The learning never stops in our class! The children continue to be so creative. We continue to learn a letter of the week, learn more about one another with a weekly Star of the Week student, play various games in the gym, read our daily message and sign in, explore the forest, develop our math skills, learn the importance of being kind to one another and recognize feelings in others, and create amazing structures, vehicles, and pieces of visual arts during Discovery Learning time.
This blog and its collages represent a small piece of some of the activities that we have been engaged in over the last two weeks.
With our Science Buddies, we have continued to learn about the importance of composting and different ways that we can compost. We learned that if compostable items end up in the landfill, instead of the green bin/ compost, that they produce gases, which are harmful to our environment. However, if our food waste is properly sorted and put into our compost or green bins, we are doing a lot of good for planet Earth. We now know that compost is rich in nutrients and needed to ensure that our plants will grow healthy and strong.
We examined a worm compost system in Mme Hartmans' class. The soil was created by the worms' feces, left behind as they ate the decomposing fruits and vegetables. In Mme McLeish's class, we created posters illustrating the great benefits of compost. We will display our posters throughout the school as a way to inform our school community.
We continue to learn the lines in our play, La Poule Maboule, which is about a chicken who believes that the sky is falling. The children were interested in learning more about animals, specifically farm animals, and various aspects of these animals, such as their eyes, nose, outer coating, and what they eat. We started off with reading some books about farm animals, then we built a few barns, using boxes from our recycle item area. Next, one group of children wrote a group story about what would happen if a cow came to school and the other group wrote a story about two chickens that came to school. They then drew illustrations of what activities they would do with the cow/chicken (e.g., play games, read a book, etc...). Combining literacy (e.g., reading, writing, illustrating) and numeracy (e.g., 3D shapes to create structures) is a great way to learn!
Yesterday, we were lucky enough to have two chickens visit our classroom. We were able to find out a lot more information about what chickens eat (who knew that they love hamburgers and bananas!), how many eggs they lay per day (one or two), that they need a certain amount of sunlight per day to lay eggs (so no eggs in the winter), they are so soft to touch, they make small noises, they cannot fly, they molt in the fall and spring, their eyes are on the side so that means they are considered prey, they are free range (live in someone's backyard and free to roam around), and that these chickens were excited to ride in the car and come to school.
La musique ! We are learning how to cooperatively drum specific rhythms with M. Adams. Learning music is an excellent way to work on our math counting skills and adding silly sentences to these rhythms helps to enhance our literacy skills too! The children are learning how to self-regulate and cooperate, by ensuring that they are listening intently, drumming together, and refraining from drumming during discussion periods. They already sound so great! Merci M. Adams !
The children have been working so hard to use French in the classroom. As an incentive, we have another container to fill. Each time someone makes a good effort to use their acquired French words and sentences, they are asked to put a jewel in the container. Once this container gets filled, they earn an special day. This time it was an Ice Cream Party! We just started this two weeks ago and we've had one celebration already and on to another one soon! Bravo, les amis ! To make learning French a little bit more fun, we added clothespins to the SKs and if they speak English to Madame, I get to take a pin. If I speak English, they get to take one of mine! Oh!!!!! All in fun! We can really hear a difference in the classroom already! Bravo !
Hydro Guelph came in this week to do a presentation about the importance of playing safely around electricity. Never play never those green electrical boxes, fly a kite near hydro wires, pull electrical cords out of the socket by using big bulky end piece, play with electrical sockets, and call before you dig on your yard. Did you know that when you keep your charger plugged into the wall, after you have charged your devices, that it is continuing to use power. We need to unplug to save energy! Who knew?
Thank you for dressing your child for the weather. Please not that if your child is having difficulty zipping up zippers, buttoning sweaters, or putting on their mittens, that this can cause them great distress at school. We can certainly guide and help them with getting dressed (e.g., zippers and mittens); however with 23 children in the classroom it is helpful if they can do these things independently. Please allow them the opportunity to practice these skills on the weekend. If you notice that their mittens are too difficult to manage, please consider sending them in with another pair. Speaking of extra mitten....please send in extra mittens and socks to keep in their backpacks. This way if they get wet, they will have new dry ones to put on. We do do our best to put their wet mittens on the classroom heaters.
Playing games with children is another great way to reinforce learning at home. Board games teach many skills, such as cooperation, directionality, number and letter recognition, the ability to subitize (e.g. recognize four dots as 4), one-to-one counting, addition, and oral communication skills (to name a few).
Updates & Upcoming
Welcome to our new student! We have a new student who started this week! She is a jk student new to the area from Toronto! Welcome!!!!!
Please return report card envelopes so we may use them for next term! Merci !
Our Winter Fun basket is getting filled! Thank you for your donations. These baskets will be raffled off during our Winter Fun Night on December 6th.
Please remember to book an interview time for tomorrow or Friday!
Friday there is no school - Interview Time
I try hard to ensure that I do not have typos in my blogs; however, sometimes I miss my errors! Thank you for being so kind and understanding when reading my updates! :) It is much appreciated!
Have a wonderful night!