Our class read this book today which was about Diwali (Deepavali). Students learned that Diwali is a day that is celebrated by many people and they also learned about the diyas that are lit during this time, which is usually darker. Students also learned about sweets that are eaten at this time, such as jilabis.

We read this silly book today about a girl named Daisy who would not eat her peas! Her mom tried everything, and she still said no. However, at the end of the story, she learns that her mom does not like vegetables all that much herself! It was a very silly book, but it was great for discussing healthy eating!

Our class learned to do the Macarena dance today! They already knew the actions because they have been doing the actions to the months of the year song everyday, so they were familiar with the actions to the Macarena song as well! They had lots of fun!

We examined pumpkin seeds today! Our class talked about what it looks like and feels like, and then we all peeled them open to see what was inside. We discovered that it was softer on the inside and that it was green! Students learned that the outer part was called a shell, and that it protects the seed inside.

We read this book today and it's a story about a girl named Harriet who wanted to keep all of her Halloween candy to herself without sharing it with her little baby brother. She tried many ways to hide the candy, but at the end, she decided to eat as much as she can so that she did not have to share it. Of course, she ended up getting super sick, and THEN she decided to share it (because she could not eat any more). Our students concluded that she should have shared it in the first place! This book talks about the importance of sharing.

Our class took part in the parade by walking around the school to show off our outfits! They had lots of fun seeing everyone's costumes from around the school as all classes walked by our classroom after we finished our walk! Our team of educators in the classroom took on an aviation theme this year!

Our class read this silly book today about a couple of Halloween creatures and monsters who discover that they are not alone in the house. The one that they were most afraid of was the boy who lives in the house! It's a silly book for a fun-filled day!

Here is what some of us chose to do today!

We combined all of our students' designs and came up with a smiley Jack-O-Lantern design! We put a little blue light inside, just to make it look a little bit more eerie!

We carved a pumpkin together as a class and students had the opportunity to safely try using the carving tool to cut the pumpkin open. Students examined what it felt like and what it smelled like! A lot of students said that it was slimy and yucky, but several students said that it smelled "interesting"!

Our class played a modified version of Duck Duck Goose using pumpkins. Students had to carry the pumpkins on their heads while walking around! It was lots of fun and students practised being safe!

Thanks to Mr. Hersh, we got a chance to see a sprout coming out of the pumpkin seed! We will continue to observe this throughout the next few days! This ties in perfectly with the book that we read this morning together called, "Liltte Boo!"

We have a few new centres this week, including a centre where your child can find letters to make the sight words that they have been practising, a centre where children can work together to play a game where they learn that each win gets counted on a "bar graph" template, and we will also be focusing on the letter C this week!

Our class read this story today about a pumpkin seed that wanted to be big and scary, but it was too small. It planted itself into the soil and grew into a big pumpkin plant, and then into a pumpkin. This story allowed us to have a discussion about growth process of a pumpkin because we are exploring pumpkins and we will be carving a pumpkin in the afternoon.

Dear parents, Our class has been working on reading this weekly poem this past week, so we are ready to read it to you! This poem has sight words such as, "the", "come", and "out". Please have your child practise reading this to you this weekend, and bring back the yellow folder this coming Monday. Thanks!

We read this silly book today about a pumpkin that a few people tried to roll around, but it went out of control because it was too big! In the story, students learned that pumpkins can be used to make pies, bread, and soup! It was a silly, and fun, way to talk about what we can do with pumpkins other than just making them into Jack-O-Lanterns!

We played a game today where we passed around 6 pumpkins! It was lots of fun and our class learned how to increase their level of focus by sitting facing the outside of the circle so that we would not be distracted by watching others across from us!

We also played a game today where we passed 6 pumpkins around when the music played! Our class had a lot of fun and they learned how to focus on waiting for the next pumpkin to be handed to them. They figured out that it was better to look outside the circle to keep them from being distracted while waiting to pass around the next pumpkin.

Our class practised our lefts and rights today using a fun song/activity! We will practise this every now and then!

Our class read this silly story about a woman who swallowed a bat along with a lot of other things. We used it as an opportunity to talk about how not everyone celebrates Hallowe'en and that it's okay to have different values and beliefs!

Our class read this fun book today about a witch who kept losing her things as she was flying on her broom. Each time, another animal finds her missing object and then joins her on her ride! It was a fun book that allowed us to have a discussion about Halloween!

Here is what your child chose to do today at our learning centres!

For fun, our class learned and practised the poem, "The Five Little Pumpkins", today. Our students had a lot of fun performing the actions to the poem because the actions can be quite silly and dramatic! Here is the poem: Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate. The first one said, "Oh my, it's getting late!" The second one said, "There are witches in the air!" The third one said, "But we don't care!" The fourth one said, ":Let's run and run and run!" And the fifth one said, "We're ready for some fun!" Then "Oooooooooo" went the wind and out went the lights, and the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight!

We read the sequel to the book, Sophie's Squash (the one that we read and discussed yesterday). In this book, the story continues where Sophie brings her two new baby squash to school and she keeps them as friends. She refused to become friends with anyone else because she already had the two squash as friends. Throughout the book, Sophie learned that humans make better friends because they can like what she likes and also play with her. In addition, her squash began to rot again, so she had to plant them in the soil again. This book gave us an opportunity to discuss what makes friends friends!

Our class played a spinner game today where they spun an electronic spinner on the Smartboard to see which side it would land on on each turn! If it landed on the Boys side, the boys will get a point. If it landed on the Girls side, the girls will get a point. Students are learning, through this fun game, that information can be organized in the form of a chart and that each spin gets recorded in order from top to bottom. Students will be doing this game in small groups next week and filing out a "game board" organizer!

Our class played a fun game of phonetic sound bingo today! Students heard various letter sounds and had to press on the corresponding letter! They really enjoyed practising their phonetic sounds through games!

This is what your child chose to do today at our learning centres!

Here is what your child chose to do today at one of our learning centres!

Our class learned about how to take a very simple "Yes/No" kind of survey. They are learning that we can only ask one question-at-a-time in a survey and that we can either colour in the squares or simply write check marks there to represent a person's response. Students will get a chance to practise taking surveys at one of our learning centres this week! This is a part of our mathematics program (data management and probability)!

This week, we have a whole new set of centres. We are focusing on the letter N for our letter work, printing our sight words from last week, designing a jack-o-lantern, observing squash/pumpkins/leaves (and drawing/writing about it), and we are learning to do surveys. We also have new glow-in-the-dark and semi-transparent creepy crawlies at the light table centre!

Our class practised how to pass an object carefully around while playing a modified version of the game, "Hot Potato". We discussed how to pass heavier objects safely and we also had lots of fun! It also gave all students a chance to feel the squash and to see how heavy it actually felt!

Today, we read the story, "Sophie's Squash". It's about a girl who liked a squash that her family bought for supper one day and drew a face on it and took care of it like a real child. Overtime, though, the squash started to rot and Sophie was forced to find ways to properly take care of her squash friend. Throughout the read aloud, we made connections to what we learned about rotting, and we also talked about different kinds of dishes that we can make using squash!

Students participated in a challenge to build their own play scape after we explored the different shapes, colours, and patterns that were there this morning. They were given an opportunity to choose the type of materials that they wanted to use to build their own play scapes. The students had lots of fun!

Our class has been working on reading this poem together during this past week! We are sending this poem home today in your child's communication bag. Please ask your child to read this to you, and have her/him point to the words (on the dots underneath the words) to help improve their reading accuracy! Please practise reading this with them everyday this weekend, and return the folder on Monday. Thanks!

Ms. P, our E.C.E. candidate, taught a lesson outside with our students today where they explored our playground area to look for shapes, numbers, and patterns. Students identified rectangles, circles, and numbers all over the place! It helped our students to make connections between what they have been learning inside the classroom with the world outdoors!

We read this book today and discussed all of the changes that take place during the fall season, from leaves changing into different colours to birds flying south for the winter. This book is a very interesting book that mixes up all of the changes in each season and puts it into a very creative poem. Our students loved how silly this book was and it lent itself perfectly to our discussion on changes during the fall season.

Our class examined the leaves that we gathered and we discovered that leaves can also have purple hues in them. We learned that leaves are green because the green colour is what helps them to absorb (or "eat") sunlight to make sugar (sap, or "maple syrup") for the tree. The red colours are present when the sugars freeze inside the leaves overnight, and the yellowish brown colours is what is in the leaf once all the green colour is gone.

Your child was working hard at their learning centre today! Here is what they did!

This week had a special day and it was E.C.E. Appreciation Day! Our class presented gift bags to our E.C.E.s a way of showing them how much we appreciate what they do! We all said our "Thank You's!" We are learning that there are many ways to show our appreciation, such as saying thank you, using our words to express our appreciation, drawing pictures, or writing cards!

Our class learned about syllables today! We clapped to the syllables in each child's name! Students are learning that each sound that we can find in a word constitutes a syllable!

Dear parents, Our class is learning these 10 sight words. Our goal is to become so familiar with them so that they can read these words automatically each time the word appears in front of them! Please cut them out and use them as flash cards to help her child to learn these words! It will help them to read with increased independence because these words are in most of the books that they will be reading!

We read this book today as part of our inquiry on leaves. This story is very much like the one that we read a couple of days ago about a bear who thought that the leaves were hurt when they fell down from the tree. Throughout the read-aloud, we discussed what we knew about leaves and the changes that happen to trees in the fall, and we also talked about how leaves turning brown is different from a banana turning brown from rotting. In the story, Fletcher the fox learns that each season brings about beautiful changes to the tree (such as icicles hanging from the branches in the winter).

Our class went on a leaf hunt this afternoon! We talked about how leaves come in different kinds of colours and shapes, and one of our students said that leaves cannot be blue. So our class set out to find out whether that was true or not, and we will be examining the leaves during the rest of this week to make observations and hypotheses about why leaves change colour the way that they do!

We read the story, "Leaf Man", today and the story takes our students through a journey that leaf man went on as he was being blown away by the wind. He passes by ducks, cows, forests, etc.. Every picture in the story is made using a combination of different leaves. This week, our class will be examining why leaves change their colours, why they only change to certain colours such as red, orange, yellow, and brown, and why leaves have different shapes.

Our class worked at new learning centres this week. We are working on ten new sight words to help us read with increased independence, learning about the letter P, making pictures of things using leaves and glue (inspired by Leaf Man), and filling in the missing parts of a pattern!

Our class completed our patterning centres today! We have been encouraging our students to explore, extend, and create repeating patterns using a variety of materials! Here is a snapshot of some of the centres that we completed today!

For the next two weeks, we will be learning these 10 high-frequency words that show up in most of the books that we will be reading. Once your child becomes familiar with these words, he or she will be able to read with increased independence!

Our class played several games together today to help to help develop teamwork skills (such as cooperation).