Literacy
Books revolving around Nova Scotia and Caring for Others were read to the students during the past couple of weeks. A few of the titles include, "B is for Bluenose, Looking at Places, In My Heart, Pete the Cat Valentines Day is Cool and In My Heart." After learning that you can see the Northern Lights in Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Nunavut and Alberta we engaged in some descriptive writing using a picture prompt depicting the Northern Lights and a lighthouse.
Word work has involved creating webs with weather words, writing sentences and making words by mixing up the letters in HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY (i.e. land, tin, Dante, Han, dear, deer, sat, sent...).
I gave the students a surprise spelling test where I chose 15 words from the Pre-Primer and Primer lists of words. The words I selected were blue, down, where, come, under, said, do, does, brown, with, went, please, was, they and are. No one spelled all of the words correctly. I decided to do this to show the students that even though we may be able to read many words we might not yet be able to spell them. We had a whole group discussion about how our brains learn how to read first and then the ability to write words comes next. It was another way to show the children why, as a school, we are trying to improve our writing skills.
We also practiced neat printing skills as we wrote our class lists of names (remembering names begin with capital letters) to take home to use for their Valentine's Day cards. I must say how impressed I was by the high number of students who took the extra time to make their own personalized Valentines this year!
Numeracy
We have participated in a variety of learning tasks. Students surveyed each other (three teachers as well) to find out what destination they would like to visit if they could go to Saskatchewan, Nunavut or Nova Scotia. Survey results were tabulated and then presented in the form of a bar graph. Seventeen people selected Nova Scotia, four chose Nunavut and the last three picked Saskatchewan. The children had to interpret the data by answering written questions about their bar graphs. For example: How many more people want to go to Nova Scotia instead of Nunavut (17-4=13).
The students also engaged in some learning to practice communicating their thinking on paper. The photo below was presented and they had to calculate how many circles were in the picture and show their thinking. This learning task proved to be quite challenging for many and definitely tested their ability to persevere.
The children have begun their inquiry work looking at four different regions of Canada (Alberta, Nunavut, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia). So far, we have spent time looking at the physical features of the land and where these places are located in Canada. Some of the vocabulary introduced includes: continent, North America, country, province, capital city, prairie, maritime, Atlantic, Pacific, ocean, foothills, Rocky Mountains, north, south, east, west. We have written about what region we would like to visit, during what season and why. The students have packed their suitcases and are ready to take off 😄
Happy Family Day to all💖
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