It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

The snow has officially arrived! It started off peacefully enough on Friday morning and then it really hit on Saturday...although I'm told I ain't seen nothin' yet! Anyways, here's a quick peek at a couple of our centre activities this past week...

First up is our Word Work Centre. This week, rather than having the kiddies produce a piece of work to practice an isolated skill, I had them working together to sort vowel sounds. This is the last week that we will be talking explicitly about long and short vowel sounds. I'm so proud of how well most of my kiddies grasped their vowel sounds! They really enjoyed sorting the words and pictures all week:

You can find the differentiated sorting activity below (along with my vowel reference posters)  HERE:

**2016: THIS PRODUCT HAS BEEN UPDATED!**

At our Writing Centre, I was excited to start our very first creative writing journal entry! Last week at this centre, I had the kiddies simply create a title page for the writing journal that we began this week, and will continue for the rest of the year. I have been waiting to introduce these journals because they will be such a great tool (and keepsake for families!) to watch the growth in each kiddie's writing from the beginning to the end of grade one. Grade one is SUCH a developmental year, so it will be beyond exciting to have a compilation of that growth! I waited "this long" to begin Writing Centre Journals because I wanted to make sure my kiddies had all the resources and knowledge they needed in order to write without frustration (basic writing rules and confidence, for the most part). Our first journal entry was "If I lived in space..."

This week, I used my Oral Language Centre/Investigation Station primarily as oral language practice. My firsties go all kinds of crazy for the I Spy books I have in my room...partly because the books are reserved for indoor recesses only. So when I brought them out for one of our centres this week, I swear they almost fell off their chairs! Rather than having them read and search for the clues given in the books, they were to take turns giving each other clues for an object in any given picture. This way, they had to use descriptive language, problem solving skills, and basically just positive oral language interaction. The kids were totally engaged and I was thrilled at the language I was hearing them use:

In Science, we finished off our Daily & Seasonal Changes unit and began our Energy unit. So far the kiddies seem to be enjoying this unit. We built upon this anchor chart all week to talk about the sun, and energy chains:

Okay. Now for the fun stuff! I'm an artsy person and I was slightly devastated when I found out that I would not be teaching my own visual arts this year (it is my super prep coverage). BUT, as is obvious from this blog, I often squeeze art into many of our other activities. So anyways, there were 5 of my 14 students away on Friday and, because of that, I did not want to get in to something that I felt was important for every student to be present for. I always have a bunch of meaningful art activities on hand, so I took the last block of the day to do some of our first Holiday Artwork!

The art teacher will be continuing texture with the kiddies next week, so I decided to build upon that concept. We made wintery scenes using ripped up construction paper:

 That's one of my favourite things about art; you can really see a child's individuality come through their artwork. All of the winter scenes were SO different. I LOVE howadorable they look altogether!

 Next up, we cut coffee filters and used watercolour paints to make beautiful snowflakes!

I have to admit, this was somewhat of a selfish activity on my part: I can't afford to spend money on Christmas decorations for my class, so I thought it would be adorable to have my kiddies produce the decorations! They *lovedddddd* painting their snowflakes and seeing them hung on the window. We rarely get the opportunity to use paint so this activity was definitely worth the mess!

Aren't they amazing?!

 Last but not least, we did a name activity--Christmas style! I love name activities because they reinforce so many basic skills. For this particular one, I had my kiddies figure out how many Christmas lights they needed in order to write their name:

They had to cut out their lights, write their name, and hang them on the string (using spatial sense!). Then, I hung them in our room:

(I was going to correct the backwards "E"s but I stopped myself because art is the one subject were the KIDS have creative control; it's the one subject where they can really just let loose. This, to me, is a symbol that grade one's are still just babies...They will grow SO much this year, and it's crazy to think that I get to play a big part in that growth!)

Okay, enough of my sentimental gushing! I hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend!