Learning Buddies

Today our grade two learning buddies came for a visit.  This is the second time that they have come to visit the morning class and the first time for the afternoon class.  The grade two students in Mme Pecarski and Mme Stairs' classes made up number flashcards to practise number recognition and sequencing in French with our kindergarten students.  The younger students love the chance to learn with some older buddies and the grade two's do a great job acting as teachers!

Winter Activity Centres

In our centres this week the students were completing some winter science, language and art activities. 

Students conducted science experiments to see if an ice cube melts faster in hot water, cold water, someones hands, sprinkled with salt or left alone in a bowl.  They worked together to predict the outcome and record their results.

We read the book 'Fais comme moi, Cachou' and the students illustrated the main characters and their favourite part of the story.

Painting is a hoot!  Students' painted some beautiful owls on a snowy winter night.

Center Time!

Well, we are off to a great start in 2013!  I hope everyone had a happy and restful break (I know I sure did!). 

Since coming back to school we have once again started working on four different centers at a time (we tried it earlier in the fall and found that we just weren't quite ready for it!).  What this means is that each of the four groups of students in the class has a different 'job' to do for the day (we call it our 'travail'), in addition to free-choice centers and snack time.  We have four jobs on the go at a time, which students will rotate through over the course of four days.  On the fifth day we will usually do an activity all together. 
Here are some snapshots of the centers that we have been working on this week . . .

We have been learning the French vocabulary words for some winter clothing items and each student is adding a page to our class book about what they wear in the winter.

We talked about how mittens always come in matching groups of two.  Students then get to make their own pair of mittens that we then used to practise counting by 2's.

We have also been talking about 'plus' (more) and 'moins' (less).  Students used plastic tongs to add Cheerios to their work to see which number was greater.

In other news . . .

I finally got around to enlisting the help of some grade 8 'tech' support to get our ancient Mac computers up and running and the students are thrilled to be able to use this technology in the classroom!