March - May Literacy Events

(most recent listed first)

May 28-May 31

Books We Read

  • Charlotte's Web- E.B. White

  • Who Lives in the Sea- Sylvia James

  • The Rainbow Fish- Marcus Pfister

  • The Rainbow Fish to the Rescue- Marcus Pfister

  • Rainbow Fish and the Big Blue Whale- Marcus Pfister

Activities

  • We designed our own Rainbow Fish

  • We had a field trip to the St. Albert Children's Festival

  • We journaled about our experiences at the Children's Festival

  • We participated in the St. Alphonsus School Carnival and ran the Fishing pond Booth

  • We answered questions about ourselves for our year end books.

Extended Program Activities

  •  We saw the play Charlotte's Web

  • We had another Art Start program

 

May 21-25


Books we Read

  • Max the Minnow

  • Arthur's Chicken Pox- Marc Brown

  • Charlotte's Web- E.B. White

  • The Surprise Garden- Zoe Hall

  • 10 Monsters in the Bed- Rozanne Williams

  • Who Lives in the Sea- Sylvia James

Activities

  • We discussed the necessities for plant life, and planted seeds for father's day.

  • We took our 10 favorite prayers we had learned this year and illustrated them to make a prayer book keepsake. 

  • We made a get well/happy birthday card for one of our students who had the chicken pox.

  • We listened to Michael Merrier tell us native stories 

  • We journaled about 3 experiences we had at the Calgary Zoo 

  • We spent a full day at Rundle Park playing games and mountain biking 

Extended Experiences

  • We had another Art Start Session

  • The Games portion of the Rundle Park day also fell into this category

  • We had another Music Therapy Session

May 14-18

Books We Read

  • Zoo Looking by Mem Fox

  • Smile if You're Human by Neal Layton

  • Going to the Zoo- Tom Paxton

  • The Baby BeeBee Bird

  • Roar! A Counting Book

  • 1-2-3 to the Zoo- Eric Carle

Activities

  • We watched the Acorn the Nature Nut Video about Zoo's- it featured the Calgary Zoo which was just perfect because that was the one we were going to visit.

  • We practiced the letter Z and came up with the words Zebra, Zoo, Zachary, Zucchini, and Zipper.

  • We Brainstormed a list of Animals we might see at the zoo- our first try, we came up with 70. Then, the kids got so into it that they began combing all the books in the class for more animals that we might have forgotten- we ended up
    with a grand total of 128 animals. We sorted these out by letter of the alphabet.

  • We drew a picture and labeled it of an animal we might see at the zoo.

  • We had our much anticipated field trip to the Calgary Zoo

Extended Experiences

  • Another Art Start Session

  • We went to the play Elliot Moose

  • We had our final visit to the public library

 

May 1-10

Books Read:

  • Life Story of the Butterfly- Jilly Macleod

  • Butterfly Express- Jane Belk Moncure

  • The Lamb and the Butterfly- Arnold Sundgaard

  • What Makes a Rainbow- Betty Ann Schwartz

  • The Roly Poly Spider- Jill Sardegna

  • Elliot's Shipwreck- Andrea Beck

  • Elliot Bakes a Cake- Andrea Beck

  • Brown Bear Brown Bear- Bill Martin Junior

  • Super Snappy ABC

  • A Dark Dark Tale- Ruth Brown

  • What Mommies do Best- Laura Numeroff

Activities

  • A pop up butterfly book

  • finishing off our book on the butterfly life cycle (chrysalis and butterfly pages)

  • a mother's day card

  •  they made me a beautiful card for my wedding

  • continued having sessions of "real" music to prepare for the spring concert

  • dress rehearsal for the spring concert

  •  The rest I must confess I did not accurately record. I was a little distracted
    by outside events!

Extended Experiences

  • We went to the ballet "Butterfly" at the Jubilee Auditorium

  • We had another visit to the public library

  • Another Art Start Session

  • Another Music Therapy Session

April 27

Other Activities

  • We had another session of Music Therapy focusing upon colors, shapes, and syllables, as well as letters in our names

  • We Watched the See How It Grows: Spiders and Insects Video

April 26

Books We Read:

  • Home Sweet Home- Jean Marzollo

  • Super Snappy ABC- Dug Steer  We only went through the letters ABCDEF

  • The Butterfly Alphabet Book- Brian Cassie and Jerry Pallotta

Other Activities:

  • We learned a new prayer:

Bless Each Bee
Each Flower and Tree
Each Cloud in the Sky
Each Stalk of Rye
Bless Each Hare
Each Fish, Each Bear
Each Tender Calf
Each Tall Giraffe
Each Lively Stream
Each Quiet Moonbeam
And Bless Each Birth
In Our Home Called Earth

By Jean Marzollo

  • We sang and played A Hunting We Will Go

  • We Had our Balanced Literacy Time

  • We Practiced Reading Our Common Sight Words

  • We Watched the Magic School Bus Butterfly and the Bog Beast Video  

 

April 17-20, 23-25

Books We’ve Read:

  •  The Easter Story- Brian Wildsmith

  • Butterfly- Suzan Canizares

  • Butterflies- Karen Shapiro

  • The Butterfly Alphabet Book- Brian Cassie and Jerry Pallotta

  • See How They Grow- Butterfly- Kim Taylor

  • Bugs- Amanda Wallwork

  • Bug Hunt- Neecy Twinem

 Regular Program Activities

  • We discussed and found words with the Letter B- Beetle, Bumble Bee, Butterfly, Brain, Bus, Book, Bookshelf, Bride, Baby, Birthday, Bottle, Bird, Baby Bird, Bug

  • We started discussing the butterfly lifecycle- we have several Painted Lady Butterfly Larvae in our classroom, and the students are particularly interested in the shedding of the skin- we are patiently waiting for the chrysalis time, but unfortunately, several of our larvae have passed away before reaching this stage.

  • This passing of the larvae in turn developed another discussion about death and dying. The students were very curious about what happened to animals when they died.

  • We wrote and illustrated the Egg and Caterpillar Pages of our Butterfly Lifecycle book

  • We had our yearly visit to St. Alphonsus Parish

  • We journaled about the things we saw at the Parish

  • We watched the Littlest Angel’s Easter Video

  • We had a full school Easter Celebration

  • We had a field trip to the Edmonton Art Gallery where we learned and discussed the elements of art- shape, color, texture, and line

  • We have continued practicing for our Spring Concert by Singing If I were a Butterfly and It’s a Small World After All, as well as learning a new song about the Butterfly Life Cycle

  • We composed cards for the Secretary of our school, as well as the secretary of the Aboriginal Learning Centre, to commemorate Secretaries Day. We were especially thrilled that our card made Mrs. Caputo (our secretary) Cry!

Extended Program:

  •  We had another gymnastics field Trip

  • We had our first session of Music Therapy, during which we learned songs about the letters of our names, songs to demonstrate the syllables in our names, songs about shapes, and songs about colors

  • We had another session of Art Start during which we worked with paint and texture

  • We had a picnic lunch outside City Hall, followed by a field trip to the Symphony

  • We had another visit to the library where we:

    •  Read: Will You Be My Friend- Nancy Tafuri

    • Sang: The Colors Song

    •  Read: Missing

    • Listened to: The Gunniwolf

    • Said a Poem:

      This is a nest for a robin
This is a hive for a bee
  This is a hole for a rabbit
  But this is a house for me

April 10 - 12

I unfortunately did not do a very good job recording this week. I know we read some other materials, but for the life of me, I cannot remember which ones!


Teacher Selected Materials-

  •  The Easter Ribbit
  • The Berenstein Bears and the Easter Surprise- Stan and Jan Berenstein

Books we Read Together-

  • The Bugs go Marching
  • What Insects Do
  • What Is an Insect?
  • Bugs, Bugs, Bugs
  • Where do Insects Live?
  • See How it Grows
  • Butterfly

Songs we Sang-

  • If I were a Butterfly
  • It's a Small World After All
  • Sing to the Mountains

Other Activities

  • We journaled about our field trip to the Muttart Conservatory. The students were responsible for writing "At the Muttart, I learned _________________" and whatever they thought they learned. Their illustration was supposed to correspond
    to what they wrote they learned.
  • We played 2 games of Rhyming Bingo 
  • We made an Easter Card. On the front cover we made fingerprint bunnies and Wrote "Hoppy Easter" On the inside, they drew whatever Easter symbol they wanted and wrote "Somebunny Loves You" "Love (name)"
  • Our spring concert is coming up in a few weeks, and for the grand finale, the entire Elementary school is singing together. Last time this happened, they forgot to tell Kindergarten, and the students had no idea what was going on.
    So, this time, we are starting early. We had the opportunity to go and have "real" music (i.e. with a teacher who does not have a voice like a bullfrog) with the grades 1 and 2/3. We learned It's a Small World After All, Sing to the Mountains, and also got to perform our own song If I were a Butterfly.
  • One of the students brought in magic eggs for show and tell. Of course, we had to learn what was so magic about them, so we got our cups ready, filled them with water, and put the eggs inside.  The "eggs" hatched into an assortment
    of sea creatures. What was even more "magic" was that one of the eggs hatched into a rabbit. I don't think I am ever going to be able to convince that poor little boy that Rabbits don't really hatch from eggs- he just keeps looking
    at me like I'm crazy.
  • We had another Kindercooking session to make Easter Baskets. We followed a recipe and made them out of Rice Krispies and Marshmallows. Then, we filled them with Jelly Beans. Actually, they ended up looking for like nests, because we had some difficulties attaching the handles, but the kids didn't care.
  • We had a celebration to represent the Last Supper.
  • We colored our Easter Eggs. The students loved putting the eggs in different colors and seeing what new colors they could create. Some were very disappointed to learn that putting the egg in all of the colors does not make a rainbow,
    but instead a very odd shade of brown. 
  • We continued to follow our Balanced Literacy Sessions- they are still a big hit! I can't believe how quickly the students engage in the activities- they always groan when the time is up:)
  • On the way inside after recess, the grade 5/6 class saw the Easter Bunny hiding some eggs. Because we are such nice children, they decided to let us in on the secret and go for an egg hunt with them. Again, the whole egg and rabbit thing- I just can't seem to break this association for that little one!
  • We ended with several readings from the bible to help the children (or try to) understand about what the Easter Weekend was really supposed to represent.


     

April 9


Today was a very busy day

- In our regular program, we went to the ladybug ladybug program at the Muttart Conservatory.
- In our extended program, we had another swimming lesson.
- After all that was done, we had centers because that was all that any of us were mentally and physically ready for.

April 6


-Today was an extended program 1/2 day only. We had another swimming lesson, a snack, and practiced our Spring Concert Song.


Child Selected books:

  • The Golden Egg by A.J. Wells

April 5

Teacher Selected Materials- 

  • The Night Before Easter by Natasha Wing

Other Activities-

  • We created our own Easter books that we are going to practice reading together. We called them “Happy Easter” and the students both wrote and illustrated them.  On the first page we had “This is a bunny” and “This is a chick” and on the second page we had “This is an egg” and “This is a basket”. On the last page they wrote “The End”. It didn’t take long before one of the students noticed that “This is an egg” was a little bit different- they wondered why the a had an n next to it- this of course led to yet another discussion!

  • We composed two letters- one to the Public library and one to a board that had provided us with the funding for our upcoming Calgary Zoo Field Trip.

1.      Dear Lee, Rite, Bev at the Highlands Public Library

Thank you for letting us in. Thank you for letting us take books. I like picking books. We like listening to you read stories. You pick good books and are good readers. Sometimes when you read us stories we find the same ones later that we can take home. I wish we could go there everyday because that would make me so happy because you have so many good books. Have a good time in the public library. I liked the Christmas Guessing book. Have a happy Easter.

                                                From St. Alphonsus Kindergarten (and they all wrote their names)

 

2.    Dear EBC (they thought that this was a hilarious name!)

Thank you for giving us the money. We will spend it on a fieldtrip. We will go on a bus to the Calgary Zoo. We will see animals like leopards, tigers, monkeys, elephants, alligators, lions, giraffes, kangaroos, hyenas, snakes, and snails. Then we are going to eat foods like hamburgers, fries, chicken nuggets, and pop. It is going to be so fun! Then the bus will drop us off so we can go home. You can come too! Thank you a thousand a lots and a hundred and a zillion! Have a happy Easter.

                                                From St. Alphonsus Kindergarten (and they all wrote their names)

  •    We also had our 15 minutes of literacy centers again. I selected a different student to work with on sentence building, and divvied the others up.

 

April 4 

Teacher Selected Materials-

  • The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes by DuBose Heyward

    • The students were amazed when I told them how old the book was. They were even more amazed that both Tammy and myself had listened to the story when we were only 5 years old.

    •     Although I love this story, I always find it interesting to share with children. When I first bought my own copy, I shared it with a friend of mine with Attentional difficulties. Before he had even gotten to the end of the first page, he pushed it aside and told me he couldn’t read it, he just could not cope with the pictures. When I share it with my students, this also consistently happens. I am not sure if it is the colors that are used, or the way the illustrations have no set place on the pages, but anyone I have encountered with attentional difficulties has problems with the book. Keeping that in mind, as I could see that one student was again lost after the first page, I told the students this year that they could close their eyes and imagine their own pictures if they wanted. It ended up being about ½ and ½, but ALL of the students loved the story in the end.

Other Activities-

  •  I continued tape recording the students stories about their eggs. Today we had even more variety in the stories  as some told me about the creatures that hatched from the egg, while others were more literal in their interpretations and described their egg and the process through which they made it.

  •  I am trying to start incorporating a “Literacy Centre” time into our day, and we started this today. I selected one student that I wanted to do some testing with, and divided the rest of the children up. Some went to the listening center, some to alphabet puzzles, some to play alphabet bingo with Tammy, some to practice writing their letters and alphabet words, one to play with the magnet letters, and another to practice building letters using the flannel parts, and some to read either to each other or alone. Even though these are all things that they have the option to do daily, they all enjoyed it more than I could have even hoped, and told me it was “Great Fun”.

  •  We started learning our song for our spring concert today. I have chosen “If I were a butterfly”, and once again amazed the students when I told them that we sang the same song at my spring concert in grade 1 (I wonder how old they really think I am?)

    • We learned the first verse:

If I were a butterfly, I’d thank you Lord for giving me wings
If I were a robin in a tree, I’d thank you Lord that I could sing
If I were a fish in the sea, I’d wiggle my tail and I’d giggle with glee
But I just thank you father, for making me me
Ah-ha-ha

  •   We also sang Little Rabbit Foo Foo

In our extended program

  •  we had another visit to the library. We listened to:

    • Farmer Brown shears His sheep- Teri Sloat

    •  Sody Solleratus- Alan and Lea Daniel

    • Flea’s Sneeze- Lynn Daniel

    • Koala Lou- Mem Fox

     

     

April 3

Child Selected Materials-

  • Egg by A.J. Wood

    • This book makes reference to a “dozen” so we spent a long time talking about what a dozen meant. We also talked about other things that we could have a dozen of (besides eggs). Amazingly, several students knew that at the grocery store you could buy a dozen donuts, muffins, and cookies.

    • This book covers a variety of creatures that hatch from eggs by providing clues. The students loved guessing, and I was very impressed at how many of the creatures from eggs they remembered from a few weeks before.

Other Activities-

  • We discussed the concept of an oval in terms of the eggs. We realized that even ovals can be different shapes, as there are some that are more elongated, and some that are rounder, but they are all still called ovals.

  • We all drew and cut out an egg. We then designed it however we wanted using Easter symbols (crosses, flowers, eggs) and other symbols we like (hearts, circles, clouds, etc…)

  •  Each student also had to start thinking about a story they wanted to compose about an egg.

  • We had time for 3 students to come to me and record their stories about their egg. One chose to make his story about a crocodile hatching from an egg, one about a butterfly, and one about a baby chick.

  •  For our extended experience, we had another swimming lesson.

April 2

Child Selected Materials:

  • Easter by Gail Gibbons

Other Activities-

  • We journaled about our before Spring Break field trip to the Henny Penny puppet show at the John Janzen Nature Centre. I warned the students that now that they were so smart, I was going to have to make things harder. They told me there was no way that I could make things hard enough for them, so we compromised. They now had to write in their journals “At Henny Penny I liked _______”. I was amazed at how easy it was for them- maybe they really are too smart for me!

  • For our extended experiences, we had another swimming lesson.

Friday, March 23

Today was an extended program day only.

Other Activities

  • We attended the "Adventures of Henny Penny Puppet Show" at the John Janzen
    Nature Centre and then had the opportunity to feel the baby chicks and rabbits.

 

Thursday, March 22

Teacher Selected Materials:

  • Dinosaurs by Gail Gibbons

  • How Big Were the Dinosaurs- Gigantic- by Patrick O'Brien

  • Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp- by Carol Diggery Shields


Child Selected Materials:

  • Dinosaur- based upon the Walt Disney Film

Other Activities

  • We finished our dinosaur unit today by finishing our KWL chart about dinosaurs. We realized that we had learned:

    • dinosaurs sometimes steal other dinosaur eggs

    • Tyrannosaurus Rex has sharper teeth than us, and they are also longer

    • Dinosaurs are extinct

    • Some dinosaurs eat bushes- they are called herbivores or plant eaters

    • Some dinosaurs eat other dinosaurs- they are called carnivores or meat eaters.

    • Carnivore is almost the same as Carnotaur, a meat eating dinosaur

    • Dinosaurs hatch from eggs

    • Dinosaurs have babies. Sometimes they have one and sometimes they have more than one

    • Dinosaurs drink water

    • Dinosaurs did not drink milk- milk comes from mammals, and dinosaurs were reptiles

    • Dinosaurs have turned into fossils 

    • Some dinosaurs could go in the water

    • Some dinosaurs are bigger and some are smaller- some are even as small as a duck

    • Apatosaurus and Brachiosaurus have long necks

    • Dinosaurs are buried in the ground. They did not have coffins.

    • Dinosaurs could walk- some on two legs and some on four- we walk only on 2

    • Some of the names of dinosaurs are: Brachiosaurus, Apatosaurus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Pteranodon, Triceratops, Ankylosaurus, Parasaurolophus, Pachycephalosaurus, Allosaurus, Stegosaurus, Iguanodon, Maiasaurus, Spinosaurus, Styrachosaurus.

  •  We found that the only question they had from our original list that we did not know the answer to was "Did Dinosaurs
    Sleep". We have decided to keep hunting for the answer to that one.

  • We watched the "Dinosaurs and Other Creature Features" Video from National Geographic. I like this video because it spends a lot of time linking dinosaurs with other creatures on the earth today, so that they can see similarities and differences with things that are often more familiar to them. 

  • Each child used the draw program from Claris Works to design their own dinosaur on the computer. They also used the program to print their name, and to make a name for their dinosaur.

Wednesday, March 21

Child Selected Materials:

  • The Lady with the Alligator Purse- Nadine Bernard Westcott

  • How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight- Jane Yolen and Mark Teague

  •  Dinosaurs' Day Out- Nick Sharratt

  • Dinosaurs Everywhere- Carol Harrison

Other Activities:

We had the opportunity to listen to the PDP class perform and Easter Nursery Rhymes Readers Theatre. It is really a great
partnership- because we are the only classes in the basement, our two sets of children have become quite close, and we are the only children the PDP's are willing to perform in front of. They always let the kids ask questions at the end, and have learned to be quite patient in answering the same questions over and over again.
In our extended program, we had our 3rd swimming lesson. Once again, it was a huge hit. 

We did no activity as a group today- only had a long centres- after having no centres for the last 2 days, the children had
more than earned it, and I was very pleased to see them integrate components of our 100 days celebration, the Trial of
the Big Bad Wolf play, and our swimming lessons into their conversations and the play that developed was very high quality.

March 20

Teacher Selected Materials-

  • Miss Bindergarten Celebrated the 100th Day of Kindergarten by Joseph Slate

  • Fluffy's 100th Day at School- Kate McMullen

Other Activities-

  • Today was our 100th day of school.

  • We started by talking about what we wanted to have 100 of- some of the ideas included money, puppies, friends, candies,
    cars, motorcycles, and gold. We used this information to make 100 headbands, on which we drew what we wanted 100 of. Then, I
    recorded in words what it was they wanted 100 of- just so people would be sure to understand!

  • We made predictions about how many licks it would take to finish a Popsicle. The students each wrote their name on a piece
    of paper, and we put it into categories to make a graph. Then, we had the Popsicles to see whether or not our predictions were
    correct.

  • We made a special 100 snack by taking 10 items from 10 different bowls and mixing them all together. It was really
    interesting to listen to the students as they were adding all of their ingredients because some of them understood right away that 10 items from 10 bowls would equal 100, while others thought they were only getting 10 things. As well, some were starting over from 0 each time they moved to a new bowl, while others were counting on- for example, after they had 10 pretzels, they started counting 11 with the raisins. I know this is more a "math" activity than a literacy  one, but I felt like the math language that was being integrated warranted it's inclusion as an entry.

  • In the afternoon, we had our second swimming lesson. The instructors were great, and had the students singing an
    assortment of songs including the Hokey Pokey (in a variety of voices including the Ella Fitzgerald voice!), Looby Loo, The
    Alphabet Song, Down by the Station, Row Row Row Your Boat, and the Wheels on the Bus.

  • I feel that I also must add one additional section that maybe doesn't officially fall into literacy development, but certainly
    involved a lot of language- and that mostly kindergarten teachers would appreciate. I am trying to have the students
    change into their bathing suits here at school after eating lunch in order to save some time and privacy. This has not been
    a problem for the girls, but the boys are ALL having difficulty. Over the last 2 days we have spent nearly 30 minutes explaining
    that they need to take off their clothes and underpants, put on their bathing suit, and put their clothes back on top. Instead,
    they all keep taking everything off and then putting everything (underwear, bathing suit, clothes) back on. Some of the kids are
    also bringing a second set of underpants, and they are adding these to the mix- No wonder one of the boys was complaining he
    couldn't do up his pants- he had on 2 pairs of underwear, a swimming suit that was at least 2 sizes to large, and then his
    pants on top! I was hoping that this was only a first day phenomenon, but it repeated itself today. Maybe...

March 19


Child Selected Materials:

  • Clifford and the Runaway Rabbit- adapted by Kimberly Weinberger

Other Activities-

  •  In our regular program, we had the opportunity to attend the "world premiere" of our junior high presentation of The Trial of
    the Big Bad Wolf. Students were engaged in singing, drama, and dancing over the course of the hour. Although some of the jokes
    were a little beyond their understanding, they really appeared to enjoy the play, and once again have requested that we can see
    it again. 

  • We practiced our dinosaur action poem, our Dinosaurs Once Ruled the Earth Song, and the students each a had a chance to
    add one verse to the song. 

  • Our regular program time has had to be shortened for the  next 3 weeks because of a need to have lunch at 11:00 in order to be
    ready for our extended program! 

  • In our extended program, we have started our swimming lessons. What a hit! Even the students who are less physically active,
    and who did not enjoy other activity programs like skating or TaeKwonDo loved it! They think I am the nicest teacher in the
    world because I told them we were going again tomorrow! 

  •  

March 16

Teacher Selected Materials:

  • Clever Tom and the Leprechaun by Linda Shute

Other Activities-

As this was a day only for our extended program, we spent the entire day at the Galaxyland PlayPark. The students had a
fabulous time- I cannot believe how much sweat those little ones can produce!

March 15

Since we have a full day fieldtrip tomorrow, today became our official St. Patrick's Day Celebration.

Teacher Selected Books-

  • Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato by Tomie DePaola

Other Activities-

  • In Kindercooking, we followed a recipe I had written out to make potato pancakes. I was very surprised at what a big hit
    these were- even the fussy students enjoyed them! 
  • We had 2 treasure hunts- one within the classroom where the students were looking for pieces of gold a leprechaun had left,
    and one following clues he had left behind to see if we could find his treasure. This involved not only decoding the clues,
    but also interviewing people in different locations around the school to see if they had any ideas or information to share with
    us. 
  • We used Lucky Charms to make a St. Patrick's Day graph. First, the students sorted the marshmallows and cereal into different
    piles, then used the marshmallows to make a graph. They had to tell an adult which type of marshmallows had the most and the
    least before they were allowed to eat them.
  • After our treasure hunt, many of the students got quite into searching for the leprechaun- surprisingly, he was spotted 10
    times over the next few minutes! We talked about what happens if you catch a leprechaun (you get 3 wishes) and we talked about
    what some of our wishes would be. Then, we drew or wrote our 3 wishes onto a Shamrock and we posted these in the hallway.
  • We also talked about how leprechaun's are tricky little fellows, and somehow got the idea that they are mean enough to
    steal animal's eggs. That led us to worry about our own dinosaur eggs, and we had to go to the nest to make sure they were okay.
    Fortunately, last night I had started the "hatching" process with the eggs, so it was a lucky treat that they noticed today
    that the eggs were hatching. They were so excited to see the dinosaurs inside! Some of the kids are convinced that the
    dinosaurs are real (not surprisingly, these are the same kids that had the leprechaun sightings!), so we talked about what we
    needed to do to take care of these baby dinosaurs (water, food, etc...) One student who had a baby Tyrannosaurus Rex is quite
    concerned that it was going to grow up and eat him, so I had to take him aside and sadly break the news that it was only
    pretend, so it was up to him to decide what he wanted that Tyrannosaurus Rex to do. That made him much happier.

 

Wednesday, March 14


Teacher Selected Materials

  • The Dinosaurs are Back and It's All Your Fault Edward- Wendy Hartmann and Niki Daly

  • Can I have a Stegosaurus Mom? Can I Have One Please?- Lois Grambling

Other Activities

  • We completed our journals about our Field Trip to the Space and Science Center. They all did some fantastic drawings- I am finding it very interesting to see more and more of the students are integrating some form of perspective into their work- We started out our drawings with just 1 person at the beginning of the year, now they fill their pages with friends, have them sitting or standing, and try to incorporate different things the y remembered at the angles they were- For example, several of the students tried to recreate the Margaret Zeidler Star Theatre where we saw the movie. I could even tell in some of the pictures that the seats were reclining, that the students were looking at the ceiling, and that the "Star Machine" was in the centre of the room.

  •  We also completed a dinosaur book. After reading The Dinosaurs are back and Can I have a Stegosaurus Mom, we debated whether or not we thought having a dinosaur for a pet was a good idea. We integrated reasons from the stories- you would have to change it's diaper or you could ride it on a field trip- and the students also came up with some reasons on their own. The students were then responsible for creating a book convincing their mom/dad/grandparent/uncle why they should or shouldn't have a dinosaur for a pet. They had to include 3 pictures, with a
    different reason for each picture and page. 

  • In our extended program, we headed for another visit to the Edmonton Public Library. Our program was - 

    • Storytime Poem

    • The Selfish Crocodile by Faustin Charles and Michael Terry

    •  3 Little Monkeys Swinging in a Tree- Song and Puppets

    • There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea- Song

    •  How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight by Jane Yolan

    •  A Circus Draw and Tell Story

    • Shoo Fly- Song

    • Froggy Goes to Bed by Jonat

Tuesday, March 13

  • We had an all-day field trip to the Space and Science Center. I had booked this back when I had intended to get to space before spring break, and decided to keep my booking anyways. In the morning, we went to the Star Wonders Movie and spent an hour in Discoveryland. In the afternoon, we went to the New Dinosaur Den Exhibit. There, the children had the opportunity to piece dinosaur bones together- and It was hard- I could only do 2 of the 4 dinosaurs myself! They also had a jumbo egg the kids could play in, dinosaur computer games, dinosaur books, and a Dinosaur
    excavation site where the children got a hammer, chisel, and protective eyewear, and tried to dig up some fossils. They loved it. All the way back to school the kids kept thanking me for such a fun field trip!

 

Monday, March 12


Teacher Selected Materials-

  • The Dinosaurs New Clothes- Diane Goode

Child Selected Materials

  • Dinosaurs- National Geographic Book for Young Explorers

Songs

  • Dinosaur Action Song

  • Dinosaur Color Song

 We learned a song called STEGO today and sang it 2 times
     There was a big old dinosaurs, and STEGO was his name-o
     S-T-E-G-O, S-T-E-G-O, S-T-E-G-O
     And STEGO was his name on

Then, we substituted claps for the letters

Other Activities

  • We completed an activity where we measured dinosaur pictures using paper clips. Under each picture, we completed the sentence _____ (name of dinosaur) was ___ (number) paperclips long. The students copied the names of the dinosaur, and used their paperclips to measure and fill in the number.

  • In our extended program, we had once again one the school monthly contest- BEST MANNERS! So, we had a party. We watched the DINOSAUR movie from Walt Disney, and then we took our sidewalk chalk outside and decorated the Courtyard with Dinosaurs. While we were there, some of the students discovered some rocks they were sure were dinosaur fossils. Eventually, every child picked up a rock and called it their fossil- either tooth, claw, or egg. We took our fossils and dinosaurs out to the playground and buried them and tried to excavate them.

 


Friday, March 9


Child Selected Materials

  • My Gigantosaurus book of Numbers- Jan Lewis

  • Dazzle the Dinosaur- Marcus Pfister

Other Activities

  • The students had done a fabulous job at the Celebration of Learning and we decided that they had earned an extra long time at their favorite job- centers!

  • We also played an assortment of literacy games

    • Alphabet Bingo

    • Rhyming Bingo (This was our first time- it is actually quite a hard game- Tammy and I had to keep looking at the kids cards and giving them clues for some of the harder words- by the end, however, they were doing really well) 

    • A Hunting We Will Go

    •  Picture/Word Bingo- Because I have 2 students who are now really reading, as well as numerous ESL students who are still learning basic vocabulary,  I found this game very useful. I gave the reading students the cards with the words written on them, and the rest of the students cards with pictures on them. Then, we as I called out the objects, the children found either the word or the picture. I was amazed that nobody even wondered about why some kids had pictures and some kids had words.

 Thursday, March 8
- No school for our Celebration of Learning

Wednesday, March 7

Teacher Selected Materials-

  • Chickens Aren't the Only Ones- Ruth Heller (2 times)

  • Ten Terrible Dinosaurs- Paul Stickland

Books we Read Together-

  • Cinderella Dressed in Yellow

  • There's a Monster in the Tree

  • Little Green Frog

  • 5 Little Monsters Went to School

  • School

  • Counting Penguins


Other Activities-

  • Before reading Chickens aren't the only ones we brainstormed animals etc... that we knew came from eggs. After reading the books, we added to our list. Although the students could remember quite a few, they were baffled that they couldn't remember them all, so we read it again. 

  • Then, we completed our list and posted it at the Science Centre next to our dinosaur eggs. The students noted that egg started with the letter E- our alphabet that is posted around the room has a picture of an egg with the Ee. So, we ended up learning the letter E today. We practiced writing it in our alphabet books and brainstormed words with the letter E. We recognized that Ee is the letter for  Elephant, Egg, Easter Egg, Easter, Eli, Elisa, Eagle. Then, we took a walk around the school looking for more E words and also saw that Exit and Excitement and Excellent were E words. 

  • Tomorrow is our Celebration of Learning and we will have no class. Today, we prepared by walking through all of the centers and practicing what we wanted to show our moms, dads, uncles, or grandparents.

  • We continued singing our Dinosaur songs 

  • After reading 10 terrible dinosaurs, we created our own illustrations for each page and then I labeled them with the correct words. For example, one child drew 10 dinosaurs and then I wrote "10 terrible dinosaurs standing in a line, 1 began to push and shove and then there were..." and then the next person drew 9 etc. We sequenced these all together to make a bulletin board display to show our parents.

Tuesday, March 6 

Books we Read Together-

  • Cinderella Dressed in Yellow

  • There's a Monster in the Tree

  • How Many

  • Rainforest Colors

  • I See Colors

  • The Northern Lights

  • Who Took the Cookies from the Cookie Jar

  • Arctic Winter, Arctic Summer

  • Counting Penguins

  • Is it alive?

  • School

  • It's Melting

  • Bugs Bugs Bugs

  • Playground problem Solvers 

Other activities-

  • We journaled about our experiences with the Dinosaur Adventures program yesterday. The students drew a picture of their favorite part, and then labeled it with "dino adventures". This time, I did  not scribe their stories however- I have left that for Thursday and our celebration of learning, so the parents can see how this activity works. 

  • We had another Art Start Lesson. The children were so excited to see Brucie come. We were even more excited to tell her our news- even though the kiln had broken (it been firing for 7 straight days), somehow our pots that should have been toast, weren't! We had the opportunity to do some more work with clay, and really enjoyed getting into the glaze. 

  • We have been working quite a bit on the differences between letters and words lately, and the students have been showing interest in how many letters each child's name has. We used this information to create another graph. Each child wrote their name on a piece of paper, and wrote the number of letters their name had. We then pasted it onto a graph, which had columns labeled by the number of letters. We found that in our class, the most people had names that had 5 or 7 letters (tied), and the least had names that started with 1, 2, 4, or 9 (all tied with 0). 

  • We continued with our dinosaur eggs and painted them. we talked about how nobody that lives now lived when the dinosaurs lived, and so we can't know for sure what color their eggs really were. As a result, we have ended up with several rainbow creations. Nobody noticed the dinosaurs inside yet... Tomorrow, we are going to build a nest for the eggs because one of the students noticed that the dinosaurs in the Magic School Bus had their eggs in a nest, and so did the mama in Dazzle Dinosaur.

Monday, March 5

Teacher Selected Books-

  • Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs by Byron Barton

Child Selected Books-

  • I am a Dinosaur- a book I made using a template by Vera Trembach

  • There's a Monster in the Tree

Other activities-

  • We had the John Janzen Nature Centre come out and present their Dinosaur Adventures Program. The students had the opportunity to build a dinosaur skeleton, touch a salamander, play dinosaur parachute games, and look closely at some fossils. They really enjoyed it, and especially enjoyed the fact that our Teaching Assistant was "grossed out" by the salamander. Next year, we will order the snake to see what she will do! - We interviewed 10 friends to see which dinosaur they liked best- Triceratops, Allosaurus, Stegosaurus, or Parasaurolophus. The children used this information to create their own graphs- since they were all selecting different people to interview, the results were all different. Since many of them conveniently forgot that I said 10 people, the results were even more different! We then analyzed the data, and students completed the sentences ____________ had the most and ____________ had the least. 

  • One of the other things we had learned from the John Janzen Nature Centre was that dinosaurs were born from eggs. We brainstormed a list of other things we knew that hatched- we came up with the list snakes, turtles, sharks, dinosaurs, birds, ducks, roosters, chickens, girl dinosaurs, boy dinosaurs, baby dinosaurs (but not mommy dinosaurs- they are too big!), and penguins.

  • We decided to build our own dinosaur eggs using balloons and paper maché. This was our first paper maché experience, and for the most part, the students really enjoyed it. They kept investigating the eggs to see how they were drying. Then, last night, I cut the balloons out and replaced them with baby dinosaurs inside. We will see what comes of this...