Reading, Creating, Discovering and Hatching!

We've begun exploring the parts of a story and together we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle:

After enjoying the book, we closely examined Mr. Carle's illustrations. He has a unique method for making designed paper and then cutting it into the pieces for his pictures. 

We followed Mr. Carle's paper-making technique. First, we painted our paper. We added drips, drops, stripes and spots in every colour!

No shortage of creativity in our class!

Once our paint dried, we cut shapes to make butterflies!

Our week ended with tremendous joy and wonder as new life filled our incubator! We were thrilled to welcome several ducklings into the world. Once they’re fully dry, they’ll move into a cozy little “barn” right in our classroom. What a beautiful reminder of God’s goodness!

Identifying the Parts Of a Story

This week we were introduced to the parts of a story! 

We made our own beaded story retell bracelets to help cue us to each part of the story. Each colour reminds us of a different part of the story. 

Then we listened to The Gingerbread Boy, and used our anchor chart and bracelets to figure out the parts of the story together. 

We'll be using our bracelets as we read many books together. We'll be working hard to identify the beginning (characters, setting, and problem), middle, and end of each story. We're going to have so much fun!

Cookie's Mischievous Week!

This past week, we read the story Cookie's Week, all about a cat who causes mischief all over his house!

To practice our ability to retell important parts of a story, we made our own "Cookie" puppets! These puppets helped us practice retelling the main parts of this story. 

Then we jumped at the opportunity to write our own versions of this story! In our own stories about Cookie, we imagined this tricky kitty spent a week at St. Nicholas. What kinds of mischief did this little trickster get into?

We brainstormed places he could make a little trouble. 

Then, using sentences frames, we began writing and illustrating our own stories!

These stories will take several days of diligent writing and creative, careful illustrating. We hope to have them completed so you and your child can enjoy reading this story at our Student Led Interviews next week. 

We're having so much fun imagining the mischief Cookie would cause at our school! 

Retelling a Story

Today we were introduced to the parts of a story! 

We made our own beaded story retell bracelets to help cue us to each part of the story. Each colour reminds us of a different part of the story. 

Then we listened to The Gingerbread Boy, and used our anchor chart and bracelets to figure out the parts of the story together. 

We'll be using our bracelets as we read many books together. We'll be working hard to identify the beginning (characters, setting, and problem), middle, and end of each story. We're going to have so much fun!

E, F, G, H, I and Stories!

It's the end of May, but we are still packing our days with both learning and fun!

All week long we have been continuing our story writing focus. After being inspired by the book Mita's Lost Ball, we wrote our own "lost" stories. What is something we wouldn't want to lose? 

After lots of brainstorming, we spent time completing our story organizer. We use an organizer to help us put our ideas in order. A little editing and illustrating, and we'll have created our own books! Watch for these stories coming home next week!

Our ABC Countdown began last week and was in full swing this week!

E - Exercise & Environmental Exploration

A Nature Scavenger Hunt  had us outside exploring God's beautiful Earth! Add "exhaustion" to our letter E day, too!

F - Freeze Dance and Frisbees 

We had a blast showing off our creative dance moves to tunes like Super Mario Freeze and Encanto Freeze! Check out this FREEZE!

G - Green Snacks & Games

We munched some tasty green snacks!

Look at all of the amazing games we brought from home to enjoy! What a great opportunity to play fairly!

H - Hula Hoops & Hats

Our hips were shimmying and hats were flying as we tackled our hula hoop games!

I - Ink Pen

We were excited to set our pencils aside and use real ink!

We are squeezing every little bit of joy we can into our last month together!

Cookie's Week at Our School!

This past week, we read the story Cookie's Week, all about a cat who causes mischief all over his house!

To practice our ability to retell important parts of a story, we made our own "Cookie" puppets! These puppets helped us practice retelling the main parts of this story. 

Then we jumped at the opportunity to write our own versions of this story! In our own stories about Cookie, we imagined this tricky kitty spent a week at St. Nicholas. What kinds of mischief did this little trickster get into?

After a walk around the building, we brainstormed places he could make a little trouble. 

Then, using sentences frames, we wrote and illustrated our own stories!

These stories will take several days of diligent writing and creative, careful illustrating. 

We're having so much fun imagining the mischief Cookie would cause at our school! 

Watch for these stories, as well as a rubric, coming home soon!

Books & Butterflies!

We've begun exploring the parts of a story in Language Arts!

• Beginning: The characters, setting, and problem are identified
• Middle: Main character tries to solves the problem
• End: The problem is solved!

Together we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle. 

Then we identified the parts of the story as a team:

After enjoying the book by Eric Carle, we closely examined his illustrations. Mr. Carle has a unique method for making designed, textured paper and then cutting it into the pieces for his pictures. 

 

We followed Mr. Carle's paper-making technique to make butterflies! First we painted our paper. We added drips and drops in every colour! 

See? No shortage of creativity in our class! Beautiful paper designs, kiddos!

Once our paper dried, we used tracers to cut out the shapes to make a butterfly.  A little glue, and ta da! Colourful, Carle-inspired butterflies!

We'll continue to dig into the parts of a story and will move towards writing our own stories. What a wonderful week of reading, discussing, and creating! 

C, D, E, F, G & Stories!

It's the end of May, but we are still packing our days with both learning and fun!

All week long we have been continuing our story writing focus. After being inspired by the book Mita's Lost Ball, we wrote our own "lost" stories. What is something we wouldn't want to lose? 

After lots of brainstorming, we spent time completing our story organizer. We use an organizer to help us put our ideas in order. A little editing and illustrating, and we created our own books! This took us all week long, and we are so proud to share our work!

We can't wait to read our work to the Pre-K class next week!

Our ABC Countdown began last week and was in full swing this week!

C - Chalk and Cup Stacking

Coffee? Chaos? Crazy? No, we celebrated letter C with cup stacking challenges and chalk!

We enjoyed sharpening our hand-eye coordination as we stacked cups! Our patterning, sequencing, and perseverance were all strengthened!

Chalk in the sunshine with friends? Yes, please!

D - Dice Games

We tackled an adding game called Dice Wars, and were so excited to use dice IN dice! We each rolled a double die, added our total, and whoever had more took a counter. Gather all 10 counters to win!

Roll to 100, as always, was a hit! 12-sided dice made it even more challenging!

E - Exercise & Environmental Exploration

A Nature Scavenger Hunt  had us outside with our 3R buddy class, exploring God's beautiful Earth! Add "exhaustion" to our letter E day, too!

F - Freeze Dance 

We had a blast showing off our creative dance moves to tunes like Baby Shark and Everything is Awesome! Check out this FREEZE!

G - Green Snacks & Games

We munched some healthy green snacks!

Look at all of the amazing games we brought from home to enjoy! What a great opportunity to play fairly!

It was a wonderful week together! How is it almost June? 

Fairy Tale Fun!

We are so excited to have begun our "Building Things" unit in Science! 

We're exploring the following learning outcomes:

• I can choose appropriate building materials
• I can describe the job of each part of an object I made
• When I look at 2 things, I can describe what is the same and what is different

Inspired by fairy tales, we tackled our first challenge, building a house for the three little pigs! This was a perfect way to experiment with effective materials. 

We read many versions of the fairy tale! We choose one version, retold the story in partners, and then reviewed the parts of a story:

Just like the pigs, we built with "straw" (paper shreds), ...

"wood" (foam blocks), ...

... and "bricks" (Lego)!

We had a great discussion together, learning so much about choosing the best materials for the job.

Keep your eyes peeled for our next fairy tale challenge! Rumor has it we may get a call to repair chairs for some bears in the woods!



Fairy Tale STEM Activities for Primary Grades from Dancing Into First

Welcome chicks!

As the students rushed in this morning, they were very excited to see many eggs with little cracked shells! The chicks were trying to peck out! We attended a brief assembly in the gym and rushed back to the classroom so as not to miss a moment of the action. Within minutes of our return … TA DA! We saw a chick hatch! 

Looking inside the incubator at our first chick!

As this first little one laid down to rest, moments later another chick hatched! By lunchtime, five little chicks had made their way into the world and our classroom was filled with excited chatter and lots of cheeping!

Marveling at the new little chicks

The chicks remain in the incubator until their feathers dry and they become fluffy, and then they are transferred to a box with dry shavings, food and water, all beneath a heat bulb. We prepared the box with food and water, and also removed the egg shells from the incubator. By day's end, we had eight chicks drying off in the incubator. 

While the chicks rested, we spent some time learning about the parts of a story in Language Arts:

• Beginning: The characters, setting, and problem are identified
• Middle: Main character tries to solves the problem
• End: The problem is solved!

Together we read Pig's Egg, and practiced identifying parts of a story using wipe off boards and markers (so we can practice over and over). Be sure to ask your child about pig's egg and the surprise that hatched!

This evening, the chicks that were dry were moved to this box ... while yet another hatched! Nine new friends!

The Beliveau boys gently transferring fluffy chicks to their new home.

Tomorrow is sure to be another exciting day! Please keep us in your prayers as we continue to experience the miracle of life.