Learning Through Play!

Learning is often disguised as play in our classroom. What better way to engage and involve our kids, all while having fun?

As we are introduced to 5 new words each week, the words are placed on our Word Wall, which is front and center in our classroom!

We play engaging games to practice our words! Have a look at this week's fun!

Head Hunters
Each student stuck a sword to their noggin'. Everyone received a chart with all of the classmates' names. Then off they went, reading and recording the words stuck to their friends' heads!

Roll and Read
Find a buddy and roll the dice! Read any word from the row you rolled!

Shaving Cream

Always a hit! Spread it on our desk and get spelling! Bonus? Our desks smell fresh!

WORDO

Wordo is like bingo! Students fill a blank 3x3 grid with our words. Then, using a spinner with our words, words are drawn! If one of their words is selected, they trace over it with a crayon. If a word is selected that they don't have, they print it outside the grid. Lots of opportunity for practice (and fun)!

The idea behind our weekly words is to encourage the students to interact with foundational words in an engaging way...and doesn't this look engaging?

Word Work and O, P, Q, R, & S!

Learning is often disguised as play in our classroom. What better way to engage these kids? Look at the engaging ways we reviewed our words this week:

Head Hunters
Each student sticks a spelling word to their noggin'. Everyone receives a chart with all of the classmates' names. Then off they go, recording the spelling words stuck to their friends' heads in their chart!

Roll and Read
Find a buddy or play alone!  Roll the dice and read any word from the row you rolled!

Shaving Cream
Always a hit! Spread it on our desk and get spelling! Bonus? Our desks are fresh after!

Our ABC Countdown continues!

Oo - Oreo Races and One Hundred's Chart Tic Tac Toe

Kids opened up their Oreo cookie, licked it, and stuck it to their foreheads. Then, without using their hands, students wiggled, squinted, and smooshed their facial muscles around to try and get that cookie to move into their mouths. 

Students were partnered up and received a blank 100's chart. Using two different colours, students tried to fill in the numbers on the chart ... three in a row! 

P - Paper Airplanes and Puzzles
We watched a super YouTube on how to make a simple airplane! The we got busy folding and throwing! The planes were an absolute blast!

Puzzles were a welcome way to use up our remaining energy!

Q - Quiet Time in the Chapel
We ended a busy day with quiet prayer and reflection as a little classroom community. We love our Chapel!

R - Rock Paper Scissors
We enjoyed a fantastic book and tackled a rock paper scissors tag game!

S - Sunglasses and Sun Safety
We wore our sunnies while learning about keeping safe in the sun!

So ... T, U, V, W, X, Y, and Z? That's it? Only 7 more days? Sniff. We are sure to be savoring the last few days together. 

Spelling: Not a Spectator Sport

Learning is often disguised as play in our classroom. What better way to engage and involve our kids, all while having fun?

Graphic courtesy of  technology rocks. seriously

In our Grade 1 spelling program, the students are exposed to 125 core words. These are words we use most often as beginning readers and writers, such as "and" or "her". While Spelling Quizzes are important, the goal is to read these words with ease and spell these words correctly in our own writing. 

As we learn words each week, the words are placed on our Word Wall, which is front and centre in our classroom!

We play several engaging games to practice our spelling words! Have a look!

Head Hunters
Each student sticks a spelling word to their noggin'. Everyone receives a chart with all of the classmates' names. Then off they go, recording the spelling words stuck to their friends' heads in their chart!

Roll and Read
Find a buddy and roll the dice! Read any word from the row you rolled!

Shaving Cream
Always a hit! Spread it on our desk and get spelling! Bonus? Our desks are lemony fresh after!

Spelling Center Bins
Inside these 14 bins are hands-on ways to interact with our words! These centers also focus on strengthening our fine-motor skills by involving those important small muscles in our hands. 

Have a peek at a few games!

Again, the idea behind our weekly spelling words is to encourage the students to interact with foundational words in an engaging way...and doesn't this look engaging?

Can you keep up with us?

This has been a spectacular week! As always, no two days are ever alike and never is a day boring! Check out our week ... can you keep up with us?

Our week began with another awesome visit from the Bookmobile for our Book Buzz program! A team of ladies from the Strathcona County Library have been coming to share stories and songs, and then help us fill our backpacks with books! 

This week is Para-Sport week! The students had a wonderful opportunity to be exposed to various para-sports, as well as different disability awareness activities. First up? Meeting the Edmonton Steel Wheel rugby team! These amazing individuals shared their personal journeys, demonstrated how they play, and wowed us with their incredible strength!

We had a rare opportunity to try out some wheelchairs. We discovered that they are a challenge and require lots of strength and stamina. We even attempted going in and out the front doors! Many realized that it is no small feat to make it over the metal bump and out the door by the time the automatic doors close! We certainly deepened our respect for those who use wheelchairs. 

We are in the Easter season and have been exploring the mystery of the Trinity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. While they are three, we believe in one true God. We compared the complexity of the Trinity to an apple:

We have returned to addition and subtraction, this time up to 20! We are practising our "doubles" and have enjoyed playing hands-on games with each other! 

A knock at our door brought in a special reader from Robin Hood!  We had a ball listening to some silly stories, all the while deepening our respect and understanding of individuals with disabilities.

Inspired by our week at Zoo School, each child has been challenged to learn more about an animal of their choosing! Using San Diego Zoo Kids, students are researching their own animals. 

Students share a Chromebook with a classmate,
allowing partners to troubleshoot, decode challenging text,
and collaborate! 

Students have been working hard drawing and labelling their animal as well as writing three facts. 

We had a blast working with words! We squirted a generous dollop of shaving cream on the desks and got spelling in the cream ... awesome!

We love words and reading, and decided to do a hunt for our word wall words in some ads and flyers! Great challenge!

We ended the week with our Arbor Day event! We learned to count tree rings to find out a tree's age. 

We worked together to build fairy houses in the woods out of natural materials, like leaves and twigs.

Turns out not all forest fires are bad! We learned how fire can help a forest and how we can be fire safe!

We were astounded by the acrobatic arborists, who demonstrated how they trim and care for trees!

We got sweaty at "nature-cize"!

Each student received a lodge-pole pine sapling, Alberta's provincial tree! They will be delivered to the school on Monday. 

Our trip finished off with a toe tappin' song along with Peter Puffin!

This week rocked, we're exhausted, and we can't wait to see what Monday brings!

Learning disguised as play!

Graphic courtesy of  technology rocks. seriously

Learning is often disguised as play in our classroom. What better way to engage and involve our kids, all while having fun!

This week was another spelling word review week. Gah. Blech. Doesn't that sound like snoozeville?

No way, Jose!

We played several games this week to review our spelling words, and we had a blast!

HeadHunters
Each student stuck a spelling word to their noggin'. Everyone received a chart with all of the classmates' names. Then off they went, recording the spelling words stuck to their friends' heads in their chart!

WORDO
Wordo is much like Bingo! Students fill in a blank 3x3 grid with spelling words. If one of their words is drawn, they trace over it with a marker. But if a word is drawn that they do not have, they print it outside the grid on the edge. Lots of practice!

Musical Hoops of Doom
Adding "of Doom!" to any game suddenly makes it very, very exciting to a 6 year old!

We spread out hula hoops in the front entrance of the school, cranked the tunes, and boogied around! Music stopped? Hop in a hoop! Careful! If you're in a red hoop, you'll be asked a spelling word (but a friend can always lend a hand should the word be a stumper). 

KaBOOM!
This game isn't exactly spelling focused, but it reinforces students' abilities to quicky read our spelling words. KaBoom was a fun way to encourage word recognition. Pull a popsicle stick, read the word. But if your popsicle stick says KABOOM, you return your pile to the can. Who can read the most words?

But games aren't just for spelling words!


In Social Studies we are exploring ways to make fair decisions. Here is a quick chart we compiled to help us:

Bring in the games! Students were grouped into 3's, then challenged to play Connect 4. They needed to find ways to make several decisions fairly:

• Where will our group play within the classroom?
• It is a 2 player game. Which 2 students play first?
• Who will get the red pieces and who will get the yellow?
• What method will your group use to make these decisions?

To decide who would play first, these girls used popsicle sticks with
names on them and the boys played rock paper scissors

Games can certainly make learning engaging!



HeadHunters game inspired by Hurray For FDK!
KaBOOM adapted from Tickled Pink in Primary