Week of Feb. 24

This week students listened to the story "Snowmen at Night". And predicted different activities that snowmen might do.

Inspired by this story we began building our own mini-snowmen characters giving them UNIQUE names and features. No two snowmen were alike, similar to our snowflakes!

Next we documented our creations through illustrations and journaling. For example drawing and coloring our mini snowmen, writing a list of the different parts of a snowman and the steps on "How to Build a Snowman".

 

 

Students then practiced using their imagination to create stories for their snowmen character and shared these stories with their friends.

However later in the week students noticed their snowmen had disappeared and found numerous clues throughout the day on their whereabouts!
Hartej discovered a part of our missing snowmen beneath the wooden blocks shelf.  He decided we should all become detective to investigate the missing snowmen!
AJ found a part of a snowman's nose in the sand table, he predicted the snowmen must have ventured into our sand table!

Below were a number of pictures left behind by our missing snowmen found by students, tucked away in shelves and under toys! 

After investigating these clues the boys and girls discovered some key patterns between the story "Snowmen at Night" and our very own missing snowmen. We learned of things snowmen like to do, for example play in snow and have a snowball fight, relax in a hot tub, drink hot coco and even ride the trains.  Students also recorded their predictions, of what they thought their snowmen like to do/eat, in their journals and chart paper.

 

 

Once familiar with what snowmen like, students came together to discuss the BEST way to find them.  Some students noticed it was impossible to always keep an eye out for the snowmen and that maybe we should create something to help us.  And that was the start of our discussion on TRAPS!  Could we use what the snowmen like to do or eat to trick them into being caught? We looked at images of some traps and students noticed most traps had a bait that helped trick the animal. So we decided to give the traps a try!

In order for kindergartens to be successful in their mission we requested the help of our brilliant grade 4's (who happen to be expert builders!). After lots of discussion and ideas from the story "How to Catch a Snowman" students created their very own traps.

We will check next week whether or not we were successful in catching our missing snowmen!

Snowmen Art
Students completed these adorable snowmen portraits by following step by step instructions. All the snowmen looked amazing.

Week of Feb. 17

New Centers

Students were introduced to a couple of new centers last week.

1) Literacy Center

The focus was for students to continue practicing their letter recognition or practice their sight words. 

2) Imagination Center

After reading the book “Not a stick” students were presented with a box full of random objects and encouraged to use their imagination to create a story. Believe it or not this was by far the MOST popular center! 

Izza used the space to create a mermaid castle with the boxes as her present.

Wisdom used the space as a river where the animals hunted for fishes. 

Wednesday, February 20th students celebrated the 100th day of school. 

We had an opportunity to play games in the gym to celebrate. 

Then students returned to class to explore counting in groups of 10’s while using tens frames.  Some students counted forward from 1-10 while others counted backwards!  We spoke of how 100 was a much bigger number than 10 by comparing the number of tens frames we needed to fill for both numbers!

Sneezy Snowman Art

After reading Sneezy the Snowman and brainstorming different ways sneezy could have melted students in the afternoon class created their own melted snowman art. Before they began students learned of their five senses and used them (excluding taste of course!) to describe shaving creams! Below are a few terrific answers students came up with!

It sounds like a snake- Subhamjot
It smells like soap-Hussain
It smells sooo good-Agamjot
It looks like snow- Hussain
It looks like melted ice cream- Izza
It looks like clouds- Japneet

Week of Feb. 3

This week we have been connecting our winter study with SNOWMEN! We began our investigation by using our senses to explore a melted snowman.  Students were asked what they noticed. Some said they saw water, it felt wet and cold, they heard splashing and that the different parts of the snowman had fallen in the water.

Next they were asked why did the snowman melt. After a speaking to an elbow partner students decided the snowman melted because it was warm in the house. We then read a story "Sneezy the Snowman", and discussed the different ways Sneezy ends up melting in the story. For example: drinking hot chocolate, standing by a fire and sitting in a hot tub.

Students also used their imagination to brainstorm other ways a snowman might melt. Some ideas were:

The snowman ate spicy eggs.- Genevieve
The snowman went to the beach.-Dania
The snowman ate chili peppers.-Kael
The snowman drank chai (tea).- AJ

Here are examples of students ideas and kindergarten spelling. 

This story was great for getting our kinders to begin thinking about cause and effect!

Today we continued exploring our 5 senses by completing a melted snowman art. Students shared what the heard when I shook and sprayed the shaving cream out of the can, some compared the sound to a snake hissing. Next kindergartens used their fingers to spread out the shaving cream (melted snowman), students mentioned it felt soft like a cloud.  Last they smelled the shaving cream and mentioned it smelled fresh!

Throughout the week students build mini snowmen with loose parts similar to our snowflake center!

Week of January 27

Room 24 has continued their winter exploration by reading my favourite book "The Snowy Day" by Ezra Keats.  Students first listen to the story and stopped when Peter our main character came across a dilemma, should he join in with the big boys and play snowball fight or can he find something safe to do in the snow?

Next the students explored different winter activities at their tables and shared their ideas with a friend. 










Once they shared all their ideas students drew a picture of what they thought Peter could do next. 
Last kindergartens labeled their picture by stretching out the word and listening to letter sounds for example 'Hke'- Hockey.













Students have also been exploring The Snowflake Story and thinking of all the different parts that describe how snowflakes are made.  First we brainstormed where they thought snowflakes came from. A few ideas shared by students shared were as follows:  Snowflakes come from winter,  God and Santa Clause.


Next students build their snowflake story using loose parts.  They were able to share their story by speaking with a table buddy.

Last students drew and described the actual parts of the snowflake story, including vocabulary such as melting, freezing, crystals and snowflake!











Throughout the week students have continued to build on their number sense by exploring  at math center. Here are a few examples: