A WONDERFUL READING RESOURCE!!

Story Online is a wonderful website where actors read wonderful stories. This is a great resource for your child to access story books read to them online!

Story Online by Screen Actors Guild Foundation

Rhyming words puzzle...

During literacy centres we have been working with the students to recognize words that rhyme. This is a fun activity that can be played/practiced at home.... While driving, ask your students to rhythm with various sight words....

Our favourite part of visiting Young People’s Theatre was….

Yesterday, we had a great time at Young People’s Theatre watching the Snow Angel Performance. The students LOVED that there was no dialogue and loved how interactive the play was. I would definitely suggest a weekend trip to visit a play if you are up for it (price ranges but can be a great thing to do with your child).  

We had a whole group class discussion and we shared all of our favourite moments, the students then took time to draw their favourite moments (a lot of students LOVED riding the school bus with all of their friends).

To enhance literacy and promoting phonemic awareness the students were challenged to try to spell out the words they were trying to say. With direct assistance, I helped the students sound out the phonemes slowly and recognize the letter sound – “k…i…d….s…”. Try this at home!

Check out what we drew/wrote…

If your child's work is not yet displayed - please feel free to e-mail at ilianna.givelos@tdsb.on.ca and I will send you their work.

Thank you!

TED TALK: Talks from Inspiring Teachers! - Teachers, definitely worth a watch :)

10 Black Dots

In continuation with our focus on Counting, today we read 10 Black Dots and had an interactive lesson where 10 students in the audience had 1 black dot each.

Every time we needed to add one, one student from the audience would stand up and join the formed line of black dots in front of all the students. We practiced counting forwards, backwards, one-to-one correspondence and grouping (4 and 4 make 8). In the end, the students understood that 3 and 3 made 6 (addition), 4 and 4 made 8 and figured out that 5 plus 5 MUST make 10 and self created (without much direction) 2 groups of 5 to show equal groups.

Questions I asked prior to reading the story:

What do you think the story is about?

"Black Polka Dots, because I see them on the orange" - Vanessa
"I see the word TEN" - Stella

"I see number 1 and 0" - Joshuwa S.

The whole class shouted that they saw the number 10!

Questions asked during the story:

How many dots to we see?
We have 6, we will add one more - how many will we have?
"7" - Joshua B.
"3 comes after 2" - Whayne

"4 comes after 3" - Vanessa

Zooming in on the literacy component, the students were able to complete the words in the story recognizing that they were "rhyming words". I would allow the students to complete the sentences out loud which is something that many of them enjoyed! Try this strategy at home with books that rhyme. 

In-Class Math Activity:

Creating an image using 10 black dots or less! Check out what they came up with....

What's new in Literacy Centres?

We have added two Literacy Centres to our program:

Creating letters (you can also use for math) to trace numbers with your finger. This is great for fine-motor skills and a great way to stray away from pencil/paper. The students LOVE tracing the letters and moving around the paint.

You can make this at home by:  Putting paint into a ziploc bag and taping the top! Quick and easy and enjoyable for students.

Rearranging letters: The students have been challenging themselves and arranging the letters of the alphabet.

This week we will be reviewing all of the letters learned so far and continue to Letter U u next week.

Thank you!