Recently we have been doing a lot of playing with shapes. We have been studying their form and observing how they appear in different ways in the world around us. Wilma has been learning the names of shapes and can now name rectangles and circles independently and triangles and squares with support. She is also experimenting with other more complicated shapes. Wilma selected her shape stamp work to be included in her portfolio because: "I stamped so many shapes."
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Wilma participates enthusiastically in all of our class activities. She shows her excitement with her words and body language. This week when we celebrated World Health Day she decided to join in with the older students who were doing morning exercises in the playground. Later that morning she shared what she had done and learned with her K1AC classmates our Morning Meeting. Thanks for all of your excitement and enthusiasm Wilma!
As our 'How we organize ourselves' unit of inquiry is coming to an end, we are reflecting on all of our experiences and learning and working on "showing what we know". This week, Ms. Alison, Mr. Nathan and Ms. Karla set up a playscape in the playground full of extra equipment and materials to move with. Students participated in free play or movement with the equipment and then sat down with a teacher to explain how and why they move in certain ways. Here is Wilma's conference using the 'Explain Everything' iPad app: ) Wilma's favourite part of our 'How we organize ourselves' unit of inquiry was our field trip to the swimming pool. She chose to include this experience for her portfolio because: "I like it in the pool. Ms. Alison held the hoop and I went through the hoop by kicking so much so you can come out."
Our class loves the story and the song 'No More Monkeys'. Today Wilma chose the book from our classroom library during her free play time and began reading it aloud! This demonstrates Wilma's development as an emergent reader. In this video she is practicing "memorized reading" -- using her memory of the story, a beginning concept of word and print, and the illustrations as prompts. As emergent writers, we are always taking risks in writing. We are experimenting with sounds and letter formations, as well as pencil grip and different writing tools. As the year continues we are learning to make more and more letter and sound connections to express our ideas through writing. In our journals we do our best to add labels, descriptions, or short stories to our drawings. We also participate in free writing sessions where we write whatever we want for one to two minutes and use the writing centre and class mailbox to communicate through writing during free play.
Here is some of Wilma's journal and free writing work. She is taking chances in writing by writing the letters she knows. The work in her journal shows that she understand that print conveys a message. Well done Wilma! Wilma made these patterns with blocks and drew them in her math journal. She decided to include this piece of work in her portfolio because "I like yellow and red." This work shows Wilma's ability to create and extend simple patterns.
Last semester Wilma worked hard at developing the concept of one-to-one correspondence or counting only one number for every object counted. The work she has been doing during our number sessions and her free play show that Wilma has now mastered this concept with numbers up to 10. She has even been challenging herself by counting the teddies in our teddy jar which are often more than 10. Well done Wilma! You are a committed learner!
Here is a photo of Wilma counting rocks to match the numbers she sees: Wilma enjoys exploring shadows in our second unit of inquiry. Her favourite activity was shadow tracing at different times during the day to see how our shadows changed with our buddies.
Wilma says she likes this work because "I like my shadow". Ms. Alison agrees that this is an example of Wilma's best work because she was a committed inquirer. Through this activity Wilma began to understand that when the sun moves our shadows move because shadows are created when our bodies block light coming from different places. We read The Very Lonely Firefly by Eric Carle as a class and discussed the different light sources and reflections that we observed. Wilma listened carefully to the story and showed curiosity by making observations and asking questions about what she saw in the illustrations. That afternoon during her free playtime, Wilma found some paper and crayons and began to draw. When she finished her drawings, she found The Very Lonely Firefly book in our classroom library and showed her teachers and classmates which part of the story her illustrations connected to and even used the word 'fireworks' in her explanation.
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