Term 1 Week 13 Update

Hello! We had such an exciting week and a big day on Friday I neglected to get the students homework into their bookbags. My apologies! There is a manila envelope in their backpacks today which has their homework as well as the lyrics for the song we are doing for the winter show. At the bottom of this update there will be a YouTube video with the song as well so they can practice at home. Week 13’s letters we did in phonics were: l, h, r, j, v. There is no Spelling Menu but please feel free to practice those letters.

This week we continued fine motor and gross motor activities. For gross motor we took great advantage of the last of the fine weather. We had a wonderful time playing outside with some of our inside toys. The change of venue really creates a new mindset for the children as they find new and creative ways to play with the toys. We also got to opportunity to use the cars we have in our storage shed that are no longer being used at break time. The students were very excited to use and share them. So many of the students showed great caring and kindness taking turns with the much-coveted cars!

During our time inside we focussed on a combination of fine motor skills as well as continuing to reorganize the classroom. We spent time playing with play dough, coloring, and making some signs for our toy boxes so we can better use the facilities in the classroom. The students showed great tenacity and problem solving skill using blankets to make tents in the classroom. On one day they finally figured out how to make the tent right at the end of the day. They were disappointed they couldn’t play in them for very long. However, the next morning they set to work re-making the tents better than ever and then got the opportunity to use them. They helped each other when the clips holding the blankets to the chairs slipped off with some students re-making the tent for the other students who were playing inside.

During much of our phonics time, we chose to do whole-group phonics lessons. This allowed our younger members who have not started phonics yet to participate and get an idea of how a phonics lesson works increasing their phonics readiness. Additionally, we used the interactive whiteboard to practice writing our letters which takes a fine motor skill and adds an element of gross motor activity. The letter “j”, however, was done in small groups so we could closely investigate the difference in writing “j” and “i”.

As it goes with the best laid plans of mice and men, we did not do our musical exploration yet. Thank you so much to the parents who have sent me song titles. We will be doing that exploration this week. I am still very interested in getting music from your home countries. I would love some Arabic or Indian music to add to our playlist. Please email me if you have any music suggestions that would fit our needs!

Here is the song we are doing for the Winter Show: Jolly Ol’ Saint Nicholas. We are listening and practicing at school but the Winter Show is coming up soon! It would be great to practice at home. For dress on this day it would be wonderful if the students could wear a Christmas sweater and if you don’t have that in your wardrobe, dressing in red or green (or a combination) would be great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ahyONgelkA (terribly sorry, the video cannot be embedded).

That’s it for this week! Have a wonderful week. We’re in the home stretch!