Writing

Besides choice time, writing is the kids favourite time of the day.  They have been busy writing books for several months now.  They are able to write on any topic, picking the size of paper, and amount of pages of each book.  Some children chose to write about a variety of topics while others write about the same thing most times.

Students have a choice to either bring their books home or hanging them in the hallway.  They are very proud of their work.  I took these pictures this afternoon during writing time.  You can see how hard they are all working.  The students often ask to go and show Mrs. Neufeld and Mrs. Gross their writing.

Writing generally starts with a short lesson and then students are given time to write.  They always have the option of starting something new or continuing to work on something.  They each have a workbin to store their work in.  They write for up to 45 minutes and then we share.  Students have the option of sharing unless I have asked them to share. 

Outside Choice Time

Your kids may have mentioned that this week we are having two choice times a day.  I've done some research that shows that kindergarten students progress best when they have time to learn in a guided environment during play. I'm pretty sure that the students are going to enjoy our two choice times a day but I will evaluate it to see if I find it beneficial.  

Today we had one of our choice times in the class where the focus was on making paper airplanes and building snail homes.  These activities are very student driven and create a lot of social interaction. 

During our outside choice time all of the paper airplanes were brought outside to play with.  We built a course to measure how far the airplanes can fly.  The group has been creating airplanes for a few weeks.  It will be interesting to see how long this interest lasts for.

 

After choice time we have a discussion about what was learned -

- that the higher the plane goes the farther it goes

-that wind can make the planes go faster

-that poorly built planes don't fly very well.

-that you can learn to build a new type of plane by a friend

-that you can work with people that you normally don't

 

That's a lot of learning during play time.

A collection of paper airplanes made by one student. 
You can see the amount of work involved in planning as they are all a different design.

This is the course that measures the distance that an airplane can fly.  The markings are one yard in length.

The course was very busy.

Spring Make & Take

School Yard Adventure

 

There is a sand pile that is used for long-jump in the back field.  We like to go and build castles and volcanoes in it.  Last time they found the wooden brace that is used as a guide for jumping.  The class is now practicing long-jump; they should be great by the time their old enough for track & field.

 

 

You can see the line as they wait for their turn.

The big adventure we had happened when the school maintenace department came to work in the field.  The kids were so surprised to see the big truck driving around the field.

The workers were removing a pole from the goal post to make room for baseball season.

When the pole was removed they were able to stomp down the soil.

 

The kids are hoping that they will be able to watch the pole go back in when they are in grade one.  That will be sooner than we think.