Building Letters

I was lucky enough to attend a workshop this past week where I received letter-building sticks. These are wonderful materials that use small and large lines and curves to build letters.

 

We asked the students to see how many different letters they could make. They discovered that some were easier than others.

City Center

One day a student drew a picture of himself next to the CN Tower. He chose to talk about it during Sharing Time and many of the students began to talk about what they understood or knew about Toronto, Thorncliffe Park and Canada.

We decided to create a City Center at small blocks, where we could explore the concept of our local community (Thorncliffe Park) the city (Toronto) and even the larger idea of Canada, our country.

 

 

Stay tuned for much more about this new learning area!

 

Circumference

At Math Studio, the students had been challenged to use math materials called Links to measure the circumference of Usha's head this week.

We have the same Link materials in our classroom. The next day the children wanted to measure Ms. Hammond and Ms. Snyder's heads too!

 

 

 

 

 

When we went to learning areas, many of the students decided to measure and compare the circumference of their own heads too.

Plasticine

At the Art Studio, we like to put out different materials as a surprise and invitation to create. One week we had plasticine in different shades of colour. The students created animals, people and imaginary figures. They have been on display in our classroom for the last month. This Thursday we plan to send home these miniature sculptures.

Plasticine is harder to manipulate than playdough. We encouraged the students to work with smaller sections and start by warming it up in the palms of their hands (we used a plastic divider to help separate it).

The benefit of plasticine is that you can re-use it because it doesn't dry out. Also, since it's a firm substance, the children can add small decorative details to their sculptures.

You can find plasticine at Dollarama in the craft section.

Syllables & Sound Blends

As part of our morning routine. We are learning to clap out syllables in our names.

Fatima (3 syllables) Fa...ti...ma
Hassan (2 syllables) Ha...ssan

You can do this with all the names in your family or just words. Challenge them with big words! (Watermelon)

We have also been working on word blends. This is a game where I put some words on cue-cards. I breaks the words into two parts with a long pause between.

Tr.............ee
Tree!

The children put the two word-sounds together in their head to uncover the mystery word. You can play a version of this like an I-spy game. "I see a l........amp (lamp)."