Our students have been very interested in learning more about the human body.
We set out some books on our Science and Discovery Table and looked and listened for student responses.
This week we read a couple of books about the human body and briefly discussed some major body parts. We wanted to know what the children already knew and what they wanted to learn about.
We also formed our research groups by asking students what they wanted to research more about.
Here are a few of the things we set up and worked on in our classroom this week:
Coding
We are well into coding, as students are becoming more familiar with directionality (up, down, left, right).
We tried this activity together on the Bright Links board - students had to draw arrows to show the direction the dog should travel in order to get to the dog house without running into any obstacles.
We tried this again using different colours of markers to show other possible paths the dog could take.
In small groups this week, I worked on using various templates (the students could choose which one to use) and create their own path. Some students even used stickers to create obstacles.
You can download all of the coding worksheets for FREE by clicking the picture below.
This game is inspired by Deanna McLennon - I hid a sticker under one of the Post-It Notes. Students had to guess where it was....but by coding!
I had one student come up and guess by placing their sticker on the Post-It Note.
Another student had to code the path by placing arrows on the pocket chart (wish I took a pic!).
I always leave these activities out for students to try on their own afterwards while I work with my small group for math.
Peace - Remembrance Day
Since it is the week before Remembrance Day here in Canada I wanted to prepare the students by discussing what peace means to them.
We read the book, The Peace Book, by Todd Parr.
It's one of my favourites because it's simple enough for even the youngest learners to follow and understand.
Then we brainstormed what peace meant to them.
We set out the provocation asking "Can you make a poppy?" using loose parts.
In our small group (fine motor), we had students roll pieces of tissue paper into small balls and glue them onto the large poppy. What a great way to practice fine motor skills!
Leaves
Our students are still so excited that there are leaves falling from the trees that they continue to bring them to school! We decided to collect them all in our sensory bin that way we can closely see what happens to leaves over time.
I really like the book Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert. I thought it would be perfect to invite the students to create their own leaf person/animal using loose parts.
I like to laminate some of the real leaves also so that we can closely look at them (draw and paint what we see) without them getting too destroyed.
Letter Formation
It doesn't matter what time of year it is, I find students can always practice proper letter formation.
We invited students to use their finger to trace a letter in the sand tray.
The letter formation cards are found in my pack on TpT:
Math Numeral Cards - Pocket Chart
I want the students to begin to recognize numbers in various ways (dice, fingers, numeral, etc.) so we set out these cards at our pocket chart.
Alphabet Stamping
Our students are getting great at letter recognition/sound identification so this was a fun provocation to set out.
I made these letter stamping sheets in both upper and lower case as I have the letter stampers for both.
I also like to store the stampers in ice cube trays. I write the letter above so students know where to put them (it actually made the activity much easier too!)
You can download these letter stamping worksheets for FREE by clicking the picture below:
Human Body Inquiry
This is the beginning of our Human Body Inquiry. We just started working with research groups this week so there's lots more to come!
Here are my downloadable, editable plans for the week.
You might notice that on my week-at-a-glance I have a lot of centres that say "open-ended free play".
I knew that we were starting a fairly large inquiry so I didn't over plan the week.
I believe in allowing the students to also take ownership of centres and see what they would like to create and explore there. You don't always have to plan for everything!
You can download the Week-at-a-Glance PDF version{here}.
If you would like the editable version to modify this for your own class click {here}.
You will need Power Point to edit.
I used the following fonts if you wish to keep it the same (free to download):
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