Week 16 - Review

This has been such an exciting week! We had a new friend, Carson, join us on Tuesdays & Thursdays. Now we have 2 Carson's & 2 Amelia's in the class which can make for some confusing moments for me!  We began a new unit on the continent of Europe. We learned that Europe has 47 countries and over 50 different languages are spoken! We learned that Europe is divided from Asia by the Ural Mountains, the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea.  We learned that Europe has many castles.  Castles can be made from stone or wood. The stone castles took longer to build but they lasted longer, some are still standing today! We made a picture of our own castle using some shapes...rectangles, squares, triangles and half an ellipse. Here is a sample...

We also had a great discussion about when the Europeans discovered North America initiated by a student. They took the land by force leaving many natives dead or misplaced. We talked about how we would feel if someone came and took our homes by force...the mutual feeling was not very good.  We talked about when the Europeans sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, they brought "illness/disease" with them that the natives had never been exposed to before which also resulted in some of them dying.

We learned about the parts of a sentence. That each sentence has an article (small blue triangle), an adjective (large blue triangle) a noun (large black triangle) and a verb (large red circle).  The children worked on building sentences.  Here are some that the children built...

We had a fun game of BINGO...which is a terrific way to introduce children to the 2-digit numbers as well as letter recognition! When I called out each number, I said the whole number, then broke it up into groups. For example, O 67, 6 tens and 7 units...so they would see the number as it's been introduced in other activities.

We also worked on letter sound review as well as phonogram blends...this work was especially meaningful for 2 friends who will both be turning 4 in March...it's so nice to see them working together and listening for the sounds and then remembering the 2 letters that work together to make that special sound!

And...one of my most favourite moments is when a child learns to read a book...and that they do so independently without any persuasion from me!  This happened this week.  On Wednesday, our dear 5-year old friend, spotted a book that her 4 year old friend brought in.  She asked, "Do you think I could read this book?" We all said yes, we think you can...so as I was putting lunch on the table...she began to read.  "Green Eggs and Ham", you may think - oh she has this memorized, many children can recite it.  But this was different.  She read it. She sounded out words that she didn't know the look of. And what was even better was that the other children listened as she read this book, they ate their lunch.  I ate my lunch.  When she finished reading she said, "My mouth is kind of sore, I've never read that many sentences at once!" When she began to eat, she said "Mrs. Kerr, my carrots, potatoes, beans and chicken are cold". I read so long, my food went cold, could you warm them up?"

This is what I love - the ability to have a child read in the moment and not have to tell them to put the book away because the bell went and it's time to eat. If that had happened, she may not have picked up the book again and lost this wonderful opportunity.

So, today when she returned she read "Ten Apples Up On Top" another book by Dr. Suess but one I had never read to them. This was not a familiar story.  She read it.  Up for a challenge I asked if she'd like to read part of a chapter book.  Her response, "Of course!" So, we sat down and she read the first 3 pages of a Magic Tree House Book, "The Knight at Dawn".  Her proud self said to one of her younger friends..."Did you know that I can read a chapter book, just like Mrs. Kerr? Except I'm only 5!"

I just love being able to witness this sort of thing each day!