STARTING OUR SPRING SCIENCE INQUIRY

Last Tuesday, Shemar from Room 108 asked if we could plant his plum seed. This sparked some GREAT questions and we decided to use this opportunity to begin our SPRING INQUIRY focusing on planting seeds and watching them grow. We brainstormed ideas of what is going to happen to the seed and what we need to do to take care of the seed.

How does the seed feel? 
"Prickly and Hard"
"It's not smooth"

What we know: 
"The seed needs SUN" -Leah
"The seed needs dirt [soil]" -Marquis 
"TIME" -Stella

What we want know: 
What will it look like? 
How long will it take?

The Empty Pot is a great story that not only focuses on the importance of Honesty (Our Character Trait for the month) but also on seeds and how they grow. 

Room 108 continues PATTERNING:

Creating Patterned Necklaces....The students of Room 108 have been working in a centre creating a patterned necklace as their culminating task for patterning. This was a great activity for not only patterning for the fine-motor development as the students were required to carefully thread the yarn into the hole of the button.

Our Success Criteria:
-I can pick out different shapes/colours
-I can find my core pattern
-I can repeat my pattern more than 1 time
-I can carefully thread the yarn through the buttons
-I can explain my pattern to my friends and teachers

-I can name my pattern using A, B, C, D

A book that we watched was "Beep, Beep, Vroom, Vroom" by Stuart J. Murphy. This book focuses on patterns and re-arranging the materials you have to create different patterns. The students were able to name all patterns using A, B, C, D. Try it at home! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2VCdmhoMOs

We used cars to create our own patterns just like in the story! The students LOVED using the different materials to create their own repeating patterns.

Introduction to Patterning:

We have been exploring patterns, the students were introduced to patterns and have begun to find patterns in their clothes, the classroom and continuing patterns that I have presented. After our introduction, we discussed naming patterns using letters such as “A,B,B” and we will focus on this for the next week.

The students were asked to wear patterns to school. We discussed what type of repeated patterns we were waiting and practiced naming the patterns. 

Math Centres included:

 Art Activity: The students saw patterns in ANIMALS and then made Animal Puppets with Ms. Saplala that had patterns. 

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 :)