Halloween!

HALLOWEEN!!

We started our day off with a fashion show to show off our costumes! After this, we talked about our costumes and then we started on our language work. Because it is HALLOWEEN, we did something fun for our Rr words today! :) We cut out 8 legs and a body for our Rr spiders! Then we wrote words that begin with Rr on the legs!

During Math we played a fun game where Ms. Gray would throw the dice and we would have to draw a bat, pumpkin, candy, mummy, spider, or moons. We had SO much fun! After this we worked on our Halloween packet of fun! We did some review and we did some new things! We had some patterning to do!

During UOI we used our sense of hearing to dance to the MONSTER MASH! Ms. Gray would play a Halloween song and we would freeze when we wouldn't hear the music anymore! Each time someone kept moving they were out! Their sense of hearing was not working properly... We played this a few times before we started to get ready for the fun house game!!

Reminders:

HAVE SO MUCH FUN TONIGHT!! :)

1. The packet that I sent home, does NOT need to be done today. Their ONLY homework tonight is to have SO, SO much fun trick-or-treating! :) 
2. They are required to know how to write a list (kindergarten benchmark). We will be practicing this all week!

• List Requirements:
1. title 
2. bullet points for each idea 
3. pictures

October 30th, 2018

Awesome Tuesday!!

During inquiry into language arts we wrote in our phonics journals and we practiced our letter Uu. We also worked on a letter Uu worksheet sounding out words such as bus, jug, sun, and mug... etc. Our friends worked very hard and we had almost everyone finish all of their morning work! It was a fantastic morning! :)

During math we practiced patterns!! We used candy as our manipulatives. Ms. Gray would make a pattern with the candy and she would call on someone to finish the pattern. Once we had the pattern we would tell Ms. Gray the core of the pattern. Each time, we would repeat what the core of the pattern means... without Ms. Gray asking! After we were done working as a whole group we each went back to our seats and worked individually on our workbooks. We made all different kinds of patterns. **I will be sending some extra work home to practice patterns tomorrow.**

During UOI we did a super fun activity! Yesterday we coloured our pumpkin seeds with food colouring. Today we used our senses to talk about the pumpkin seeds. We each got to touch, smell, hear and see the seeds. Ms. Gray asked us to use describing words for how the pumpkin seeds felt, what they could see, what they could smell, and what they could hear.
Pumpkin seeds feel: smooth, soft, rough, and some feel hard.
Pumpkin seeds look: pointy, some are broken, very colourful, some look dirty, some look rotten
Pumpkin seeds smell: like rotten toes, like popcorn, and some of our friends think they smell disgusting
Pumpkin seeds sound like: my mom cooking, my mom frying, sand and water, like the ocean/waves, like small rocks, or kicking sand

Reminders:

• Tomorrow is Halloween!! Character Dress Up / Harvest Day! 
• Students are encouraged to dress up in a costume or in fall colours! Remember that costumes should not include weapons, masks, or anything too scary for school. Please ensure your child's costume is school appropriate! 
• Remember while packing lunch for your child that we have friends in other classes that may have nut allergies or our siblings may have nut allergies... any contact with nuts (smelling or touching) could cause an allergic reaction. We have lunch in a common area where other classes each before and after us. Please try your best to send foods that do not include nuts directly. We appreciate that very much! Thank you! :)
• They are required to know how to write a list (kindergarten benchmark). We will be practicing this all week!
• List Requirements:
1. title 
2. bullet points for each idea 
3. pictures

October 29th, 2018

MONDAY!

During our inquiry into language we listened to the song for Uu and we practiced the sound for Uu. After that we sounded out words for Uu and made Ms. Gray draw some interesting drawings. After this we took 10 minutes to talk about the Christmas Concert and listened to the AWESOME song that we will be singing and dancing to! We are SUPER excited for this... Ms. Gray felt a little bit like it might be too early for Christmas but the song is very catchy so we have been jamming to it on and off all day! Our friends were extremely worried about not knowing the words... Ms. Gray explained that once we hear it a few times we won't be able to forget it! (Ask her husband...... Ms. Gray heard him singing it while doing some renovations this weekend! >>insert laughing emoji<< )

During our math lesson today we made Ms. Gray feel like the 1,000,000 bucks!! We kept saying how much fun our math lesson was... and saying over and over again how we LOVE Ms. Gray! First we each had a letter (A or B), we moved around the room and put ourselves in a pattern of AB. Then ABB... When we were done with that game we went back to our seats. Ms. Gray had all of our playdough on the table... and lots of cookie-stencils & playdough stencils. Ms. Gray would put a pattern on the board and we would make the pattern with the playdough! We ABSOLUTELY loved this the most, more than anything we have ever done before!


After our super fun math lesson, we listened to our fun senses song and danced the actions then we started to frame our beautiful artwork that we created for Fall for the hallway! While we were doing that we brainstormed different words that begin with the letters F, A, L, L and completed an acrostic poem! Ms. Gray taught us how to choose words that describe the season! We started with Favorite and ended with Love.... safe to say that Ms. Gray's obsession with Fall has rubbed off on our friends. :)

We had such an amazing day!! :)

REMINDERS:

1. Casual Day tomorrow!
2. BAKE SALE TOMORROW DURING LUNCH!!
3. Character Dress Up/Harvest Day is Wednesday! -- Remember no weapons, no masks, and no scary face paint. Costumes should be school appropriate!

October 26

We had a BUSY (messy)  Friday!

First we had our show & share! We had friends bring in items that have the letter in them, or begin with that letter...... We had one friends bring in an excavator, someone showed one of Ms. Gray's socks, a friend brought in her stickers and another friend brought in a metal... Then we had our spelling test!! We did well on our spelling test!

After we had gym, recess, and lunch we had some fun!! We finally painted our pumpkins! We found out that when we "accidentally" mix the colors together we get a very interesting color of brown.......... Some of our friends were able to keep their colors from mixing and their pumpkins are very colorful... others have some very pretty, brown pumpkins. One friend referred to this as his "rotten pumpkin!!" We talked about how this is a fall activity and this makes us happy!

Then we had our math lesson about patterns. We practiced all different types of patterns and circled the core. Then we made pretty bracelets using a pattern! Some of our sweet friends made the bracelets for their mom! :) While some of our friends were making some bracelets our other friends were painting pretty patterns on some white paper!

Then, once everyone got a chance to do both centers, we got our outside clothes on and lined up. Ms. Gray gave us TWO stickers if we were silent in the hallway while the other classes were learning. We went outside and collected leaves for a new project! We earned 5 stickers for our behavior in the hallway!! So proud of them!

We then went to recess, snack, and French! Then... the "FUN" continued!... FALL FUN! Painting our leaves!!! We used our leaves to make a special art project that will go in the hallway! Our friends did such a fantastic job following directions. Their art projects look great! I had some friends that got paint on their noses... It was ADORABLE! We quickly washed it off and then got ready for music!


We had a fun day of singing silly songs, playing instruments, and dancing around to Mr. Flower playing and singing! :)

Reminders:

• October 30 is casual day. (Tuesday)
• October 31 is character dress up day (Wednesday) -- please remember no weapons or scary costumes. 
• I put their spelling test in their agenda. :)
• At some point this weekend -- If you could have your kiddo plug their nose while they eat something... (This is our experiment as I introduce the 5 senses! I want to see if anyone realizes what happens to your sense of taste!...)
• HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!! :) 

October 25

Picture Day!

During our inquiry into language arts we practiced our letter Ee. We sang the song and we wrote in our phonics journals. We practiced our spelling words and sounded out "site" words. Site words are high frequency words that we see every day. We got called for pictures during our language arts time! We all looked stunning for our photos! :)

During our inquiry into math we studied different patterns. Ms. Gray displayed a pattern and my friends had to write on their white boards what the CORE of the pattern is. After this we got to make patterns with our paint dabbers. We made ABBA, ABC, and ABCD patterns! We also used manipulatives to do some of our workbook math pages. Math was busy today!

During our unit of inquiry we talked about our 5 senses. We did a KWL chart for our senses. We learned a catchy new song about the 5 senses! "See it, Hear it, Smell it, Taste it, Touch it .... 5 senses!" Ms. Gray had previously introduced these so she was very interested to see what our friends remembered. She connected our senses to SCIENCE! We made some observations about when our eyes are not working well, that our other senses work harder. We also came up with a question and a hypothesis.... "What will happen if I plug my nose when I eat 5 bites of my dinner?"
Some of our hypotheses: ..."Your nose will explode"... "You will not be able to breathe."... and a few other silly ones. After, we talked about feelings. How our emotions can be effected by the change in the weather or what we see outside... How does Fall make you feel? We wrote about this in our journals today!

Reminders:

1. Spelling test tomorrow!!
2. Words of the week journal due tomorrow!

October 24

Wednesday!!

During our inquiry into language arts today we learned a new song for Ee!! The song was about cracking eggs and the action was pretending to crack and egg and then opening it in a pan! We practiced the song and sang along with the video. Once we did that we started to brainstorm words that begin with the letter Ee. We were coming up with a bunch of words that have Ee in them... but not words that begin with the letter... We have two friends in our class that have E as the first letter in their name! After this, we wrote in our phonics journals. Some of our friends drew pictures of our friends in our class with the letter E. :)

During UOI we finished up our pumpkin investigation. Each student got to see whether or not their pumpkin sinks or floats. We made an observation and made a hypothesis (educated guess for what is going to happen): Example: "Because my pumpkin is heavy, my pumpkin will sink." Then, we did our experiment. Ms. Gray filled a bucket full of water, and each of us dropped our pumpkin in the water! This was awesome! Some of our friends were disappointed that their educated guess was proven wrong by our experiment... some even started blowing their pumpkin to try to get it to sink! We have some silly friends! :)
We decided that we want to draw a face on our pumpkin for Ms. Gray to carve. We came up with lots of different ideas for which eyes, nose and mouth our pumpkin should have! We talked about how we don't do this during the summer... carving pumpkins and going to a pumpkin patch is an activity that we do during the fall!





During Math we counted by 10's ALL THE WAY TO 490!!!!! We separated our pumpkin seeds into groups of ten, then Ms. Gray drew on the board. We counted by 10's and used a 10 frame for the extra. After we were done with our pumpkin, we made ABBA patterns. We stood in a circle and we snapped and clapped an ABBA pattern. We are going to practice our snapping... Some of our friends made the noise with their mouth instead. After this we got into groups and did centers. We practiced making patterns with manipulatives.


For our journal we reported our results of our experiment. My pumpkin ______ in water. Then we packed up and got ready for Music!

Reminders:

• PICTURE DAY TOMORROW!!! 
• Friday is our October spelling test! (See words on blog)
• Casual Day October 30 (this is a Tuesday!)
• Costume/Character Day October 31! -- Please remember: no scary costumes & no weapons!
• Science Fair is coming up! We are going to do an experiment using the scientific method! -- "What melts ice faster?"

October 22nd, 2018

Fun Monday!

We had an AWESOME morning! We were silly but we got our work done. I had some friends helping me fix our magnets on the board because our numbers keep falling off and we think this is HILARIOUS!! They are ALL fixed now... hopefully this won't be happening anymore.

During our inquiry into language arts we started practicing the letters CK, ck... it was difficult to come up with words that begin or end in CK... We managed to come up with a few. Clock, knock, shock, and sock! We wrote in our phonics journals and our friends work is looking MUCH neater!

During our Math and UOI, I combined the two lessons today! We did our Pumpkin Investigation! We learned about the Scientific Method and made a hypothesis (educated guess) based on our observation for how many seeds we have in our pumpkin! After we made our observations, hypothesis and measured our pumpkin, we cut it open!! We made some guesses for what color the inside of the pumpkin was going to be. We guessed brown, red, yellow, peach, and lots of people thought "the color of my skin..." We cut open the pumpkin to find a yellowish/orange mixture!! Each of us got the opportunity to touch the slimy gross "wire" inside the pumpkin. Some of our friends liked the smell of pumpkin, some of our friends really really did not like it... we did not say the word "hate" because some of our friends REALLY don't like that word! ;) After this we took our seeds and Ms. Gray separated them for each group to count.

Music test went well today! :) Ms. Gray was in the room and assisting Mr. Flower with writing for students. Woohoo!

Reminders:

• Picture Day on Thursday!!! 
• Spelling Test on Friday!

October 19th

Friday!

Ms. Gray has not been feeling the best this weekend. I apologize for the delay. Make sure everyone is getting lots of rest and getting that vitamin C!! :)

During our inquiry into language arts we had our show and share. We had friends share their items from home that begin with the letter Cc or the letter Kk. We had a key, cars, carrots, cucumbers, a chocolate chip cookie, and crayons! Lots of things that begin with a C!




When we got back from lunch we worked on MATH! Our friends LOVE math!!! We have been working on patterns and sorting! We did centers today... OUR favourite! One center was sorting, one center was patterning, and the other center was workbook (patterns)... Everyone enjoyed doing this. We had some friends who were making a pattern the whole length of the classroom! It was pretty impressive. :)

Our schedule was a little mixed up today because we got to go to the Library!! WOO! We signed out some books which we are bringing home... these books have to be returned to school by NEXT FRIDAY! We got to choose whatever we wanted to read about! We are SO excited!

During UOI Ms. Gray introduced the pumpkin investigation! We only had a little time to do this... Before recess and snack we watched a video about a pumpkin farm and we learned the life-cycle of a pumpkin. Then, we drew a picture of a pumpkin! We made our estimations for how many seeds we think are inside the pumpkin... we tried to lift it... we rolled it on the ground and talked about the shape... Next week, when we have more time, we are going to open the pumpkin, take all the yucky stuff out... We are going to count the seeds to see if our estimation was correct!

Reminders:

• Music test Monday! This is one thing that is on the test. The other part is the spaces, which spell out F-A-C-E. I just got this from google. I know that the kiddos were looking at it. Mr. Flower also shared that they will be expected to identify notes. 
• Spelling test next week - words are on my blog

Important Dates

• OCTOBER 25 PICTURE DAY
• OCTOBER 30 CASUAL DAY
• OCTOBER 31 SPIRIT DAY: HARVEST/HALLOWEEN DRESS UP
• NOVEMBER 9 PD DAY, IB TRAINING (NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS)
• NOVEMBER 11 REMEMBRANCE DAY
• NOVEMBER 12 KINDNESS DAY
• NOVEMBER 16 SCIENCE FAIR (JK - GRADE 8)

October 18th, 2018

It's Thursday Already?! 

Today was an exciting day!

During morning meeting we had our lock-down drill. We were very quiet except for a couple friends who initially screamed when getting into our places... I explained why it is very important to take this seriously so that we understand what to do in the event there was a problem. The students who were quiet and did not talk during the drill received stickers for their awesome performance during the drill.

During language we learned the song for Kk. Kk is VERY confusing with Cc because they both make the same sound!! When we were brainstorming words that begin with the letter Kk, I think that we came up with a whole new list of words for Cc as well! They had their thinking caps on today! We wrote in our phonics journals and practiced our letters.

Math was AWESOME! Ms. Gray brought in candy to use as manipulatives. First we sorted the candy into groups of the different types of candy. After this we learned about patterns. We practiced all different types of patterns. We "labeled" each candy a different letter (example: ABCD)... Once we did that we started making a pattern as a class. We learned that the CORE of the pattern is the part that repeats over and over. After we learned about patterns and how to use the candy to make the patterns we separated into different groups and worked with our team to create the pattern that Ms. Gray would write on the board. We had so much fun and Ms. Gray only heard 5,000,000 times "Can we take the candy home?" (I was planning on letting them take some home but I said "If I hear one more person ask, then we won't be able to take any home!"... Safe to say, no one brought candy home... We will try again tomorrow! ;) )





During UOI we reviewed which food comes from a plant and which food comes from an animal. Even though we have been working on this for a long time, I still have friends who are mixing this up! We are going to do our Pumpkin Investigation tomorrow! This is where we make an estimate of how many seeds are inside the pumpkin then we open the pumpkin and take all the stuff out and then count the seeds! I am very excited about this! I hope all my friends are ready to get a little dirty tomorrow!

REMINDERS:

• Spelling test end of next week
• Music test beginning of next week
• Picture Day October 25th! 

October 17th, 2018

Wednesday!!!

Today during morning meeting we sang our morning songs and learned what it means to be "Knowledgeable." We watched a story on the computer about Officer Buckle who was VERY knowledgeable about safety. He was knowledgeable because he had a lot of information stored in his brain. After we heard the story we talked about the characters of the story and then the beginning, middle, and end of the story. After we discussed this we wrote in our journal about how Officer Buckle was knowledgeable.


During Math we learned how to sort 3 different ways! We practiced sorting with a team of our friends. We first separated the manipulatives by color, then we separated them into numbers, upper case and lower case letters, after that we tried to put them in order! A lot of our friends were jumping ahead and wanting to make patterns with their manipulatives! I had to remind them we aren't making patterns today, we are sorting. We went around the room and talked about different things in Ms. Gray's class that were sorted.

During UOI we reviewed where our food comes from and then we acted out the different processes for each item. One of our friends brought up how we make hot-dogs..... or any animal... which was a little sad, but we moved on quickly from that one! After that we did a matching worksheet and our friends were making noises of the animals and helping other friends if they maybe needed a little help.

Ms. Gray was VERY pleased with the kind words today. We are working on this and all our friends know to remind each other (in a kind way) to use kind words. She has already seen a HUGE improvement by over-hearing some of the conversations. It's still a work-in-progress but we are getting there!!

The students had a lot of fun today! They were VERY well-behaved and earned LOTS of stickers. We even were the first ones to the cafeteria for dismissal! (FIRST TIME EVER!!!)

Reminders:

• Please remember to sign and send back the math test! :) 
• Words of the Week due Friday
• The kiddos have a Music test next week! 
• Picture Day is OCTOBER 25, 2018!!

October 16th

Tired Tuesday

Wow! We are TIRED today! Friends were telling me ALL DAY that they were tired, and some friends were caught napping throughout the day. I am sure they will be exhausted tonight and ready for bed when they get home. Yesterday was a busy and fun day! During morning meeting we went over our lock-down procedures. We talked about the weather and we sang our morning songs!

During our Inquiry into Language Arts we practiced the letter Cc. Ms. Gray played a Jolly Phonics video that had every song that we have learned so far. Our friends LOVED this! They were giggling and laughing and singing along with all of the songs. They knew the actions and the words! Ms. Gray was SUPER impressed. Then, today we learned a new song!! After we learned the song and sang it OVER AND OVER AND OVER (practicing the C sound), we made a list of words that begin with the letter C! Then we practiced writing the letter Cc in our awesome phonics journals.

During Math we showed Ms. Gray all that we knew about patterning. We are going to be starting our Patterning Unit! We colored patterns and identified which rows were patterns and which were not. I am excited to start the new unit. I am looking forward to all of the fun activities that come along with patterning!

For our Unit of Inquiry we reflected on the trip to the farm. We talked about how we did not get any pumpkins :(... then we finished up our art project for the hallway and put it on some pretty paper! After we did that we reviewed what animals & plants produced certain foods. Bacon - Pig, Honey - Bees, Bread - Wheat, etc. All of our friends are getting better about coloring the animals, plants and food the realistic colors of the items.

THANK YOU SO SO MUCH TO MS. CHAN AND MS. KOO FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE ON THE TRIP! You were both incredible and I felt lucky to have you there with me! I appreciate the help so very much! Thank you again. :) 

Reminders:

1. Sent home math test from Friday. Please sign and send the test back.
2. Sent home book order magazines. Order online.
3. Sent home Words of the Week in the agenda & in their journal.
4. Sent home Rubric from Summative Assignment.
5. I will be contacting you regarding the student's progress this week. -- I still haven't heard from all of the parents regarding a time to call or if you would prefer an email. Please let me know! :)
6. Just heard the news -- the kiddos have a Music test next week! -- I asked Mr. Flower for some practice worksheets for this week through the weekend.
7. Picture Day is OCTOBER 25, 2018!!