Term 1 Week 13 Update

Wow, we’re really into the home stretch now. Just 3 weeks to go till the break! The learning in Ms. M’s class doesn’t let up though!

We started Monday, as you know, with a lesson about keeping our private parts private. Children were encouraged to ask their moms or dads about the names of their private parts but decided at school that we’ll just call them our privates. We know their our private parts because they’re the parts of our bodies covered by our underwear or swimsuits. The children are really working hard to respect each others’ space and bodies.

In Maths we finished off our unit on comparing numbers to 10. We learned not just about more and less but about how much more and how many less. The easiest way for the children to visualize this was to line up two sets of objects and look at which ones had “friends”. If one stack had more, with no friend to line up with it, we could count those with “no friends” and that would tell us how many more! Starting next week and going till the end of term we will be working on measurement (longer/shorter, bigger/smaller, etc).

In Phonics we finished off the letter K on Monday and looked at the letters B and U for the rest of the week.
In Writer’s Workshop we are now Storytellers! We learned that we can tell stories about things that we love or things that we can do. I’m so happy to see more and more children try to write letters or words in their stories.

In IEYC we continued on our Loose Parts unit looking at elements of play. We played outdoors with scarves and ribbons to see how they interacted in the wind. We looked at some Jackson Pollock paintings to see how he made very messy but very beautiful paintings and used fabric scraps to make our own messy paintings. We had more outdoor time with sidewalk chalk and explored large-scale mark-making by drawing on the ground.

On this note, we will be taking a trip to a drawing kid’s cafe in Week 15. I am going to check the space for suitability and safety this weekend and more details will come to your email, along with a permission form, on Monday. Keep an eye out!

Finally we played with some homemade playdough for a great sensory exploration. Because it’s homemade it gets kept in the fridge. When we take it out to play with, it’s cold. What an exciting added element for our senses!

In PE the children have really been enjoying our warm-up exercises with Miss Linky, a great, educational YouTuber. This week we learned about sea creatures and battled sharks to keep the reef safe! Then we practiced moving a ball around with a hockey stick, some basket ball, and ended the class with a team-building exercise where we all hold hands and pass a hoop around the circle without letting go of our hands. The children get better and better at that every week!

That’s all for this week! Have a restful weekend and we’ll see you back on Monday for another fun-filled week of learning! And as always, be friendly and work together.