Our Amazing Families

I dreamed I stood in a studio

And watched two sculptors there,

The clay they used was a young child’s mind

And they fashioned it with care. 

One was a teacher:

the tools she used were books and music and art;

One was a parent

With a guiding hand and gentle loving heart.

And when at last their work was done,

They were proud of what they had wrought.

For the things they had worked into the child

Could never be sold or bought!

And each agreed she would have failed

if she had worked alone.

For behind the parent stood the school, 

and behind the teacher stood the home!

C. V. Swarat

I entered my classroom today to find three bags full of wonderful, interesting materials that had been donated by the families of our children. When I asked the class as a whole who had brought the bags in, no one responded. In the busy moments of the morning many donations get brought in by children and families and dropped off in the classroom leaving me to wonder who sent in such amazing materials. 

I can't express my gratitude enough to you for the support you have shown our program, and for sending in the most interesting things for our children to explore. I can tell by the odds and ends that are donated to the room that you really think about the amazing potential these objects hold for our children's imagination.  We would not be able to run the program we do without your support. Thank you!  Thank you! Thank you!

Mr. Mill's Office

We asked the children last week what they wished to turn the dramatic arts center into. They overwhelmingly voted to turn it into our principal's office. Before the children set out to change the center (with the help of Mrs. Oshar) a few children went to Mr. Mill's office to take a look around. With Mr. Mill's help they wrote down what they saw (clock, papers, desk, laptop, etc.) so they would know what to put into our center.

The children helped us to gather materials, and make necessary props for the play when needed.

Because we are really encouraging children to engage in reading and writing for an authentic purpose, we have focused on the necessary literacy activities in which a principal might engage throughout the day. Here it our principal's desk.

A laptop for our principals to use (complete with a changeable screen)!

Lots of writing materials are included in our office including blank paper, cue cards, special 'principal stationary', class lists, attendance folders, good news visit slips, late slips, phone message forms, and certificates for children who visit the office.

The office phone and p.a. system helps promote children's oral language.

As children continue to express interest in this center, more materials will be added to support their reading, writing, and oral language abilities. We are excited by our children's enthusiasm for this center and can't wait to see what else they do in it!

Reading and Writing Nooks

In an effort to continue to encourage our children to read and write in authentic ways, we have set up a reading area and writing area.  As with any new center, these were very popular and children spent the majority of their time working there.

Our new reading area is nestled under a giant leaf. We are hoping the cozy area will encourage pairs of children to read to one another and discuss books.

In our reading center we will place genre books in a colourful basket in order to expose children to a large collection over the course of the school year. Right now we have placed winter books in the basket.

We also have a magnet board with magnetic letters included as part of the reading center in the hopes that children will write and read words together.

The writing center is set up next to the reading nook. Today we encouraged children to make cards for family members by cutting up old cards and making new ones. We placed a number of names in the pocket chart next to the table so children could have help with addressing the cards. Tomorrow we will help them with simple phrases such as "I love you", "Thank you", and "I miss you" in order to enhance their writing. 

Film Canisters

We are looking for little plastic canisters similar to old film containers we used to use before digital cameras came along. If you have any, we'd love to take them off your hands!  Thank you!

Mrs. Wishy Washy's Tub

As part of our shared reading program, we read the big book "Mrs. Wishy Washy's Tub" this week. Big books are very large books that can be seen and read by the whole class together in a chant-like fashion. These texts are usually very simple and contain repetition and high frequency words in order to support and encourage emergent readers. Even when children memorize the text and recite words by memory instead of truly decoding and reading text, their confidence as readers increases. Children begin to believe in themselves as capable readers - an important milestone for young children beginning to discover the joys of literacy!

Retelling familiar texts is also an important part of reading. Decoding words is not enough; understanding what one has read is just as important. Our children practiced retelling our story by acting out the text with puppets as a narrator read the words from our pocket chart. After much rehearsal a group presented the story to the class.

This story will be sent home in your child's yellow shared reading duotang this evening. I hope you enjoy reading the story together!

Box Car Racing

What can you make with a cardboard box?  A race car!

We brought in a large cardboard box today and invited the children to turn it into whatever they liked. They overwhelmingly voted to make it a race car. Using materials from the art center, they worked most of the morning to transform the box into the car, complete with a working sunroof, wheels, headlights, and interior parts like the pedals, transmission, and clutch! Thanks for your help Mr. Cipkar!

Once the car was finished the children pretended to race it, complete with safety racing goggles!

Someone directed the car using a traffic light to indicate when the car should start and stop racing.

When a lap was finished the car was gassed up and the wheels were changed.

Some Ontario Curriculum this activity fulfilled includes:

1.2 demonstrate the ability to take turns in activities and discussions

1.2 identify and talk about their own interests and preferences

2.5 interact cooperatively with others in classroom events and activities (e.g., offer and accept help in group situations, engage in small- and large-group games and activities, participate in democratic decision making)

4.2 state problems and pose questions as part of the design process

4.4 select and use tools, equipment, and materials to construct things using the design process

WOW Word

Our WOW word this week is "mischief".

Shoe Boxes Please

We are still in need of many shoe boxes for use in our upcoming post office. If you have any (or boxes similar in size) we would greatly appreciate having them. Thank you so much!

Where the Wild Things Are Retell

We read the story "Where the Wild Things Are" today. In order to encourage the children to practice identifying the elements of the story (character, setting) and retelling the story in sequence, we turned our sand table into the book's setting!

The children created the characters and setting at our art table.

Experimenting with how to make tall trees.

Drawing the characters.

Referring to the book to double check what the characters and setting looked like.

The Wild Things in their treetops.

Max's Bedroom

In the story Max gets sent to his room for acting like a 'wild thing'. In his imagination he crosses a river in a boat to the land where Wild Things live. After becoming king of the Wild Things he gets homesick and goes back home. You can see in the following picture how the children have done an excellent job of depicting the setting of the story.

Retelling it together!