Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Friend 2 Friend Presentation

These last two days of sunshine have been amazing and apparently it is supposed to continue on for the rest of the week. YAY! We've definitely taken advantage of the sunshine and spent some extra time outdoors during our gym block.
 
Personal Fitness
 
We are also right smack dab in the middle of our personal fitness unit for physical education. We are working on improving our stamina during our personal fitness centre rotations. Here are a few pictures that show some of our personal fitness activities. 





 
Friend 2 Friend Presentation

Today we were very lucky to have a few special visitors from the Friend 2 Friend Social Learning Society. The program they presented today in class works to foster understanding, acceptance and empathy between individuals with autism and their peers, while introducing prosocial communication strategies to enhance peer social relations and reduce bullying. The students watched a short video presentation, learned the seven friendship tips, and finally role-played with some puppets to demonstrate their learning and understanding. The presentation was extremely engaging and fun. We will definitely be doing some follow- up activities over the next month.  




 
Spelling
Don't forget that Friday is a Professional Development Day, therefore students will not be in class. Our weekly spelling quiz will take place on Thursday and we are focusing on the r-controlled spelling pattern - or and -ore. Our spelling lists are now available on spellingcity.com/singha. Spelling city is a great opportunity to practice your weekly words in a fun and engaging way. 

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Imaginative Stories, Earth Day and Angry Verbs

We are right in the middle of our imaginative story writing unit and I have to say that our stories are pretty cute. A typical story writing activity begins with a class discussion on how we can create a great story. A story must have a main character, a setting, a problem and a solution (beginning, middle, and end). Next we create a planning page where we brainstorm our thoughts and ideas and sequence our story parts in the correct order. After completing our planning page we write our stories. When our stories are finished, we use our writer's eye to edit our work for any missing words and errors in spelling and punctuation. Finally, we complete a published copy by typing our stories in the computer lab. The whole process usually takes place over a few days. Take a look at what we've created so far.


Here are few examples of our stories.

The Mushroom by A.M.
Once upon a time there was a talking mushroom. She had purple polka dots and was brown in colour. She said to herself that she wanted to be eaten by someone, but no one liked mushrooms around where she lived. One day when a chef put a pizza on the counter, she hopped in it. Then she hid in the cheese pizza. When the pizza came out, the mushroom got eaten by some people and they didn't taste her because she was under the cheese and her wish came true.
The End

Friends by N.C.
Once upon a time there lived three sisters. They were in first grade and they were six years old. They wanted to be in second grade so bad but they were still too little. They decided to put on a pair of shoes to look taller so they could go into second grade. This did not work. At the end of the year they turned seven years old and they got to go to second grade and lived happily ever after.
The End
Santa by H.B.
Once upon a time there lived a Santa that was so hungry. He wanted lots of cookies and milk but he couldn't find cookies and milk. So Mrs. Claus gave him cookies and milk. After, Santa was so full that he was fatter than a pig! He was happy and he lived fatly ever after.
The End
The Hunter and the Bow by C.L.
Once upon a time there was a hunter with a bow and arrow. He wanted to kill a grizzly bear but the grizzly bear was too strong. So the hunter set a trap with a big cage that would trap the bear. Then the bear was caught and the hunter killed the bear. He used the bear's fur for a carpet and the bear's head as a picture for the wall.
The End
The Little IPod by A.H.
Once upon a time there was a little IPod. She wanted to go to school but she was only two years old. So the little IPod snuck into her big sister's bag. Then the little IPod got to spend her whole day at school.
The End
Earth Day
This week, our class celebrated Earth Day by learning about the three R's:
REDUCE
REUSE
RECYCLE
Since the sun was shining, we took the opportunity to walk to Port Kells Park and explore nature. We recorded the things that we saw, smelled, heard and felt. In keeping with the Earth Day theme, we also helped clean-up the park.




The Life Cycle of a Bean

You may have notice that your child brought home a bean plant this week. Over the past 3 weeks we planted a little bean seed and observed it's life cycle. Here are a few photos of our observations.

Day 4


Day 7


Day 9


Day 12


We are observing a few other plants in our classroom , as well as some potato plants that Mr. M's class have planted outdoors.

Verbs

Finally, we've been learning all about verbs. A verb is an action word. We created these cute flowers and wrote our favourite verbs on each of the petals. Then we wrote a sentence on the stem and underlined the verb in our sentence.

 We also created an Angry Verbs bulletin board display. Each of the students chose their favourite Angry Bird and wrote another sentence which contained a verb. Once again they underlined the verb in their sentence. We are getting pretty good at recognizing verbs.



Enjoy your evening!
Mrs. Singh

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Can You Dig It?

This week we started a new Science theme unit. We started our unit off by going for a nature walk and recording some of the changes that have occurred with the change of season. The students worked in pairs and recorded their findings on a clipboard. The next day, we started learning all about soil. We are lucky enough to have a school garden, so we headed out to the back field to collect some soil samples. When we returned to the class, we examined each of our soil samples using a magnifying glass. We also sorted some of our finding and recorded them on the white board.



 
As a follow-up activity, we created a soil flip book which included information about the components of healthy soil.
 
Next, we moved onto learning about the life cycle of a bean plant. We started off by examining some bean seeds. We soaked our bean seeds over night (to soften the shells) and carefully split our seeds open so that we could examine the inside. We learned about the different parts of a seed which included the seed coat, embryo (little plant) and food storage.
 
 
After examining our seeds we completed a "label it" diagram of a bean seed.
 
 
 
 
 
Finally, we planted our bean seeds into individual cups so that we can continue to observe our plants as they grow.
 
 
 
This lead us into our next activity - learning about the different parts and jobs of a plant. Here are some photos of the plant flip books that we created to demonstrate our learning.
 
 
The students really enjoyed each of the activities we completed this week and it was great to get outside and out of the classroom. Many of the students have been extending their learning during the recess and lunch hours by examining the different kinds of plants in our school yard, not to mention the endless supply of insects and earthworms that have been making their way into the classroom.
 
Earth Day is just around the corner (April 22) and we will be continuing our Earth and Life Sciences unit
 
Last week I wrote all about some of the fairy tale activities we have been working on. Here are a few photos of the "Princess and the Pea" art project that we completed.
 
First, we drew the image using pencil.

Next, we traced over our pencil lines with a black crayon.

 
Then, we used coloured crayons to add patterns and designs to our drawings.
 


 
Finally, we used water colours to paint over our drawing.
 

 
Our work is now on display in the hallway outside of our classroom.
Come on down and take a look.
 
Important Information:
 
 
Don't forget that tomorrow is our field trip to watch the drama presentation "The Little Mermaid".
Don't forget to bring your booster seats!
 
-Mrs. Singh