Happy April! It's (slowly) starting to feel like spring and with Easter just around the corner, we have lots of fun things planned!
April 4-8, 2022
Our "Letter of the Week" lessons finished last week so we will now be moving on to word families. I like to do several word families over the next few weeks. I made these digital interactive slides last spring when we were remote but I'll be projecting them in our whole group lessons. I also like using these word cards. I choose a student to add a magnetic letter to the beginning of the word and spell it!
We had a lot of fun with story writing last month. Our new focus is on writing our own books!
We will be brainstorming what our favourite things are...sports, food, colours, pets, etc. and creating a book all about that! It's a great starting point to book making as students can simply label the picture they drew on each page (some may chose to write a simple sentence) but it makes everyone feel like they can make their own book!
We follow my "I Can Write #2" pack if you are looking for this activity and more!
Capacity and Weight
Our next unit in math is all about measurement - capacity and weight!
This week we will be leaving out coloured rice and a variety of measuring spoons/cups and containers (cups, buckets, bottles, etc.) We used to do this at our Water Centre also but we haven't introduced that centre yet (taking things slowly with restrictions mainly lifted).
We will be thinking about capacity questions and exploring many hands on! I put these posters on the board to discuss with the class.
Here are a few of the activities I have planned for exploring weight using a balance.
With Easter just around the corner, we will be focusing on a few different activities.
Palm Sunday is next weekend so we will be reading a short passage from the Children's Bible and creating our own palms.
There is a beautiful story called The Tale of the Three Trees that is perfect for Lent!
After we read the story, we will complete a response sheet.
I have a whole bunch of activities if you are looking for ways to prepare your students for Easter in my Lent and Holy Week Religion Pack in my TpT store. I will share more pictures next week (closer to Easter) with other activities we have planned!)
And, of course, the week wouldn't be complete without fun games to play at the end of the day (my students LOVE this time!).
I created a few new ones for Easter! You can use them this week or next!
Click the pictures to check them out.
Here are a few of our provocations we set out this week!
Can you create an Easter game?
Easter egg cookie cutter painting!
I found these cookie cutters at Walmart a few years back. I love how they are seriated (small to large) - look at the beautiful art that we created!
Our Easter card this year is simple but beautiful!
Students used their fingers dipped in paint to colour in the cross.
Our craft was very sweet also - we set out a provocation a couple of weeks back inviting students to use loose parts to decorate a bunny. We snapped a pic, printed it and had students paint a frame.
You can also follow me on Instagram to see what's happening in our room!
At our Science and Discovery Centre, we set out a colour mixing provocation.
You can download my weekly plans for FREE by clicking the picture below.
April 11-15, 2022
It's finally Easter! Our students are very excited for all the fun activities we have in store this week.
We read a variety of Easter stories and retold it!
The Last Supper was very special! We created our own rip art pieces.
We learned about important Easter symbols.
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You can find all of these activities and so much more in my Lent and Holy Week Religion Pack.
Our Easter small world play is so much fun! Most of these loose parts I purchased from Dollarama over the years. This is definitely a centre I know my students have such a high interest in - they love making up stories and adventures! I've ordered a few high quality pieces to add and change things up here so stay tuned!
Here's another Easter game we set out this week - we added Easter eggs (filled with pom poms), tweezers and muffin tins.
We will be continuing to explore colour mixing at our Science and Discovery Centre...last week we learned about primary and secondary colours. This week we are exploring what happens when you add white (and even black!) to colours! We are also going to be co-creating a colour wheel.
Students will be creating their own paint colours and naming them!
At our Dramatic Centre, we set up a Sandwich Shop!
You can find this Dramatic Play Centre here:
I work with small groups on a regular basis. I create these groups based on what students are working towards (letter identification/sounds, sight words, sentence building, fine motor, etc.)
Here are a few FREE downloads that you can use for your small groups!
In math we are continuing with our measurement unit - we will be focusing on area and temperature!
You can find all of these (and so much more!) in my Measurement in Kindergarten math pack in my TpT store!
We set up this provocation to continue to explore area!
One student even created a checkerboard which we had to print!
Look what happened when we left it at the math centre...it became a new game!
During our Writer's Workshop block, we made our own alphabet books!
We looked at a few different examples, chose our favourite letter and created our own!
You can find this in my "I Can Write #2" pack.
You can download my weekly plans for FREE by clicking the picture below.
April 18-22, 2022
It's Earth Day coming up this Friday! We have a few special things planned to celebrate.
We can create the earth using loose parts.
Also for Earth Day, we will be going outside and trying this fun scavenger hunt!
You can download this for FREE from my TpT store!
We planted and learned about taking care of our earth!
We even learned about the importance of keeping our oceans clean with the Kiwi Co. oil spill challenge!
Thank you to A.'s family for donating this fun kit!
We will also be looking closely at flowers (I'll be bringing in my Easter centrepiece after this weekend!) and painting them.
On Friday (which happens to be Earth Day) we will be planting in our front garden!
In math, we will be learning all about addition.
One of my favourite games to start the unit off is The Children on the Bus where we add and take away children on our 'bus' (chairs).
We will also be playing some games this week including shake and spill with double-sided counters, to explore the concept of making 5 or 10.
We learn to count the numbers separately before joining them below.
After we have practised this, we can choose an addition question and use the bingo dabbers to show our thinking.
I introduced this Going Fishing game last week but it's been such a hit that I left it out for students to play.
Lots of work around reading and solving addition sentences.
In small groups I will also be playing "Roll and Move" - roll the die and move that many.
If you would like to see more addition activities, you can click below to check out my Addition in Kindergarten pack!
You can download my weekly plans for FREE by clicking the picture below.
April 25-29, 2022
We celebrated Earth Day last week and are eager to welcome spring (the weather is finally starting to warm up!).
We set up this provocation at our Science and Discovery Centre. Students can look closely and document their findings.
Can you use the rocks and make a path? Each rock has a design on it. Connect it and see how far you can make your path!
Small world play is one of our favourite centres! I added these wooden community pieces from Melissa and Doug.
I also am so very grateful for my principal who allowed the K team to order a few things for small world play! Wait until you see how we use these!
These felt mats and wooden pieces are from Just Add Imagination Co on Etsy.
In math, we are continuing with addition.
We are using dice and small animals to solve addition sentences!
I love the story Domino Addition. As a follow up, we can choose a domino and add the numbers!
We are also learning how to use addition mats to help us show our work and solve the questions.
If you would like to see more addition activities, you can click below to check out my Addition in Kindergarten pack!
In religion, our focus is on the changing season of spring.
We will be listening to the song What a Wonderful World and illustrating the lyrics.
We will also be listening to the story Outside My Window and documenting our spring findings outside! I like to do this several times a year to see the seasonal changes!
(This picture is just an example of one we did last year at the end of the year when it was summer).
The students really wanted to get outside to see seasonal changes so we packed this activity in our Wonder Wagon and away we went!
You can find this activity, and so much more, in my Religion - April pack.
Here's a fun game my students love to play year round - Cartesian Plane Spring!
I project one of the grids on my interactive whiteboard. Students choose a letter and number. We bring our fingers to the square and remove the tile. Can you find a picture underneath? Let's try and find all of the spring pictures!
You can download my weekly plans for FREE by clicking the picture below.
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