Well , it's that time of year again: yesterday was our annual Spring Concert, and it was a huge success!
This year's theme was "under the Sea" and we began practicing our singing for it back in March. Keeping with our theme this we we sang: "When I was One," "Listen to the Water", "Yellow Submarine," "Octopus Garden", and we even included a play about the ever-so-popular story "Rainbow Fish." Seven of my oldest students performed lines they memorized for the play and I must say they did an amazing job.
The first song performed was "When I Was One" and we had 6 different children act out the actions of the song by holding up their props. Next we performed, " I Love to Row" where two little ones sat in our toy boat from the playground pretending to row around the stage. The third song was "Listen to the Water" where we again had different children holding up props that were related to the song. Following that we sang, "Yellow Submarine" with a giant painted submarine and had two children sit behind it with their heads poling through the submarine windows. The older children then sang a section of "Under the Sea". The reason for singing only part of the song is because it would have been too long otherwise. Then we had four of our four-year-olds gave their own little performance by reciting a poem that had to do with the sea, and in the finale for my class (we have a toddler and elementary class that were also a part of the concert) we did our very special play of the story "Rainbow Fish" where we sang "Octopus' Garden" in the middle of our performance.
Many long hours of preparation were put into our concert this year and I must admit I am extremely proud of all my wonderful students who pulled it all off with great success: :)
Monday, June 11, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
MIA
Sorry everyone for being Missing In Action lately. School and family life have been keeping me extremely busy these past few months. But stay tuned because I have some new and exciting things happening in my classroom these days and months ahead.
We just finished two weeks of March Break and my students are ready and eager to get back to the routine.
A sneak peek for April: Our classroom theme is Bees.
We just finished two weeks of March Break and my students are ready and eager to get back to the routine.
A sneak peek for April: Our classroom theme is Bees.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
January in Reivew
My classroom is buzzing with excitement after returning from the Christmas break. The children got right to work on their first day back and are settling in wonderfully; there are many new items on our shelves, which helped keep them busy for a while.
For the month of January we discussed Hibernation, very fitting of course for the winter season. We talked about what hibernation and migration are, and which animals hibernate over the winter. On a few special days the children were allowed to bring that were related to our hibernation theme. One day was "bring a bird to school day (non living of course)", they could bring in a picture, a toy bird or even a book about birds. Then last week we had "bring an animal that hibernates or migrates to school". Most of the children brought in bears, we had one snake and impressively enough a chipmunk. Both days were a huge hit.
This month we only did one craft: making a bear. I cut out a bear shape from white bristol board for each student, and then the children put glue on their entire bear. Next they decorated their bears by sprinkling, using a spoon, dried tea leaves over the glue they placed on. The bears turned out nice and the tea made them look like they really were covered in fur.
As always we were very busy moving along in our lessons too. I am so pleased with my four year olds and how much progress they have made since school started. Many of them are doing sight words, addition, and making 3 letter phonetic words using the movable alphabet.
January has been a great month and I am sure February is going to be even better!
February's theme is the Rainforest.
For the month of January we discussed Hibernation, very fitting of course for the winter season. We talked about what hibernation and migration are, and which animals hibernate over the winter. On a few special days the children were allowed to bring that were related to our hibernation theme. One day was "bring a bird to school day (non living of course)", they could bring in a picture, a toy bird or even a book about birds. Then last week we had "bring an animal that hibernates or migrates to school". Most of the children brought in bears, we had one snake and impressively enough a chipmunk. Both days were a huge hit.
This month we only did one craft: making a bear. I cut out a bear shape from white bristol board for each student, and then the children put glue on their entire bear. Next they decorated their bears by sprinkling, using a spoon, dried tea leaves over the glue they placed on. The bears turned out nice and the tea made them look like they really were covered in fur.
As always we were very busy moving along in our lessons too. I am so pleased with my four year olds and how much progress they have made since school started. Many of them are doing sight words, addition, and making 3 letter phonetic words using the movable alphabet.
January has been a great month and I am sure February is going to be even better!
February's theme is the Rainforest.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Christmas Wishes
I just wanted to take this time and wish everyone a very Happy Holiday and Merry Christmas from my family to yours :) I look forward to what is to come in my classroom in the new year!
Monday, December 12, 2011
Christmas in my Classroom :)
Here are only a few pictures I took of my favourite Christmas work in Practical Life and of my bulletin board.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
December is in the Air!
I have been so busy with school as well as having a new toddler running around the house. So I must start off by apologizing for being MIA these past few weeks. And now I am so excited to tell you about all the activities we've been doing in the classroom with the students.
First off, we just concluded our "Colours" theme for the month of November. The children enjoyed making rainbow caterpillars out of construction paper and learning black and white are not colours. We even had a special day called, "Don't Wear Colour to School" day. The students had fun trying to figure out what that actually meant, but they quickly caught on. One parent on the other hand, before leaving the classroom at the door, asked her daughter, "does that mean you come to school naked?" I hope she filled her mother in about our lessons on black and white.
At the end of November to wrap up our "Colours" theme and prepare for the next month's theme, "Christmas Around the World", I did a very simple and neat craft for the students to help me prepare the classroom bulletin board. We each painted white Christmas bulbs brown to make Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer heads with red pompoms glued to the tips of the bulbs for the noses and glued on googly eyes to make his face. We also added brown pipe cleaners for the antlers (wrapped around the gold part of the bulb) and added ribbons so each student could hang their Rudolph on the Christmas tree. And when the reindeers were finished, I cut a large Christmas tree out of green Bristol board and attached it to the bulletin board for us to decorate with our Rudolph ornaments. The students were very excited and had so much fun with this.
In preparation for Christmas, I have been busy going through all the Christmas material boxes and sorting items for the shelves. I found some great things that I know the children will love, such as: Christmas themed erasers for sorting, stamps, Christmas tree decorations to decorate a small tree and Christmas sequencing boards with objects. As the month unfolds I will take pictures of our activities to post on this blog.
I look forward to the next three weeks of learning about "Christmas Around the World", where we will learn songs from other countries, what children in other countries call Santa, what Santo looks like in other countries, and what other holidays are celebrated during December in various places around the world.
First off, we just concluded our "Colours" theme for the month of November. The children enjoyed making rainbow caterpillars out of construction paper and learning black and white are not colours. We even had a special day called, "Don't Wear Colour to School" day. The students had fun trying to figure out what that actually meant, but they quickly caught on. One parent on the other hand, before leaving the classroom at the door, asked her daughter, "does that mean you come to school naked?" I hope she filled her mother in about our lessons on black and white.
At the end of November to wrap up our "Colours" theme and prepare for the next month's theme, "Christmas Around the World", I did a very simple and neat craft for the students to help me prepare the classroom bulletin board. We each painted white Christmas bulbs brown to make Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer heads with red pompoms glued to the tips of the bulbs for the noses and glued on googly eyes to make his face. We also added brown pipe cleaners for the antlers (wrapped around the gold part of the bulb) and added ribbons so each student could hang their Rudolph on the Christmas tree. And when the reindeers were finished, I cut a large Christmas tree out of green Bristol board and attached it to the bulletin board for us to decorate with our Rudolph ornaments. The students were very excited and had so much fun with this.
In preparation for Christmas, I have been busy going through all the Christmas material boxes and sorting items for the shelves. I found some great things that I know the children will love, such as: Christmas themed erasers for sorting, stamps, Christmas tree decorations to decorate a small tree and Christmas sequencing boards with objects. As the month unfolds I will take pictures of our activities to post on this blog.
I look forward to the next three weeks of learning about "Christmas Around the World", where we will learn songs from other countries, what children in other countries call Santa, what Santo looks like in other countries, and what other holidays are celebrated during December in various places around the world.
Friday, October 28, 2011
October News!
The month of October has gone by so fast!
The theme of the month was Trees and the kids have really enjoyed it. We collected leaves and pine cones and checked a book to see what tree the leaf or pine cone belonged to. We also studied the parts of a tree: branches, leaves, trunk and roots. We used our "Parts of" cards and puzzle which is something the children work on all year round. The children now know the difference between coniferous and deciduous trees. So much so I have quite the collection of leaves and pine cones in the culture area. Every day one of them tells me something about the trees in their yard. It is so nice to see the joy they get from learning new things about nature.
As part of our tree theme I have the children make Family Trees, which were a big hit with the kids and parents. This was an activity I have done in the past and it has always gone well, so I knew everyone would be excited about it. Each child was to bring in pictures to cut out faces of their family members. I only had the children bring in parents and grandparents (both maternal and paternal). We glued the faces on leaves and then glued the leaves to the tree branches. The child's picture went in the middle of the tree.
This last week of October has been very exciting. Two of my younger students (who have just turned 4 years old) made their first words with the movable alphabet, so they are well on their way to reading! It was wonderful to thrill their parents with the big news when they came to pick their children up at the end of the day and share their enthusiasm with the kids. The older children have been working hard with incredible attention on some more challenging Practical Life activities this month, like the tying frame. I have never seen so much concentration going on while working on a piece of work!
Today was our Halloween party at school. We had the party today instead of Monday the 31st because we know that sometimes if the children wear their costumes to school for the whole day, they do not want to wear them any longer when they go home to go trick or treating with their friends and family. The party was a great chance for the kids to take a break from all their hard work on areas of the classroom and enjoy. We played Halloween games (Witch, witch, ghoast, musical chairs and hot pumpkin), watched a Halloween movie and went for a nice walk outside.
Overall October has been a great month in my classroom, and I’m looking forward to next month’s theme of “Colours” hoping it will be just as successful as “Trees” has been. I’ve got some exciting things planned so stay tuned :)
The theme of the month was Trees and the kids have really enjoyed it. We collected leaves and pine cones and checked a book to see what tree the leaf or pine cone belonged to. We also studied the parts of a tree: branches, leaves, trunk and roots. We used our "Parts of" cards and puzzle which is something the children work on all year round. The children now know the difference between coniferous and deciduous trees. So much so I have quite the collection of leaves and pine cones in the culture area. Every day one of them tells me something about the trees in their yard. It is so nice to see the joy they get from learning new things about nature.
As part of our tree theme I have the children make Family Trees, which were a big hit with the kids and parents. This was an activity I have done in the past and it has always gone well, so I knew everyone would be excited about it. Each child was to bring in pictures to cut out faces of their family members. I only had the children bring in parents and grandparents (both maternal and paternal). We glued the faces on leaves and then glued the leaves to the tree branches. The child's picture went in the middle of the tree.
This last week of October has been very exciting. Two of my younger students (who have just turned 4 years old) made their first words with the movable alphabet, so they are well on their way to reading! It was wonderful to thrill their parents with the big news when they came to pick their children up at the end of the day and share their enthusiasm with the kids. The older children have been working hard with incredible attention on some more challenging Practical Life activities this month, like the tying frame. I have never seen so much concentration going on while working on a piece of work!
Today was our Halloween party at school. We had the party today instead of Monday the 31st because we know that sometimes if the children wear their costumes to school for the whole day, they do not want to wear them any longer when they go home to go trick or treating with their friends and family. The party was a great chance for the kids to take a break from all their hard work on areas of the classroom and enjoy. We played Halloween games (Witch, witch, ghoast, musical chairs and hot pumpkin), watched a Halloween movie and went for a nice walk outside.
Overall October has been a great month in my classroom, and I’m looking forward to next month’s theme of “Colours” hoping it will be just as successful as “Trees” has been. I’ve got some exciting things planned so stay tuned :)
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