June 2012

It's the last month of school and then you will have two months off for summer!!!


Some of you will be going off to grade 1, and Mrs. Uppal and I wish you best of luck in grade one. Come by and visit us in room 164 next year. We will miss you.  
The Jk's will be with us again next year but this time you will be Sk's!!!!

Mrs. Uppal and I had a wonderful year with you. You were a great class and we had lots of fun learning!!!  Have a safe and happy summer!!!!


June Unit

The Farm: We will be going to visit Riverdale Farm on Wednesday June 20th. If you would like to volunteer for the trip, please indicate that on the trip form. Thank you.

Songs and Poems

1. Farm Counting Poem

One, two,
Cows moo.
Three, four,
Sheep snore.
Five, six,
Pig tricks.
Seven, eight,
Horse gate.
Nine, ten,
A big fat hen.

2. Alphabet Farm Song
(Tune: Old MacDonald Had a Farm)

Mrs. _______ had a farm
A B C D E
Letters, letters in the hay
F G H I J

With a K L M, N O P
Pigs and ducks and bumblebees..

Q R S T U and V
W X Y Z

3. Old MacDonald

4. BINGO

5. Mary Had a Little Lamb

6. Farm Sounds
(tune:  Wheels on the Bus)

The cows in the barn go moo, moo, moo,
Moo, moo, moo -- moo, moo, moo.
The cows in the barn go moo, moo, moo,
All around the farm.

Other verses:

... pigs in the pen go oink, oink, oink

... hens in the coop go cluck, cluck, cluck

... rooster on the fence goes cock-a-doodle-do

... ducks in the pond go quack, quack, quack

... lambs on the hill go baa, baa, baa
... bunnies in the hutch go (silently wiggle nose with finger)

Activities

1. Who Lives On a Farm?

Creating their own farm books

Children will use the phrases below and fill in the blanks to create their own farm books.

A _____ lives in a barn.(the blank is the animal name)

The list of animals the children came up with: pig, cow, lamb, horse, dog, cat, mouse,
duck, hen, rooster, rabbit, frog, cat, dog, chicken, turkey

2. Children will be making a list of the sounds the animals make and add them to their book
for example, " A __________ says __________ (the blanks are for the animal and the sound, "A cow says moo"

3. We will be learning the proper names for all the animals( mother, father and baby) |For example,Ram, Sheep and Lamb, Rooster, Hen, chick

4. Sorting through farm animals and zoo animals ( I find a lot of children get confused between the two types of animals)

5.Make a class graph of their favourite farm animal.

6.Students are given individual baskets of farm animal manipulatives to graph.

7.The children will glue a green grass foreground on to blue construction paper background. They glued on a barn (from a barn tablet). Then they cut and colored animals for their picture.

8. Making their favourite animal puppet using a brown paper bag and construction paper.

Easy Farm Games

1.My class likes to play The Farmer in the Dell
Duck Duck Goose.

2.We also do relay races carrying eggs on spoons
(I use plastic eggs for less mess).

3. We act out characteristics of farm animals and the class has to guess, either acting like the animal or making a specific barnyard animal sound.

Seniors
Language
We will be continuing to:
- read and learn new high frequency words.
- sound out new words
- write sentences and learn that a capital goes at the beginning of the sentence and a period at the end. Spacing between words.
- try to write more than one sentence to add to their pictures
- learn word families, for example, "at" words such as cat, mat, pat bat
(other word families: it, op, an, etc)
Math
- continue to learn how to add simple math stories, for example 2+3, 4+5, 3+1
- learn how to subtract simple math stories, for example 2-1, 4-2, 6-3
- review numbers from 1 to 100 (orally counting and recognizes those numbers)

Juniors
- review letters, both upper and lowercase
- learn sounds to get ready for spelling
- try to recognize simple high frequency words in stories, for example, a, I, to, go
- work on retelling a simple story using language from the book
Math
- review numbers from 1-10
- challenge those to count to 20 or more and recognize numbers to 20 or further
- review sorting and patterning skills

Smartboard

Smartboard
We recently got the smartboard in our room. We used a variety of games and activities for the children to extend their numeracy and literacy skills.
Below, the children are using http://www.starfall.com/ and are learning about the letter Ii. It is very interactive and the children lovedto explore letters and sounds using this program on the smartboard. They went on to find other letters and sounds that they knew.
Sorry, the video I posted is not working.

April/May 2012

Spring is here!!!! Say goodbye to those winter clothes and hello to sunshine!!! This month we will be studying the changes in the weather and gardening and healthy eating. 

Class trip: Edwards Garden (Leslie and Lawrence) on April 25th. If you would like to volunteer, please let me know.

Trip Review
Our trip to Edwards Gardens was very successful. The children learned many things about gardens.  We got to see how worms live, what they eat, how they make soil and even got to hold them. We were able to plant carrots and parsnips. We learned what a plant needs to grow (water, sun, soil and wind) and we searched for signs of spring in the garden (looking for the sun, finding buds on the trees, find new plants sprouting up from the garden, looking for bugs in the garden). I encourage you to take your children to Edward Gardens. They can check on their vegetables and see the growth progress. Our vegetables that we planted will be harvested and given to the homeless. It is part of the Garden's charity program!


SPRING ACTIVITIES

1.  The children have to find stamps with pictures beginning with the sounds of the letters in the word SPRING and stamp them below the letters.

Here is an example of one our students finding the right stamp to go in the box

2. We will be keeping track of the weather every day for a month on our Weather Watcher's Report. We will be going outside to check the weather and checking the computer for the temperature.

Predictable Chart 3 Our predictable chart sentence began with, "The wind blew..." We will  read it daily.

4. For a center, I will write each child's sentence on a strip and cut it apart. They will have

to put it back together in order, glue it to the paper and draw a picture.

Journal Topics:
*What do plants need to grow?
*What kind of garden would you like to tend?
*Draw a plant and label its parts.

 Books
How a Seed Grows by Helene J. Jordan
The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss
From Seed To Plant by Gail Gibbons
A Seed Grows by Pamela Hickman
One Bean by Anne Rockwell
Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert
Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert
The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle
Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert
*After reading one or all of these books, we brainstorm and list all the
plants we can think of, sorting them into edible plants and non-edible
plants. Students will complete their own Plants! booklet: page 1- A (carrot) is a plant. It is (edible). We can (eat) it.
page 2- A (banana) is a plant. It is (edible). We can (eat) it.
page 3- A (potato) is a plant. It is (edible). We can (eat) it.
page 4- A (tree) is a plant. It is (non-edible). We can (climb) it.Students will fill in the blanks and illustrate each page using their own
drawings, magazine pictures, or clip art.

Jack's Garden by Henry Cole
Flower Garden by Eve Bunting
The Reason For a Flower by Ruth Heller
*After reading any of these books, we discuss all sorts of "parts"
(parts of a car, parts of our bodies, parts of a tree, parts of a chair,
etc.). Using the overhead projector or the chalkboard, we draw an
object and label each of its "parts." We usually draw/discuss at least
2 different objects before turning the discussion to parts of a flower.
Each student draws a flower clearly depicting the stem, petals, leaves,
roots, etc. On the backside, student choose another object (chair, body, apple, jet, etc.) to draw and label each of its parts.  This can be extended by finding objects around the school (or homework project) which are made up of parts. Disassemble the
objects and "misplace" a few of the parts. Allow them to reassemble the objects. Discuss an object's usefulness without all its parts. The same applies to plants. Students return to their pictures to write about each part's use to the object:
The leg is important because it holds up the table .
The  leaf is important because it makes chlorophyll

Heathly Eating


1.Begin the unit by filling in a KWL chart. Ask the students what they Know about food and what they Wonder about food. At the conclusion, fill in the "What I Learned" section.




 2. Taste test and then graph students' favorite milk flavor (White or Chocolate Milk)

3.Sort play foods or food pictures into rings or hula hoops to categoize them by the groups on the Food Pyramid.(Fruits/Vegetables...Dairy....Bread/Grains....Meat...Alternatives (junk food). After, take a survey and graph what is everyone's favourite food in each section.

4. Make shopping list. What would you want to buy at the grocery store? They can use words or cut out pictures from flyers and make a collage.

5. Cut out food pictures from  the Grocery store flyers and sort them into categories (Fruit, Vegetables, Meat, Dairy and Junk Food)

Math : Addition and Subtraction

1. A plate divided into three sections can be used to illustrate both addition and subtraction. For addition, put manipulatives in both small sections (5+3). Move all of them down to the larger bottom section to show the sum. For subtraction, begin with all of the manipulatives in the large section and then remove some to the smaller section to find out how many are left.

2. Place stickers with numbers in the bottome of an egg carton. Place 2 small erasers in the carton and shake it up. Open and write and addition problem about the two numbers where the erasers fell. For example,  the eraser fell on 2 and 4 (2+4=6.)

3. Sing songs or read books to act out subtraction problems. The children above were acting out Five Green and  Speckled Frogs, taking away one frog during each verse. Other songs: 5 little monkeys  jumping on the bed, 10 in the bed, 5 little ducks.

4.Grab-Bag Mat

Give each partner group a lunch bag with 10-12 unifix cubes or magnetic numbers in two colors (5-6 of each color). Have each child reach in and grab a handful of cubes, pull them out, sort and count each color. Have them write the number sentence. For instance if someone pulled out 4 red and 4 blue cubes, they would write 4 + 4 = 8. Then the next child takes his turn. I find it is helpful for children to write everyone's equation as it gives them something to do while waiting for their turn. You can do this as a small group activity as well.

5. Cards

Give each person a few cards each. Each person flips over one card at a time. Then they have to make a number story. For example, child A flips a 2 and child B flips a 4. The number story would be 2 + 4 = 6

6. Use dominoes turned horizontally and have students record the number sentence according to the dots on the domino.  3 dots + 2 dots = 5 dots

Letters this month


Ss
S P R I N G
S P R I N G
S P R I N G


That spells SPRING!!


S P R I N G
S P R I N G
S P R I N G


We love SPRING!!!




Tt
Tip toe through the tulips.
Tip toe through the tulips.
Tip toe through the tulips.
t-t-t-t-t

 Uu
Mrs Uppal's name starts with a Uu.
Mrs Uppal's name starts with a Uu.
It's not a p, it's not s, it's not an o, it's not a r.
Mrs Uppal's name starts with a Uu
u-u-u

 
Vv
Go for a ride on the starfall van.
Go for a ride on the starfall van.
vvv van
vvv van


Ww
Worms, worms, wiggly worms
w-w-w


Xx
Can you name a word that starts with Xx?
Xylophone, x-ray are just two
Words that end in Xx are easy to do.
Box and Fox.
x-x-x

Yy
Yo, yes.
Yo, yes.
Yo, yes.
y-y-y Yo
y-y-y Yo


Zz
z-z-z zipper
z-z-z zebra
z-z-z zzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Goodnight!!

 

March 2012

March break is from March 10th to March 18th.   School will resume on Monday March 19th.  Have a safe and fun holiday!!!!

For part of this month, we will be studying Penguins. Recently, we read a story about penguins and the children were very interested. So we decided to learn more about Penguins.

Language
Children will be creating pictures about penguins and then write a sentence about their picture. For example, "penguins can not fly, penguins swim, penguins are black and white, penguins eat fish.
Children will  be answering questions about penguins, so they have to pay attention when we discuss the facts about penguins(they are listed below) Yes and No answers.

Drama
Children like to walk around like a penguin with a pretend egg on their feet. They are very careful not to let the egg fall.  Here is an example of two boys pretending to be penguins and moving the "egg" from one penguin to the other. We used the dice as penguin eggs.

Show and Tell
One of the students brought this beautiful piece of artwork that they did at home to share with the class for show and tell. It was the penguins on the iceberg, afraid to go swimming because of the killer whale in the water. It's great to see their learning being extended at home. Great job!!!



Penguin Poems

1.Little Penguin
I'm a little penguin black and white
I swim in the day and sleep at night
Penguin start p, p-p-
Name other words that start with Pp.
2.Penguin Friends (tune of Oh my darling clementine)
Belly flopping off an ice cliff
Into the polar seas,
Swimming round and eating fishes
Are my hungry penguin friends

3. Five Little Penguins
5 little penguins playing on the ice
Mommy penguin said "time for fish"
So he slipped and he slide as he waddled away
and then there was 4 little penguins left.
(goes on till there were none)

Penguin Books
The Emperor's Egg - Martin Jenkins
Plenty of Penguins (scholastic)
Lost and Found-Oliver Jeffers
The life cycle of a Penguin
Watch me grow, penguins
March of the Penguins - National Geographic (movie)
Happy Feet (movie)


Penguin Facts:
Penguins are black and white
They have feathers.
Penguins waddle
They live in the south pole
They can swim but not fly.
They use their wings like flippers.
Penguins dive into the water
Penguins like to slide on their bellies
Penguins live in colonies.(groups)
Penguins are eaten by leopard seals, sea lions and whales.
Penguins lay eggs and then the chick hatches
Penguins eat fish, squid and krill (small shrimp).


Penguin Treat
To create a penguin look-alike treat,  you'll need:
*a half of a large Oreo with the white filling for the body
*You'll need a half of a mini Oreo with the filling for the head. 

*Place the mini cookie slightly overlapping the larger Oreo at the top. 

*If we need something to stick it with I may use a touch of white icing

*Now to make the face of the penguin use chocolate chips for the eyes. 

*Now use a piece of orange candy corn for the beak. 

*To make wings, we use the other half of the mini Oreo by cutting it in half and placing   each half on each side of the body


Letter this month


Qq
q-q-q Queen
q-q-q Queen
q-q-q

February 2012

Happy February!!


Due to the lack of snow during the month of January, we are going to continue with our activities from January. We will also focus on friendship and sharing this month to celebrate Valentine's Day.


Dates to remember:
February 17th is a PA Day and February 20th is family day. No school on those two days.


Letter Focus:

M m

5 little monkeys jumping on the bed.

1 fell off and bumped his head.

Mommy called the doctor and the doctor said.

No more monkeys jumping on the bed!!!

 Nn Chant

Snow is hot
No it's not
Yes it is
No it's not, snow's not hot!!


Oo
1, 2, 3  octopuses.
4, 5, 6  octopuses.
7, 8, 9  octopuses.
10 octopuses in the ocean.

o o says the o.
o o says the o.
o o says the o.
10 octopuses in the ocean.


Pp (sung to the tune of im a little tea pot)

I'm a little penguin
black and white.
I swim in the day and I sleep at night.
Penguin starts with p, p-p-p.
Name other words that start with Pp!!

Poems


1. Snow-key Pokey (to the tune of hokey pokey)
You put your mittens in,
You put your mittens out,
You put your mittens in,
And you shake them all about.
You do the snow key pokey
And you turn yourself around.
That's what it's all about!!!


(next verses, continue with boots, hat, snowpants, coat and then yourself)

Journal Topics:
*Draw someone you love or like.
*What do you love to do?
*Create a "secret valentine" for someone in the class.
*What do you like to share?

Valentine's Day Poem
Valentine SnowmanI made a snowman yesterday
So jolly, fat and fine.
I pinned a red heart on his chest
And called him Valentine!

Day 1:introduce poem, invite predictions, discuss the message

Day 2:read poem together, discuss new/interesting vocabulary

Day 3:read poem together, use poem to introduce or reinforce any new print conceptsWe reviewed sight words: and, on, his, red, etc.

Day 4:read poem together, move/stamp/clap/snap to the rhythm, reinforce print conceptsWe discussed finding smaller words inside words to help decode them... "yes" and "day" in "yesterday"  and "is"
in "his."
Day 5:students add poem to poetry journal, then illustrate and take it home to share with their familiesThey illustrated the poem and then "highlighted" (with yellow crayon) the known words.
 

Books

1. I Love You, Good Night   by Jon Buller and Susan Schade
*Read this patterned text book several times... the kids LOVE it.  As a
response to the story, students will illustrate and complete the sentence
pattern:"I love you like _____ loves ______."Students may then enclose their work in a decorated pink or red paper
valentine to take home!

2.Froggy's First Kiss by Jonathan London*Brainstorm ways to express friendship to others.  Students make valentine
cards and exchange valentines!

January 2012

Happy 2012!!!!
Welcome back to school. I hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing holiday!!! This month,we will be doing a few book studies. We will be using four books that focus on winter.

The books we will be using as our shared reading are:

1.The Mitten by Jan Brett
http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/the_mitten.html
*We read this story using puppets, too! Students help act out the tale again using
the puppets. We discuss the sequence of events, especially the order of the
characters. Then each student is given a mitten-shaped booklet with blank pages.
Students glue the characters' pictures in order to retell the story.

2.Snowballs by Lois Ehlert
*Give students white paper and a collection of scraps (paper, fabric, yarn, twigs,
feathers, buttons, wrapping paper, etc.) to create their own versions of a snowman.
http://www.theschoolbell.com/Links/Snow/snow.html 

3. The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
*After reading this classic, students create a torn paper winter scene. Then they write a caption describing it.

4.The Jacket I wear in the snow by Shirley Neitzel
*This is a great rebus story! The kids will want to read it again and again. As a response to this story, students are given a paper divided into 8 boxes. These incomplete words are in the boxes: _ittens, _ong _ohns, _acket, _carf, _oots,  _weater, _loves, _ants. Students will complete the initial letter and illustrate in each box.

5.Froggy Gets Dressed by Jonathan London
*Kids LOVE Froggy books and this is a great one to act out. After reading the
story, students work in groups to make the winter clothes for a "life-sized"
Froggy. Then they label each article of clothing using transitional/conventional
spelling and meet together in the circle. Discuss/read each label (adding correct
spelling below if necessary). Then reread the story allowing students to dress
Froggy as the story goes. All these props can then be placed in the storytelling centre. 

The Storytelling Center gives students the opportunity to retell stories we've read as a class, using props along with the book.
Props may include:*masks
*puppets
*flannelboard figures
*"trinkets"
*real props.


The Poems we will be learning this month are:
1.Snowman
A chubby little snowman
Had a carrot nose
Along came a bunny
And what do you suppose
That hungry little bunny
Looking for his lunch
Ate that little snowman’s nose
Nibble, nibble, crunch

2.Snowflake
Dance like snowflakes, Dance like snowflakes
In the air, in the air
Whirling, whirling, twirling, Whirling whirling twirling
To the ground, to the ground.
(tune:  Where is Thumbkin?)

3.Im a little snowman
I’m a little snowman
Short and fat
Here are my buttons
Here is my hat
When the sun comes out
I cannot stay
Slowly I just melt away.
(tune:  I’m a little teapot)

4.Chant:(one group says the bold, the other's respond)
Snow is hot
No its not
Yes it is
No it's not, snow's not hot
Yes it is, yes it is, snow is hot
Not its not. No its not. Snow's not hot.

The Letters we will be focusing on this month are:

Ii
I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice-cream!!
(children cheer and pretend to eat ice cream)
i-i-i (children make the sound of i)

Jj
Jumping jellybeans, jumping jellybeans, jumping jellybeans. (children jump up)
 j-j-j (children make the sound of j)

Kk
K is for kindegarten, k-k-k
K is for kindergarten, k-k-k
K is for kindergarten, k-k-k


Ll
Lollipop, lollipop, oh lolli, lolli, lolli (children pretend to be eating a lollipop)
Lollipop, lollipop, oh lolli, lolli, lolli
l-l-l  (children make the sound of l)

The Seniors will be focusing on the following high frequency words
I, a, and, the, like, see, went , to, go,my, me

Journal Topics:*In the winter, I can see....
*Draw a snowman.
*Draw snowflakes.
*What do you like to do in the winter?

Group Games and activities
1.Graph favorite winter activities.

2.Make hot chocolate with marshmallows after playing out in the cold one day.
 
3.After reading the book, Snowballs , I will be sending home 3 small paper plates stapled together and ask them to make them into snowmen as creatively as they can.


4.  I trace one of the students and add winter clothes to it. The students color it and then we label it for picture and words. This goes with the book, The Jacket I Wear In The Snow.




These students are stacking cubes on mittens. Then they get to sneeze (just like the bear in "The Mitten") and blow the cubes down

5. Concentration game with the characters from Jan Brett "the mitten"

6. Winter Clothes Relay- Have a race where the students have to put on the winter clothes and then run back.

7. We make puppets to act out the book "The Mitten". The kids’ usually enjoy acting out the story using a sheet to get under for the mitten.

8. Put snow (shaving cream) on their tables/desks and have them write or draw winter words and winter scenes in it. I had them do picture and words in it and they loved it!!!

9. Make snowflakes out of wagon wheel pasta. We will be spray painting them white or gold.

10.

After these snowmen were fingerpainted the students wrote a sentence describing their snowman

11.

Lesson Introduction

We have a "mystery bag" and we have to guess what was in it. Hmmm, it must have been a snowman that melted because the girl has the carrot nose and the boy has a button. This was our introduction to learning about the winter season

1.Snowball vocabulary game-We put high frequency words that we are learning, the letters we are learning and winter words on a piece of paper. We crumble them up into a ball and have a snow fight. When you get hit with a snowball, you have to open up the snowball and read out the word!!

These snowman puzzles have the initial letter written on the hats. The children find a medium and large ball with pictures to match the beginning sound.

Math/Graphs:   
*We do a yes/no graph to "Have you ever thrown a snowball or made a snowman?"

*We discuss symmetry and create symmetrical designs on a pair of paper mittens.  They place the mittens side by side (left mitten on the left, right mitten on the right).  What ever design they place on the left mitten, they must reproduce on the right.

Science
*We place a colored ice cube in a clear glass full of vegetable oil. At first the ice will
float, but as it begins to melt, little colored droplets will sink to the bottom. When the
ice is completely melted, there will be 2 distinct liquid levels.

*We also do an experiment to show the importance of wearing warm clothes during
cold weather. We fill 2 jars with hot water. One we "dress" in a sweater/jacket and
hat. The other "wears" a T-shirt. We place both jars outside for an hour or two.
Then we bring them inside, open them up, and test the water temperature.

*Everyday we bring in snow and put it in the water table and the children see how the snow melts once it is inside and warm.

Roots of Empathy

The afternoon class will be receiving the roots of empathy program every wednesday. Baby Blaze is the baby that will be visiting our classroom. The goals of the program are as follows:

• To foster the development of empathy
• To develop emotional literacy
• To reduce levels of bullying, aggression and violence, and promote children's pro-social behaviours
• To increase knowledge of human development, learning, and infant safety
• To prepare students for responsible citizenship and responsive parenting

For more information on this program, please visit their website:
http://www.rootsofempathy.org/
News article on the importance of Roots of Empathy at Thorncliffe Park
 http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1105553--porter-can-babies-teach-school-kids-not-to-bully