News for April 1

News for April 1

This week was all about building! The students created buildings by colouring, folding and taping paper. I then challenged each class to create a city using these buildings and other items in our class. We talked about what they could include and some suggestions were roads, train tracks, houses, a zoo, an airport and bridges. As you can see from the photos, both the morning and afternoon classes were very creative with their choices. It also was wonderful to see and hear the students working together cooperatively on a large project.

Students had the opportunity to make large structures out of big collection of old boxes (e.g., kleenex boxes, cracker boxes). When I asked the children, "What does this activity remind you of?", they immediately said "Iggy Peck Architect!". Recall this was a book character from last week that used materials around him to build structures. It was nice to hear that response, because that means the children are getting better at making connections.

The class learned the nursery rhyme "This is the House That Jack Built". Students also used character cards to "act out" the rhyme, as a performance in front of the class.(A copy of the words to this poem was sent home on Friday). We also read "The House That Jill Built" to compare with the original rhyme. As always, more information about the books we read every week can be found on our sister blog at:

http://planet5books.blogspot.com

In our on-going study of how to stick things together (the students are now very skilled with glue, glue stick and clear tape), the children learned how to use a stapler safely and how to use staples to make a small book. We also had a discussion about our broken cast iron fence outside, as the repairman arrived to fix it this week (the gate now closes properly!). When I asked the children how they thought he should fix it, they all agreed that glue, tape and staples would not be strong enough. I explained how the repairman used a welding torch to melt the two pieces of metal together.
This week the class continued to play The Math Game to help them practice different ways of counting. We focused on counting backwards, as this is an important skill for subraction. The students also reviewed the names of 2-dimensional shapes and learned the names of 3-dimensional figures.

The afternoon class welcomed our new Special Needs Assistant, Ms. Carson, to our class this week. There are a lot of rules and routines in our classroom and Ms. Carson did a first-rate job this week with all the children.

Finally, we could talk about spring this week. We have a plant of miniature roses that we talk about everyday as we watch the buds turn into flowers and discuss what the plant needs to live (for example, "Can the plant walk to the water fountain and get a drink of water? No!!! We have to give it water.)

One important event this week was the arrival of "George" our new algae-eater (plecostomas) for our fish tank. Our two goldfish, Alpha and Beta seemed quite happy with their new friend. Ms. R was quite happy to have the algae build-up on the tank disappear. George is doing his job! He can be found in the tank either hiding or stuck to the side of the tank with his suction cup mouth (see photo).