News for November 26

News for November 26

This week the students learned how to draw a person. They used what they know about printing capital letters (big line, little line, big curve, little curve) to create "Mat Man". They learned a song about body parts and what the parts are for. Using clipboards and singing the song, the class drew a whole group of "Mat Man" drawings. They also could use the pieces to make the Mat Man figure independently. The words to the song were sent home with students on Friday to practise reading the words at home. This exercise helps students develop their ability to draw people. A video of what the students did can be found at the end of this posting.

The students had an opportunity to write their own little books. Children love to take the little books and write and draw on the blank pages. This reinforces concepts of print and helping the students see themselves as writers and artists.

Students painted using tempera blocks this week. It was wonderful to hear the children talking about what they have learned about colours and colour mixing as they painted. They mixed two of the primary colours (red, yellow, blue) to get secondary colours (orange, green, purple). Some even used what they learned from the "Colour Kittens" book read aloud this week, the fact that when all the colours are mixed together, you get brown. These paintings are now decorating our classroom.

The students are enjoying using their personal clipboards to write and draw during centre time. I've included a photo this week of students using their clipboards in the big blocks centre to create an office.

The children experimented with bead stringing, new wooden puzzles, wood pieces and mixing white playdoh with coloured playdoh.

We learned the names, sounds, shapes and songs for the letters U and V.