Week Twenty One: Young Makers
The Early Learners had a great week, finding many different ways they could make things around the classroom. We started the week off making Valentine's Day cards for the people we care about, moved into thinking more about buoyancy by making boats, and finished with making individual pizzas. We were also very fortunate to welcome a visitor, K, into the classroom on Friday. Take a look at our adventures together!
M and S get busy right away making Valentine's Day cards in the Communication Centre. Card-making is a great motivation to write, and the glitter stickers are a huge hit - no surprise there!
Z builds an intricate tower that combines kapla blocks and glass beads. I love watching how the girls are inspired by each other, and then build on to each other's work with new creative touches.
S practices her addition with the heart math mat and heart gems, which are another current classroom favourite. She has no problem identifying the values on the dice, writing the numerals using the wooden numbers, and adding up the gems to find the total.
Z works carefully with her hands to shape the foil into a boat-like shape. She is working toward designing a boat using only foil that will hold the glass beads.
M and Z have both managed to make boats that float and hold glass beads or shells. They are so proud of this accomplishment and want to share their success with the other girls in the room.
G and G are working hard on their Valentines after finishing up the new sight word poem, "The Water Cycle". Both girls use the white board to help them write messages like "I love you" and "Happy Valentine's Day".
Z adds melting beads to the template. She takes her time to put the beads on in a pattern. This is great fine motor practice!
G is thrilled not only that her "boat" floats, but that it holds this many glass beads. After many tries and crumpled foil, she succeeds!
M and Z claim that the Light Table is too bright, so work on it but keep it turned off. They want to check to see how things are looking so far, so only switch it on for a brief minute. Looks good!
The bears are riding the bus.
G shares her learning at the Math Centre with her classmates. They have a number of questions, including "why did you use the numbers like this?"
Z and M work together on their addition mats. There is a lot of number talk happening here, including comparing dice rolls, sums, and who has more or less.
G is very engaged in looking through a library book. She seems to love the black and white illustrations that go with the rhymes.
G and G are collaborating again at the Nature Centre on boat building. They give each other pointers as they fold and re-fold the foil to best float in the water.
Decorated with "tattoos", G explores how water moves with suction at the Nature Centre. She fills the baster entirely up before she squirts it into the squeeze bottle.
G and M write down their predictions for our most recent science experiment. GM asked the question "what would happen if it got so cold that the water in the pipes froze and stopped moving?" last week, so we decided to try to answer it by freezing water balloons. We are hoping that we might learn about how water behaves when it freezes, and then try to connect that to the pipes question. Both M and G think that the balloons will pop in the freezer.
Inspired by a creation she saw earlier in the week, G sets up the bears to ride the bus on the light table. It takes a lot of focus and balance to get the bears to stay on the water cubes.
Z, S, and M pretend to be sisters and a mom having naps because they are so tired. They could have fooled me!
S has started painting our poster boards for Science Fair. She is using water colours for the background of our experiments on water!
Brie and Z add the finishing touches to the class's collaborative art piece. It is currently on display in our classroom, and will be auctioned off at the Art Show in the spring.
Z helps out painting another one of the poster boards. Come see the girls' work at the Science Fair on Thursday Feb. 23rd between 5-7pm.
It is the end of "Pizza Week" in French class. The girls learned about different food groups in health, and then learned the French words for all of the parts of a pizza. They loved singing "Je suis un pizza" in French, and had fun going grocery shopping earlier in the week to buy the pizza ingredients. It all came together today as the girls prepared personal pizzas to their likings. Ingredients included le pain, la sauce, les tomates, le fromage, le pepperoni, les onions, and les champignons. We were excited to have K visit us and join in on the pizza making fun!
It is Valentine's Day card making time in the classroom. We are making cards for seniors who live in a retirement home in the neighbourhood. We want them to feel loved and cared about on Valentine's Day as much as we do.