Teddy Bears, Weather and Push Pins?

The new month brings with it new themes, and this month our themes are "Teddy Bears" and "Weather Watchers".  These themes are interwoven in our math and literacy activities throughout the month of November.  

Here's a peek at some of the things we are doing in JK this month:

You'll find a few FREEBIES along the way...

The first is a literacy activity that I am currently doing with my class.  

They use Teddy Bear flashcards, this highlighting worksheet, and they all need a highlighter, of course!!  The flashcards are placed upside down in the centre of the table.  

Students in the group take turns drawing a card, reading the letter (if they can identify it), then they show everyone in the group and they all highlight it on the teddy bear recording sheet. 

 I had a good laugh when one of my students piped up and said that she didn't think she was big enough for highlighters.  

I put her fears at ease and told her that I thought they were ALL big enough to use them...

Bear Highlighting Worksheet freebie can be found {here} or {here}.

Teddy Bear flashcards can be found {here} or {here}.

We started a new unit on Weather, so I created a few things to use in my class to go along with this unit.  

The first is a self portrait frame to be used during the introductory lesson on the different types of weather.  After talking about the different types of weather, we made an ideas "map" together as a class.  Then the children went to work making a picture of themselves "outside in their favourite type of weather".  The pictures were hung in the hallway on our new WEATHER bulletin board.  Most children like sunny warm weather the best, but some were rather fond of rain and storms!

Here's the self-portrait sheet:

I will have to post a picture of our bulletin board when I remember to bring my camera to school!

Along with this unit, we will be recording the types of weather that we are experiencing this month.  The children will have an opportunity to make pictures of our weather, recording it on a chart.

The children will also participate in some literacy activities related to our weather unit.  The first is a "write-the-room" activity where they can hunt around the room for the weather words:

and then write them on the recording sheet:

The next literacy activity is one in which the children use letter tiles to spell weather words.  I made my own letter tiles out of card-stock paper and laminated them...much cheaper than the ones I found online...we shall see how long they last.

The weather activities can be found {here} and {here}.

The next activity is another freebie.  It involves push pins 

and little children.  

I know that sounds a bit scary, but with supervision, I'm quite sure they can handle it.

The children are given worksheets that have different shapes on them.  They use a push pin to poke holes in the paper, all along the outline of the shapes.  It's great fun, wonderful for fine motor development, and the kids love it when they can hold the paper up to the light and see the great shape that they made!

Let me just reiterate, that SUPERVISION is vital...

This shape activity contains 9 shapes:

octagon, heart, diamond, square, rectangle, oval, pentagon, triangle and circle.

You can find this freebie {here} or {here}.

The last freebie today is a collection of teddy bear ten frames.....great for a math centre!

You can find this freebie {here} or {here}.