The Paint Tornado and Wintery Weather

This week we started our new units in every subject.

Literacy: Writing retells

Math: Patterning and Sorting

Science: Daily and Seasonal Changes

Art: Texture and Value

I created this big idea to blend everything together: The seasons change and so do we.

Literacy

This week was all about winter. I had planned to come to school and greet them in the morning wearing a hat, scarf, and mittens. But…Monday morning was hectic as usual, so I forgot to grab my stuff as I was running out the door. Those extra ten minutes of sleep really set me back in the mornings. This was our shared reading for the week. 

I know it’s way too difficult for them to read on their own, and even very challenging for most to read along with me, but we were really working on visualizing. They loved being able to close their eyes as I read to them. I asked them what they saw in their heads as I read and one boy says, “I saw a big skeleton head on fire!” I had to clarify that visualizing meant that you had to make pictures that made sense with the words, rather than just letting random images pop into your head. It was pretty funny, nonetheless. We also used this poem to learn about long vowel sounds; specifically a and e.

Our read alouds this week were all stories that were set in the winter time, and we used them to write retells. I introduced the unit by reading The Snowy Day, and I modeled for them how to write a retell. 

 The next day I read The Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett and used this retell as a writing diagnostic (or in the current lingo, assessment for learning). I was able to create individual writing goals after reading their work. Side note: I love the beautifully detailed artwork in Jan Brett’s books. 

On Thursday, we looked at a student example, talked about what the student did well, and what he could do to make his writing even better, and from there, we created our success criteria. Then, I read them Learning to Ski with Mr. Magee for their last retell of the winter week. This book is awesome. It’s written in rhyme, so it’s that much more fun to read and listen to. The kids were howling with laughter. I even read it to them for a second time on Friday (for a refresher) because they loved it so much.

I forgot to take a picture of our success criteria, so I will post it next week.

We also learned how to make an inference. I put my stellar artistic skills to work and made this little poster.

Math

I took one day to work just on sorting because it was pretty clear they knew how to sort. We talked about the word attribute, so that they could tell me how they sorted different objects in our classroom. 

(I thought this one was rather creative)

Then we went into patterning with geometric shapes. They loved creating patterns and labeling them with A and B letters. I took a day to add in some number sense as well. I read them a story called The Sleepover. It’s a big book from the Fosnot math kit we have in our school. It’s all about how eight girls at a sleepover keep changing where they are seated on a bunk bed, and completely confusing poor Aunt Kate, because she keeps thinking that she has either lost or gained a kid while she was out of the room. It builds that concept of the conservation of a number. 

I then gave them this question in pairs: 

We ended our week with a Pattern Party! I got this idea from my friend, Sam who teaches Grade One, way up where it’s far too cold for me :P You can visit her blog to see where I got the original idea. 

Science

I find that for science and social studies, it’s a lot easier to create booklets of all the content you want to cover, and to have these booklets ready for the beginning of the unit. It also ensures the kids won’t lose all their pages. I created this booklet for them to work on throughout the unit. Click the picture for a copy. 

I also showed them The Berenstain Bears For All Seasons. It’s here on Youtube, but I found the full version through Discovery Education. York Region teachers can access it through the BWW. You’ll need a password, though.

We also learned about day and night, and the kids were just mesmerized that the earth is always spinning. They were also very intrigued when I told them my story that when I was in Ireland having breakfast, my family was still at home, sound asleep.

We also learned how to read and record the temperature on a thermometer. We make a class recording here every day and then they record it on the calendar, found in the booklet.

Art

We are learning about value: the use of light and dark shading in a picture. I showed them Starry Night by Van Gogh and we talked about how to make the colour blue light and dark. They knew to add black and white to the paint to change it’s value. I told them I wanted them to make a night time painting (to connect back to what we learned in science). Well. Didn’t they just have the time of their lives! The majority of their pictures did not exactly depict a night time scene, but they had a grand old time changing the colour blue. They painted as they listened to some music; mostly One Direction (they requested it, I swear!), and worked really well together. By the end of the period, I told them it looked like a paint tornado came through our classroom. Luckily, I have 18 little helpers who were just dying to help me clean up the gigantic mess.

That ended our fun filled wintery week. We are heading back tomorrow to learn all about spring, and to work with number patterns. As for art, I haven’t decided what I’d like to do, but the paints will be kept in the cupboard for a little while.