Creating Colour: The Sequel!

We have learned so much about color already, and yesterday we welcomed in 5 very brave and energetic moms and dads to help us learn even more!

The parents were tasked with running 4 messy, hands-on centers!

Station One: Adding Water to Paint
First up? Adding water to brown paint! Can you guess what happened?

As we added water, the paint became thinner, and it was easier to see the bear outline beneath. The paint became more transparent!

Station Two: Adding White

Then we added white paint to the primary colours. The kids loved seeing the paint get lighter each time more white was added!

Station Three: Adding Black

We added black paint to the primary colours, and many predicted the colour would get darker! Great prediction, scientists!

Station Four: Colour Mixing

We had some fun rolling, squeezing and squishing plasticine! It was a great review of the primary colours and how they combine to make the secondary colours. 

So much fun! 

Next Wednesday, February 4th will be a small review quiz for this unit. To help your child prepare, our experiment sheets have been sent home in this duotang with your child today, along with a helpful study guide:

Consider reviewing this blog post with your child, as well as this other one from a few days ago!

Creating Colour

We have been hard at work with our Science Unit, Creating Colour! 

We made predictions about what would happen when we mixed red, blue, and yellow with each other. Then, using a paperclip on top of a paper plate and a magnet beneath it, we were able to mix these three primary colours, mess free!

Look at our results:

Here is a ridiculous YouTube clip we enjoyed which reinforced what happens when we mix primary colours (be VERY careful, the song gets stuck in your head!)



Then we posted what we had learned on the wall:

This week we tackled two enormous words, TRANSPARENT and OPAQUE. Can your child describe the difference?

Look at the items we gathered:

Then we examined over 20 samples and practiced identifying if they were transparent or opaque. The boys and girls looked at everything from ketchup to shampoo! 

But this was just the beginning! Our messy morning of colour centers was fast approaching! 

Stay tuned for our next blog post, Creating Colour: The Sequel!

An Hour in Grade One

Welcome! Come start the day with us!

Lined up at our doors and ready to start the day! Look at those smiles!

We begin each day in a similar way. After greeting eachother and checking agendas, we spend a few minutes warming up for the day by doing an interactive Brain Warmer! The activities change every day and the students love them! 

Then we gather on the mat and spend a few minutes working with a poem. We work with the same poem all week long. This allows the children to build their reading fluency. Then the poem is used at our Poetry Center the following week. 

News time! Each day a different student shares some news with the class. This activity is a quick and powerful way to integrate language arts mini-lessons into our morning, such as sentence structure, punctuation, Word Wall Words, syllables, vowels, consonants, phonics, word families, rhymes ... the possibilities are endless!

(1) On spring break I am going to my farm. (2) It is my little sister's birthday.
(3) I went to the lake. (4) I am making an igloo!

We move straight into exchanging our Home Reading books. Students re-read the book they took home to a partner. They exchange their book for one at the same level, record the title and date in their log book, and quietly read the new book. I am able to read individually with 4 to 6 students in this short time, allowing progress to be assessed, feedback to be given, and book levels to be adjusted. What phenomenal readers!

After exchanging home reading books, we move straight into Literacy Centres. Children are grouped by similar abilities, however groups are very flexible and change as students develop their skills and grow. Here is a peek at literacy centers this week:

(a) Computer Centre

These students are working on Lexia, and individualized reading program, or exploring Starfall. They love this independent time to refine phonic skills!

(b) SMARTboard Centre

A variety of interactive games are played at this centre. This week, children are playing a memory game focussing on word families. They are trying to match the beginning of a word to the end of a word. When they make a word, they record it on their sheet. They think the nonsense words they uncover are hilarious!

(c) Poetry Centre

After a poem is worked with as a whole group, it becomes the featured poem at the Poetry Centre. Children re-read the poem and then work with it in different ways; filling in missing words, highlighting rhyming or spelling words, or illustrating the poem. 

(d) Word Work Centre

There are many hands-on games students enjoy at this centre! Many different language skills can be practiced. Two favourites are JINGO, a rhyming bingo game, and Roll, Read and Cover, a game that tests their phonic knowledge as they read individual words. This week the students were introduced to Pancake Match, a memory and sight word game where they take turns flipping over two pancakes to see if the words match. Whatever the challenge, the students are up for it!

Roll a die, read a word from that row,
and use a bingo dabber to mark the word!

Using a real flipper makes Pancake Match a million times more fun!
Thank you to the wonderful parent who created this game for us!

(e) Guided Reading

As the rest of the class is engaged, it is a perfect time to quietly read with a small group. Here we work on applying our reading strategies with books at the students' reading level. After working with a book together, students re-read the book either individually into a Toobaloo or with a partner quietly. 

(1) Reading together in a small group (2) Reading quietly into a Toobaloo
(3) Our board with several reading strategies (4) Reading with a buddy

If you can believe it, after completing all of these activities we are not even at morning recess yet! We still have about 30 minutes to squeeze in a little more Language Arts, such as a directed writing task, a reading comprehension activity, or a phonics lesson. Whew! 


Time flies when you're having fun!

Our student news activity was inspired by Cara Carroll at First Grade Parade and the Roll Read and Cover game at centers was inspired by Miss Kindergarten at Freebielicious. 

Creating Colour Centers

Our classroom could be called busy on an average morning, so we might call yesterday morning exhilarating!

We have recently begun a Science unit exploring colour, and yesterday we got a little messy as we experimented with a variety of colour mixing activities! Our morning was centered around several of the following I can statements:

We welcomed in seven volunteers who bravely led the students through the hands-on experiments. Here is a glimpse of what we were learning!

Colour Centers in the Kindergarten room!

Students were given balls of plasticine in primary colours; red, blue and yellow. They squished and squeezed the plasticine together to create secondary colours; purple, green and orange. Can your little scientist remember how to make purple? Orange? Green?

Mixing primary colours

Using primary coloured paint, students predicted what would happen if white paint was added. They added a drop of white paint for each descending circle. Can you see the colours getting lighter?

Adding white to a colour

We also tried adding drops of black paint to the primary colours, and were not surprised when the colours got darker.

Adding black to a colour

We experimented with adding water to a colour. We began painting over a bear-shape with regular brown paint. Uh, oh, we couldn't see the bear anymore! We added a few squirts of water, and painted over the next bear. We repeated this process a few more times, and observed that the bear-shape could now be seen! The paint became thinner with water. When we painted the first bear, the paint was opaque (not see through). When we painted the final bear, the paint was transparent (see through). 

Adding water to make the paint transparent

We also enjoyed the challenge of putting paint chips in order from lightest shade to darkest.

One of the favourite activities of the day was making rainbow snowflakes! Students decorated coffee filters with water-based markers, gave them a few squirts with water, and let them dry. A few folds and a few snip-snips later, and we had a wonderful RAINBOW BLIZZARD in our hall!

We're tired of winter weather, So cold and wet and white,
We talked to Winter's Wizard, He made a Rainbow Blizzard!

Next week we will explore transparent and opaque in more depth. For now, we all need a good hand-washing and an even better rest. 

Thank you, helpers!