter and to end with a period.
The kindergarten kids are working (when the Grade ones go to guided reading) on beginning sounds. We have been looking at pictures of objects and trying to locate the correct letter that makes the object's beginning sound. Again, this is something that you can practice at home. It can be done orally ("tell me the beginning sound of the word cat") or visually ("show me the letter that makes the beginning sound of cat") or in printing ("can you print the letter that makes the beginning sound of the word cat?"). If your child has mastered the beginning sounds, it's time to move on to ending sounds and then middle sounds.
Today, we did a fun activity to recognize the Lunar New Year celebration. Tomorrow is Lunar New Year. We made dragon puppets and spelled our names with Chinese characters.
I didn't get any photos of the puppets, but the kids were thrilled with them.
