Above we showcase the wonderful wood toy cars the children made with expert guidance!
Many of our JK classmates speak about Paw Patrol. To ensure we all know the narrative of Paw Patrol, we watched a short video. Afterwards we discussed what special talents and tools each of the dogs had. We also made up a Paw Patrol game and started a display that reinforces the idea that each of us has a special gift to share.
Note: It is Reading Week at the university, so many of our classmates were absent. Visiting the Muttart Conservatory and learning about colours and textures was FUN!! Thank you to our guides who provided some wonderful learning activities. Before leaving, we had a discussion circle to share what we enjoyed about the field visit. The comments are listed below:
MORNING CLASS: Alexander: The police picture! Alice: Pulling Bryten Andrew: Having snack Aviva: Finding insects. Bryten: Snack time. Caleb: The poisonous pictures. Coraline: Finding insects. Elena: The Tropical pyramid. Isabelle: Planing the plant. Jude: Eating snack. Miles: Absent. Owen: Coldness. Rayanna: Absent. Reem: Scavenger hunt. Rhea: The Tropical (second) pyramid. Sophia: Everything! Thomas: The Tropical (second) pyramid. Winston: Getting snack. AFTERNOON CLASS: Amaiya: Jellybean plants. Amyrah: Making the plants. Ashton: Absent. Chelsey: Absent. Chloe: Doing the plants. Connor: Making the plants. Eva: Jellybean plants. Jacob: Pass. Jessica: Colours. Julia: Finding piosonous and not poisonous animals. Lilianna: Planting the Jellybean plants. Luca: The gong. Philip: The colours inside the cards. Victoria: The fish. Xander: Planting. Zara: Jellybean plants. Valentine's Day offered an authentic and exciting opportunity to write notes to family, classmates, and teachers. It inspired the children to creatively create cards and practise writing some or all of their names. While delivering their valentines we discussed how they prepared at home. Some of the comments included: "Writing my name was really hard work!" "It only took two days to write my cards!!" "Mom and I made my valentines." "It was such hard work!!" Thank you families for scheduling time to help your children write on their cards. The effort was impressive!! Our first adventure involved going down the hall, up the stairs, and down another hall! When we arrived in the cafeteria, we could see our yard and the door: COOL!! Our second adventure involved climbing up, up, up and up! We climbed up the stairs until the stairs ran out! There we had a beautiful view of our yard! We also did an art walk and viewed the big learners' art work. To our surprise, Dr. Patti Pente, an artist and art instructor, invited us in to view her studio: WOW!! We are using Matt James' idea of identifying our location using a star. Yellow stars mark where we went on our adventures.
Our journey toward mapping in JK began in a surprising place - The Alberta Gallery of Art!! There the children learned about shape and line, and witnessed these concepts in the architecture, art, and learning experiences. We vocabulary that described lines (curvy, straight & zigzag) and shapes (circle, square, rectangle, oval, triangle) will be most helpful! We brought the experience of the Alberta Gallery of Art back to JK! We created animals, we saw at in the sensory room, using trangrams on the light table, built the art gallery out of blocks, used shape tracers to drawing, and completed copycat drawing using shapes and lines. The pirate game, Who Shook Hook?, created many opportunties to discuss relational words such as, beside, under, on top of etc. Also, a pirate puzzle inspired talk of maps and treasure hunts.
Voting on the Inquiry Topic Show and Share Items Relating to Animal Inquiry Creating a Focus By Completing a Crayon Rubbing of an Animals
Music this week was very exciting. On Tuesday, the children wrapped up celebrating the Chinese New Year with drumming and dancing like dragons. The morning class had a special visitor who shared a video and a little about how her family celebrates the Chinese New Year. Then on Thursday, Frieda led an amazing class that integrated shapes, animals, books, singing, yoga and instruments. She really is extraordinary!!! Above the children are listening to a story while doing actions (making a circle with their arms) to the song's verse.
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