This four-day week, the students organized our school's fundraiser for Toronto's Daily Bread Food Bank, learned about Canadian coins and how to count them and learned about the food and activities of the holiday Hanukkah!
Our class is in charge of advertising, collecting and counting money for the Toronto's Daily Bread Food Bank.This is a great opportunity for children to communicate information using different media. The children made over 25 collection jars to give to classrooms to collect money. Then we talked about how to let the school know about how some people in Toronto do not have enough money to buy food and the Food Banks helps these people. So the students made colourful, informative posters to remind students and staff to donate money. These posters are now on the walls around the school. The children also began to write and make announcements to read on our school's morning announcements. Everyone will have a chance to do this. It's very exciting to go down to the office to read on the morning announcements!
In math, the class learned about the features, names and values of the Canadian coins. Did you know that a picture of Queen Elizabeth II is on every Canadian coin? They have to recognize each coin, know its name and value. The children reviewed their skip counting skills to help them count groups of the same type of coin and at the end of the week, groups of mixed coins. For example, a group of 2 quarters, 2 dimes and a nickel would be counted as 25, 50, 60, 70, 75 cents in total.
The class is beginning to learn about poems and poetry. One version of poems are lyrics, or the words to songs. Each student now has a "Holiday Songs" folder and each day we learn the history, vocabulary and tune of a seasonal song. Did you know that the song, "Jingle Bells" was written in the USA and is traditionally an American Thanksgiving song? It was written in 1857, 161 years ago.
In our guided reading groups, children read a poem about a chick pecking its way out of an egg and then read and made connections to a story about a baby chick and duckling. The learning goal was to talk about "inference" and how the reader's brain needs to think and question the text to get information that is implied and not necessarily written in the text or seen in an illustration.
The students began an art/science activity to make a sculpture. They examined different designs of snail shells and pressed them into plasticine to create a pattern. On Thursday, they learned about Plaster of Paris (actually a mineral called gypsum) and how it is a powder made from a solid. It is dissolved into water by stirring. The powder particles become part of the liquid by going in between the water molecules. This solution was poured over the plasticine design and left to harden back into a solid over the weekend.
My family traditionally celebrates both the Christian holiday of Christmas and the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah at this time of year. Hanukkah began on December 2 and lasts for eight days. This week, the class learned about the history of Hanukkah and the kinds of activities that are done to celebrate. The students learned the symbols of Hanukkah, helped to make potato pancakes called "latkes" and played a game using "dreidels" or spinning tops. My family's recipe for latkes is just grated potatoes put into small pancakes in hot oil and fried with a bit of salt, until golden brown and crispy. Traditionally, latkes are eaten with applesauce. We had a lovely time eating together in the Room 222 "restaurant"!
In Dance class with Ms. Heath, the class has been learning a dance routine to the music from "The Carnival of the Animals" (1886) by the French composer, Camille Saint-Saens. Here is a video of the children dancing to the piece, "The Aquarium":
Books read aloud this week:
365 Penguins by Jean-Luc Fromental
My Hanukkah Alphabet by Claudia Kunin
I Have a Little Dreidel by Maxie Baum
The Donut Chef (a story in rhyme) by Bob Staake
Snow Crystals by Wilson A. (Snowflake) Bentley
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