Saturday, January 19, 2013

Mitten Time

Winter is upon us, and we have been having a wonderful time enjoying this season!  
It might take us a little longer to get dressed for recess, but we are thankful when God sends us some snow to play in.  In light of our winter theme, we read a couple winter themed Jan Brett books: "The Mitten" and "The Hat".  Last week, we made a cooperative class book.  Everyone drew a picture of something they would like to have in their mitten.  The caption read as follows, "My mitten is so big a __________ can fit in it!" 
 The book has been added to our class library.  The children love reading all the books we have made together as a class!
You can find this freebie {here} or {here}.

This mittens letter-search handout is a review of some of the jolly phonics letters that we have covered so far this year.  
You can find this freebie {here} or {here}

We are focusing on the numbers 1-5 this month, so I created a few new math centre activites.  This one is a "ten-frame" activitiy that involves cutting and pasting snowflakes on to a ten frame.  (I am amazed at how the students' scissor skills have improved in the last few months.) 

If you're interested in this activity, you can find it {here} or {here}.

This is another abc winter highlighting page that can be used with the Mitten flashcards.  Place the cards in the centre of the table, upside down.  The children take turns picking a flashcard, identifying the letter of the alphabet, and then they highlight the corresponding letter on the page.  They take turns until all of the flashcards are used.  (Another option: have all the children highlight every letter that gets pulled).
Find this activity {here} or {here}.


Friday, January 11, 2013

God's Little Helpers

This week in Bible, we have been learning about the young boy Samuel.  This afternoon we talked about how God uses even little people to do work for Him.  We talked about how we can show God that we love Him by loving others AND we can also show others we love them by helping them!

As a follow-up activity to our Bible story, we made another class book together.  First, we had a brainstorming session to come up with a wonderful list of activities that we can do to help those around us.  Next, everyone drew a picture of how they could be a helper in their own special way.

Here are just a few fun pages from our book...