Thursday, January 30, 2014

Groundhog Day Stories, Journals and a lot of Learning!

Today Mrs. David was away learning new exciting ways to teach math. We were very lucky to have Mr.Campbell back in the classroom with us for the day!

Mr.Campbell and the students wrote the sentence "In Winter I love to skate." on the board together. They worked as a team to sound out the letters.


After circle, students worked on their journals. There were some very detailed drawings and many students remembered to put a period at the end of their sentence!


More observation happened at the aquarium today. The students whisper around the baby fish so that they won't scare them away. 
 B.W wondered if the fish would hide in the grass. 
D.P thought the grass looked like coral reef and spotted 4 baby fish that are orange and gold.


At the house centre I.V and some other students prepared a feast!





M.C wrote a book at the art table and was excited to read it to the teachers.





Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Fish, Composting and Shaving Cream

We had a very exciting day today in our classroom!


Ms. Alannah brought an aquarium and some fish to our class. 
There are 6 baby fish inside and we’ll hopefully watch them grow and change colour over time. Baby fish love to hide so the students have been having fun spotting them. Kids were able to see the fish camouflage with their surroundings.

A. K told us that angler sharks change colour to match the ocean floor so predators can’t see them.


B. W was able to spot the baby fish hiding in a castle decoration and noted that they were “a different colour” than the fish sticking to the rock.

D.P thinks the fish stick to the rock because they “have sticky parts on them”. We’ll have to investigate when the fish stick to the glass and we can see them better.


The students took many observation notes about the fish. Some used drawings to record their observations and others used words.


G.F.'s drawing of what she observed. She even included the thermometer on the tank!
M.C.'s writing about what she saw, thought and wondered. 



 The class had many excellent suggestions for fish names. We made a graph and each student could vote for which name they liked most. 

M.C made predictions about which names would win by reading the graph and seeing how many votes each name had so far.

By looking at the graph together, we picked the names with the most votes. There was a tie for sixth place! G.D made the suggestion that “One name could be the first name and the other could be their last name”.

Our final choices were:

  • Ariel (The most popular name)
  • Camouflage
  • Groundhog (Our poem this week is about groundhog day. One of the students pointed out that the fish like to pop out of their hiding spot, like a groundhog!)
  • Nemo Twinkle
  • Daniel 
  • Sparkle

Today we also asked our students: "Where does our garbage go?" We quickly realized that if we don't reduce what we put into the garbage, there will be no place left in our community to put our garbage.
 We reviewed what items we should put in our recycling and garbage bins. Then we introduced some worms that were in a container of dirt and shredded paper. We discussed composting with our students, by explaining that we put food waster (which normally goes into the trash), into the container of worms and they will eat it! We quickly realized that the more food waste that we put into the compost bin, the less items we will have to put into the garbage bin.



Our worms in the dirt and shredded paper

Our bin that the students will put their food waste in

 Tune in for what comes next..........................



This afternoon, the students had the opportunity to explore the feel of shaving cream. The students loved it and we heard a few students came home smelling very good! :) You should smell our class! :)






 Here's a look at what else happened at our centres today:





Some students continued exploring objects that sink and float.


Some students made pictures at the light table.



 Q.G. and A.H. made a background for their dinosaurs! Very creative!!


 Some students continued exploring what different objects they could place at the ladibug.


S.M. helped C.B. at the computer
G.F. and A.J. made recipes and cooked food at the house centre
 


You can see we had a very good day today in our classroom!

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Lots of Learning Today

Today we received  a document camera in our class, called a Ladibug. This camera documents learning and also can project things in a bigger size. The students enjoyed exploring what items they could put under the Ladibug.


Some students enjoyed projecting a book onto the wall and reading it with a pointer, while other students enjoyed picking out words that they recognized in the text.
Next we placed one of our beetles under the Ladibug.

M.D. and M.A. enjoyed taking a much closer look at the beetle.
There was much excitement around the Ladibug today.



G.D. created a whole book about Valentine's on her own! She was very creative in the words and pictures that she recorded!
Students continued exploring things that float and sink.

J.S. recorded items that he discovered could sink or float

Some students made a village!
Their village expanded to cover the whole carpet!






C.A. enjoyed being taught how to add more details to his drawings by our co-op student.

Students discovered some interesting things at the Science Table.
Students discovered that the rocks turned into crystals!
G.F. and J.T. enjoyed looking at books about rocks and crystals.
 









Monday, January 27, 2014

Happy Monday! A Look at the Learning that Happened Today

Today we started a new inquiry unit on Underwater Life! This was inspired in part by the students'  interest in animals and the many special place poems they wrote about the aquarium!

We started by gathering the students' questions about underwater creatures such as "How do fish breath?" and "How do fish eat?'. 

Some of our centres changed in honour of our new topic and the students were excited to try them out!

At the literacy/writing table I.V and C.A went "fishing" for letters.

B.W was excited to try catching fish too!

J.S put the fish he caught together with his word family fish to make "cap"!


Our sensory table has transformed into a water table! Students conducted experiments and discovered what floats and what sinks. Here R.T and M.C worked together to document their experiment like real scientists. 


C.B and D.P spent a lot of time experimenting at the water table during centre time!


This is R.T's finished report with checkmarks for objects that float and X's for those that sank. 
Ask your child what they discovered at the water table today!


Half the class had fun with Ms. Blakely in the computer lab while the other half did guided reading with Mrs. David or underwater drawings with Ms. Alannah. 

Q.G drew some jellyfish, sharks and seaweed using pastels. Many of the students surprised Ms. Alannah with their excellent knowledge of underwater life. A.K drew sharks that camouflage and G.D drew polka dotted stingrays.