MULVEY SCHOOL

Archive for the ‘Nursery AM’ Category

Thank you to all of the parents who attended student led conferences. It was so exciting for the children to share their learning with you. We spent much of this past month preparing and practicing to share our learning. Reciting the alphabet chant, listening and responding to books about spring, subitizing and showing finger patterns to 5, using our math tools to show “more” and “less,” and identifying and creating patterns with different materials. We also shared and talked about our favorite things at Mulvey School. In May Mrs. B. will be presenting us with learning materials about planting, farms and farming. The children’s interests, questions and findings will shape our learning.  Room 2 AM and PM will be attending a full day field trip to Six Pines Farm on Friday May 31^.st    Please note that there will be no classes for AM and PM students on Monday June 3^rd. 

April is a time for reflection. We look forward to seeing parents at Student Led conferences on the 18^th and 19^th of April. During this time students (with the help of the teacher) will share with you some of their learning in Nursery. You will be surprised to see how much they have grown! On a daily basis we celebrate learning new things by giving a “Yahoo to You!” When a child learns something new, tries really hard, or solves a problem during play the teacher will stop the class, grab a cowboy hat, explain what the child learned to do or worked especially hard at, and then we all cheer “YAHOO!” There have been many Yahoo’s in our class this year and we can’t wait to share them with you at our conferences.

This past month Students in Room 2 continued learning about Snakes. We read many snake books both fiction and non fiction. Through these books we learned many new snake vocabulary words. We not only talked about what these words mean but we used our bodies to act out the word to help us to remember it’s meaning. For example when saying the word “venom” we moved our hand from our mouth like we were spitting venom.  Some of the words that we learned were Scales, Carnivore, Venom, Coil, Spiral, and Slither. Ask your child to show and tell you what these words mean. Throughout our journey we focused on the letter S and many students would come to school daily with a new “S” word to add to our S chart. We practiced writing and making the sound of the letter S while singing the song of Sammy the Snake and we even did “tongue slides” and “tongue push ups” sticking our tongue out like a snake to strengthen our tongue for speech. We practiced counting snakes, played snakes and ladders and used our ears to count how many “rattles” from the rattlesnake. We listened to snake music and moved our bodies like snakes, and we learned new snake songs and rhymes. The Students had much fun making “rattle snake rattles,” “pattern spiraling snakes,” “coiling plasticine creatures” and they even made their own stuffed pet snake. To conclude our learning inquiry we had “Steve the Snake Guy” come to show us some real Snakes! Please come see a documentation of our snake journey that will soon be posted outside of room 2!

In January students in room 2 continually asked to listen to and recite the poem “The Slithery Dee.”  One of the students brought a snake finger puppet from home and said “look Mrs. B I have the Slithery Dee.” This tool (the puppet) sparked student interest and guided our circle time conversations. We began to discuss what we think the Slithery Dee looks like. We talked about what the word “Slithery” means, slithering our hands and slithering our bodies and making a slithery letter S with our fingers. After discussion students were asked to paint a picture of what they think the Slithery Dee looks like.  Many of the students thought that the Slithery Dee looked like a snake! And that determined our next learning inquiry into “Slimy” “Slithery” “Spiraling” Snakes! (Just a few vocabulary words that we have begun to focus on.) Mrs. B then brought in a snake (from her favourite store Dollerama) and the questions at circle time began to flow “Don’t snakes have tongues?” (Koul) “Some snakes are very long, are there little snakes too?” (Ocean) “Snakes eat mice.” (Max) “What else do snakes eat?” (Mrs. B) “Where do they go in the winter?” (Ava) We also discovered that our friend “Sammy the Snake” has a pattern on his back! “Do all snakes have patterns?” (Mrs. B) From these wonderings we will find answers. Off to the school library we go!

Room 2 has been busy getting ready for The “Marvelous Mulvey Express” Winter Concert. We will be performing and acting out the poem “The Chubby Snowman.” In preparation for our performance students have been having great fun drawing, counting, painting, singing, talking about and investigating snow and snow people. Below are a few photos of our little artists creations. We look forward to performing our poem for you on the 19th.  Happy Holidays!

One of the rhymes that room 2 students have been focusing on this month is

“Miss Lucy.” Miss Lucy’s silly son drinks up all the water and eats up all the soap

and he is stuck with bubbles in his throat! After reciting the rhyme students made

bubble art and made bubbles using a “bubble machine.” This activity was great fun

for the students and it allowed for extention of learning  giving great opportunity

 to expand vocabulary and promote language development. Two math vocabulary

words that the teacher used while working with the students were MOST and LEAST.

 Students enjoyed reciting the rhyme while making bubbles and talking to each

other about what happens when you blow in the bubble machine! 

 ”Oh Look it! I made a big one! A big Jelly Flood”! (Danier)

“I can not see the window. Toupee can blow bubbles. I saw it on PBS kids. I heard it.

I made a cloud. I made an eye.” (Emmanuel)

“Mine must be the biggest the hugest and the greatest!” (Max) 

“Lori look! Why are you blowing it? 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10! 10 bubbles! All gone!”

(Kevin)

This month room 2 took a great opportunity to engage in an authentic writing experience.  When the students found out that it was Mr. Correia’s Birthday they were immediately engaged and wanting to talk about their birthday, their aunty’s birthday, what they got for their birthday, and how old they are. We estimated and took guesses as to how old Mr. Correia is and we used this opportunity to practice our counting and number identification.  We also took some time to talk about birthdays practicing taking turns while speaking and telling all we know about birthdays. We then decided to make Mr. Correia a birthday card. We drew pictures of Mr. Correia, wrote his name and told one thing that we know about Mr. Correia. An authentic writing experience in action! Room 2 students were very excited to present the card to Mr. Correia and sing Happy Birthday to our favorite Principal.

Room 2 has been exploring Winter. One of the learning activities that we engaged in to develop and expand vocabulary was investigating snow. Snow was brought into the classroom for the students to investigate and they were asked to talk about and use words to describe what they experienced. A teacher recorded words that the students used during play. We then used these words to make our own snow action poem.

                                                                                               Snow (Written by room 2)

Cold Snow

Sticky Snow

Delicious Snow

Slippery Snow

                                        Crunch!