Ms. Vanderwel's Room

I can hardly believe that we are almost done the month of September! It's amazing how time flies! Here's a look at our week. ------------------------------------------------- In language arts we have learned 4 new High Frequency Words: said, I, the, and. These words are up in the classroom so that students can reference them when doing writing activities. Many of these words are called "Heart Words" because there is a part of the word we cannot use our phonics knowledge to decode. For example, in the word "said" the /ai/ makes the short /e/ sound not the long /a/ sound. These words are important to know and be able to use in our writing and early reading activities.           We have also continued to review sounds of the alphabet and categorizing pictures based on their beginning sounds.  In math, we continued to explore numbers to 20. Students also began learning a new math skill-- subitizing. When we subitize we try to recognize a group of dots or object...

  Happy Friday! Here's what we've been up to! --------------------------------------------------------- In language arts, students have continued learning about different letter sounds. They listened for words in stories with the target sounds of /s/ and /m/, sorted picture cards based on the beginning sounds and completed some activity sheets. They  also began working through some fine motor stations to build their muscle strength and pincer grasp. This will assist students as they continue to develop and refine their printing skills. In math, students have begun to work on building and recognizing numbers to 20 quickly and accurately. They used ten frames to build teen numbers and explored the idea that teen numbers are composed of a ten and ____ more. For example, 13 would be a 10 and 3 more.  In science, students were asked "What is a scientist?". They brainstormed their own ideas and then listened to scientists describe what they do. The students then drew a pict...

Happy Friday! Take a peek at what we have been up to this week : )  ------------------------------ This week, students began working in the writing journal. As a class we brainstormed ideas for writing and then students got to work. First they drew a picture of their topic and then they wrote a few words, letters or even a sentence about their picture. Students are learning to listen for sounds in words and trying to match them to letter that they know. After that, students had a chance to come to the carpet and share their writing with their classmates. .          We continued to work on rhyme listening to stories with rhyming words and we played a fun game of Rhyming Bingo. We also went on a letter hunt. The students searched around the classroom for pictures and then wrote down the letter that matched the picture.         In math, we created two more graphs. One was about our favourite colours and the other about how we get ...

Hello Families! We have finished our first week of school. Take a look below for a sneak peek at what we've been up to : )  ----------------- This week we have spent time getting to know each other and becoming familiar with the routines of the classroom. The students have adjusted well to full days and are really enjoying participating in morning and lunch recess! We have also read a number of books about treating others the way we want to be treated and making good choices. We read "Office Buckle and Gloria" and "Do Unto Otters" to learn about the importance of rules, safety and kindness. Students sorted various actions into good choices and poor choices and pasted them into a chart.    We also began reading books by Dr. Suess and discussing rhyme. The students listened for rhyming words in stories, played a variety of rhyming games and completed some rhyming sheets.       In math we have been working on reviewing numbers to 10 and 20 and also talking abo...