Five for Friday: May 8

Another week down!
I'm back to link up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching to share five things from my week! :)


and I'm also linking up with Teaching Blog Addict for Freebie Friday.
You can find the freebies under 2 and 3.




We introduced new play dough mats!


These alphabet play dough mats have been a huge hit and a great support for the kids who need it.

This is a free download from This Reading Mama!


Our caterpillars are growing so fast!
We have been making observations every day.

Here is what are observation table looks like most days.
Magnifying glasses, caterpillar/butterfly books, pencils, crayons, observation sheets, hanging folders (to keep their observation sheets/book covers in) and mini cubes to measure the caterpillars with.


Mid week my ECE partner transferred the caterpillars over to the net with the kids.

They were so excited to watch her! 


Click on the image below if you would like to check out the butterfly observation and other printables in my TPT store :)



We are still working hard on mastering addition and subtraction!

We practiced with these addition and subtraction sticker stories this week.


Click here to grab the template for free!


We made this craft for our mom's this week!


I got the idea from Food, Love & Life.

This is my sample.

And we did a directed drawing and drew our moms.
They drew in pencil, I outlined it for them with a Sharpie and then they coloured it in with crayon.
Then I glued them onto manila folders and laminated them for durability.

Here is my sample...


And these are by the kids!




We put our flower craft inside and sent them home!
I hope the moms love them!


One area of focus for our team for the next 2 months is problem-solving and supporting students through solving open-ended and higher-order thinking questions.

We decided on several different questions to try and here is the first one.

First I did this activity with them whole group.


I did an example then I had some students come up and create a pattern with pattern blocks for me.  Then I drew their pattern and we circled the core and labelled the pattern together.

Then students were able to try these prompts at centre time.
Here is an amazing one that one of my kiddos made.


At first I told him, "remember we are solving the problem not just building!" To this he replied I did solve the problem! It's an ABABCB pattern and the second shape is a yellow hexagon!"

!!!

I looked closely and realized he was right.
What a creative thinker! I was blown away!
(Although he missed the "using 10 pattern blocks" part of the instructions.. but I let that fly since I was so impressed with his creativity!)

I had some of my kids try a similar but different problem and record their ideas as well.



We were so happy with how it went!
It's making it's way onto an interactive math board which I will share soon ;)

That's it from me!
I hope you have a great weekend!

8 comments

  1. Their directed drawings turned out amazing!! Love the way you took the standard patterning question and added complexity - love that some of your students took the challenge and ran with it. Nice to find another Ontario blog.

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    1. Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment! Where in Ontario and what grade do you teach?

      Yukari

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  2. DIG your block patterning! Many thanks for linking up at Freebie Friday!

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  3. Love your blog and the ideas you share! :)

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  4. Hello Yukari!
    I wanted to purchase your butterfly observation pack, but it seems like it is no longer available on your TPT store.

    Is it still available?
    Lauren

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    1. Hi Lauren! I'm in the process of updating this pack for 2016. I hope to have it back on TPT by next weekend!

      Yukari

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  5. love your ideas..though i don't love how you worded a sentence in your description. it may seem like a small thing but many ECE's hear it everyday and it's not respectful ie "Mid week my ECE transferred the caterpillars over to the net with the kids." the part that bothers me is 'my ECE' ..the ECE does not belong to the teacher ..we don't say, when speaking about our partners, 'my teacher' ..we say my teaching partner ..a small thing but an important thing

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    1. Hi Susan. I understand your concern and it is one I have heard before. But anyone who knows me also knows that I value and treat my ECE partner as my equal and as a valuable teaching member of our classroom. The partnership is implied. We value each other tremendously. She knows it and I know it and I think that's all the really matters. I can see that it bothers you so I will change the wording but I may have stated it this way before and I cannot go back change the wording on every blog post. I just think we should focus more on cases where ECE partners are actually being disrespected and undervalued for their hardwork. Just my thought.

      - Yukari

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