May Newsletter and Musical Theme

Dear Parents,

Here's your May Newsletter. A hard copy should go home tomorrow with the Wednesday mail outs.

For our show and share this month, in honour of Music Monday, we're hoping you'll send in a song you really like for the class to listen to. Dancing and working to music is one of the students' favourite things, especially when we're tidying up.

Because technology can be challenging, a cd with the track number and song name clearly marked is best. If other arrangements need to be made, please let me know a couple of days in advance so we can upload the song onto one of our own devices beforehand.

I'll be asking students to tell me about the song. It's good for them to know what instruments or style of music the song belongs to, and also for them to be able to talk about why they like the song. Does it have a good beat? Is there an uplifting message? Does it make them laugh? Do they like to dance to it? All of these are valid responses, but sometimes kids need a bit of rehearsal so they know what they want to say.

Sincerely,

Ms. Goegan

3D and beyond

Dear Parents,

I'm hard at work at your newsletter and you should expect to see that posted very soon, but I also wanted to give you a taste of what we've been working on most recently.

This week we've continued to focus on building polyhedrons. I've been doing lessons to consolidate the differences between the shapes and helping students identify patterns between the number of sides and corners.


Here's an example of a chart we created to show the patterns between the number of sides and corners in different shapes:

Triangles form a point form different shaped bases

Students are slowly beginning to use the mathematical language when talking about shapes. Calling a shape a rectangular prism vs. a box, for example, is an important distinction because it places the shape in a context for them. They're also slowly developing their instincts when looking at nets about what kinds of shapes they'll become.

We've continued to make shapes from plastic shapes and also to create them from raw materials like popsicle sticks and straws. I've given students different challenges because some shapes are trickier to create without falling apart.

Triangular prisms can be pretty tricky

I like catching them smiling.  Pentagonal Pyramid was one of my challenges.

Team Hexagonal Pyramid uses a plastic shape for reference

Success!

 Other students were taxed with counting sides and corners:

We built this city with plastic shapes

Another major focus in the classroom has been Earth Day. We've been talking a lot about reducing, reusing and recycling and students have come up with some great examples. For instance, today, Blake talked about how he had his yogurt in a reusable container and that helped save plastic. Students have also been using extra cardboard to make a variety of exciting things.

A space ship of course.

We used our opening circle to talk about how to sort the garbage in our room last week as well and students had a pretty good idea of what went where:

Authentic student writing and spelling

And lest you think reading is falling by the wayside, here's a bonus super cute photo of some junior kindergarteners choosing to read on their own. 

A rare sighting in the wild

3D or not 3D, that is the question.

Dear Parents,

I've been remiss in taking photos this past week!

First of all, a big thank you to Liz, Linnaea's mom, who came in to support our Earth Day community clean up on Friday. Students were so excited to be helping out and we had a good conversation about the types of litter we noticed during our community walk.

Our current focus has been 3d solids. It's a natural extension of the sculptures that students were working on with Diane, Felix's mom in my last blog post.

It's a hexagonal prism, but he doesn't know it yet.

Students have been experimenting with making different 3D shapes with flat plastic shapes and then identifying them. We've also had straws and popsicle sticks with plasticene at the playdoh centre, where some are making shapes and others are making space ships or birthday cakes.

This is a pirate ship, of course.

Most students can tell the difference between a pyramid and a prism (The first is made with a single base linked by triangles, the second is made with two bases joined by rectangles).

The great pyramid

Many different types of pyramids and prisms are being made. Students have surprised me by remembering to name things by their bases (e.g. triangular prism vs. pentagonal prism) and seem to delight in the nomenclature. Design problems like some of the triangles being too small to join at the top of a hexagonal pyramid have been interesting. So has the student drive to make ever stranger shapes and have them identified. I learned what a hexahedron, or should I say, Triangular bipyramid, was.  Our next steps are beginning to count the sides and corners.

Students have also been playing with the nets of cubes, square-based pyramids, and cones by drawing on paper versions of them before cutting them out and pasting them together. The idea of a net is still a hard concept for many to grasp, but we plan to turn our collected shapes into a class mobile.

In conclusion, there will be more pictures next week.

Sincerely,

Ms. Goegan

Reminders

Dear Parents,

Just a reminder that we'll be walking to the library tomorrow morning (probably in the rain). Please make sure your child has weather appropriate gear for optimal comfort.

Tomorrow is also Library Day at the school.

Regards,

Ms. Goegan

Art Exploration

Dear Parents,

I hope you're appreciating the Georgia O'Keeffe inspired paintings we sent home over the weekend. I think you get a better sense of the variety and sense of engagement when you can see them in context though, so I wanted to post a picture of all the paintings together.

This afternoon, Felix's mom came in to work with us on sculpture. She talked about using everyday objects to make interesting shapes and forms (a little 3-d math refresher for students) and I have to say that some of the connections students made to the sculpture were so interesting and fresh. Diane also brought in a wealth of supplies for students to play with and experiment with sculpture. At the end of the day, we discussed what they liked about their own work and those of others. For me, some of the most interesting responses were those about enjoying the process of making, more than even the final results.

We're looking at a sculpture made out of toothpicks

Exploring materials

The human scupture

Students review some of the final results

After the long weekend, our library day is now Friday (still Day 1). 

I hope you enjoyed your long weekend break. I heard all about easter egg hunts, visits to grandparents, and trips to the museum today. 

Sincerely, 

Ms. Goegan

Snapshot

Tomorrow your acorn cards come home. Please look for the art in the backpacks!

Here's a couple snapshots from the class today:

This may be the best $2.99 I ever spent. A dental themed toy I found at Value Village has been keeping students busy checking for cavities.

We filled the water table with Goop. It's delightfully disgusting. 

Goop acts like both a solid and a liquid depending on how you treat it.

There was a puppet show happening in our tent.

And we do have a fire station after all.