Saturday 21 September 2013

A glance at our first few weeks together!


 N. and E. busily writing their wonder questions about the differences they notice between the two tree barks.

 Our first week of school we made play dough!  P. and B. are helping with the mixing of the dry and wet ingredients.

 A. and G. painting their names!

 "Look how tall I made my tower!"

 A. making the clock she sees on the wall using light table manipulatives.

C. and R. working together to place the correct number of sticks in the numbered pots.

E. working hard to sound out the letter sounds he hears in the words he wants to spell.  Can you guess what his picture is?

It took D. 16 cups to fill the red bucket!  That's a lot of counting!

Independent reading with our stuffed buddies of choice from the reading area.

M. writing her wonder about the bird nest at the Discovery Centre.

B. also recording the number of cups it took her to fill the red sand bucket.

E. and N. creating a pattern using two colours at the light table.

G. looking for his name card to help his write his name on his art creation.

M. and R. creating letters using found materials such as sticks, stones, buttons, and shells.

E. placing the correct number of sticks in the numbered pot.

B. is checking the plan he and E. made to help them build their structure.

H. is also placing the correct number of sticks in the numbered pots.

N. is placing his wonder question sticky note on our Wonder Space to be discussed later with the group.

B. is demonstrating one to one correspondence in her creation.

At the Dramatic Play Centre, H. is busy writing down notes after her phone chat.

A. and H. are painting the Black Eyed Susan flowers we picked.

Before to head off to Centres, we add to and read over our jobs that everyone needs to do during the week.  If feels great when we get to do a big check once everyone finished a certain job!

A. and E. filled the inside of the frame with square shapes.  They counted each square!  We were so excited to find the area of the inside of the frame we use at the light table.

R. and G. showing the initial plan they made in order to help them create their castle!

R. and B. adding detail to their structure.

One of our many entrance routines in the morning is to look for our name tag.

Then we figure out what our weekly survey asks us and we place our name tag under our selected choice!

O. and A. counting the number of pieces they used to build their tower.

O. and A. observing the bird nest using magnifying glasses.


Working in groups of two or three during our Building Workshop!  Our motivation this week were famous tall structures such as the CN Tower, Eiffel Tower and Leaning Tower of Pisa!

I. attempting to build her structure taller!


P. is almost done placing the correct number of sticks in the numbered pots.

C. creating letters out of found materials.


Exploring writing and drawing using various colours!

Creating signs for our water experiment!

On a rainy day when we couldn't go outside, we decided to decorate our classroom branches using various materials, beads, ribbons and feathers!

We loved being able to freely explore using various materials to decorate our branches.

Using plasticine, K. created an owl to place on our branch tree!

K. made a bird sitting in a purple nest to place on our branch tree!

Putting our final touches on our branch tree.  Everyone worked so well together!

O. is helping to write a new job list for us to accomplish during our centre time.




H. created a tower and placed stones on each level!  There were eight used to make her tower!

C. has made her own number game!  She's demonstrating the knowledge that the number of marker lids corresponds with the number shown.

We are painters!  We had our own gallery walk to see how our flower portraits look on our bulletin board!

H. is showing me the pattern she created using three different coloured jewels.


In the playground starting to carry out the first step of our water experiment.

What happened to the water we poured in our newly dug hole?

We also placed water in a jar to see what will happen to the water over time.  There are so many great theories!  The picture below shows our first day of measuring the water level.

Since we decided to carry out our experiment in the playground, the students, thought it would be a good idea to make some signs to tell other classes using the playground not to touch our experiment.

Our fascination with water and clouds led us to draw and paint various clouds we noticed outside as well as in books.

N. practicing her fall leaf pattern at the light table.

G. and C. using one of the many alphabet cards to help them label their drawings.

B. sorting various light table materials.

After we collected various natural materials, we decided to make alphabet letters and create our word wall!






2 comments:

  1. Thanks for creating a window into your classroom. It is very authentic and helpful for me to see the children in action. Where did you get the alphabet cards?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for your kind words. The alphabet cards are from Handwriting Without Tears. They are black line masters that I laminated. I made multiple copies and the children take and use them whenever they need to. I hope this helps. Anamaria Ralph

    ReplyDelete