Looking After Living Things

This week, our friend Felicity the Fairy asked us if we could find a living thing to care for in the class.  During our daily outdoor exploration the search began!  Students found many snail shells in our school garden but only a few held living snails.  Upon returning to the classroom the students generated a series of "I Wonder" questions about our new found snail friends.  These questions lead our weekly inquiry.  
Later in the week, the students found that Felicity the Fairy had left them step by step instructions on how to build a snail terrarium.  She also helped answer many of our questions on the snails by bringing us a snail book.  

To help us to study even more living things and as a grand opening of our classroom gardening centre, Felicity the Fairy brought us succulent plants and instructions on how to build our very own fairy gardens for the class.  The students worked as a team to construct our first fairy garden and then worked at centres with an instructor over the course of the week to create 3 others.  While transferring different plants from one container to another the students examined the plants' roots.  Through their questioning, they learned that the roots help to anchor the plant and deliver water and nutrients to it.

Throughout the week, students also continued to build their number sense through our daily math routines and hands-on exploration in learning centres.  This week as a group we learned the game Race to 20.  Here the students examined place value and learned how when a 10s frame is full in the 1s place we trade it in for a group of 10.  Students also continued to work on their number formation, pencil grip and fine motor skills through their daily number tracing.

In writing this week, students continued to work on our letter of the week "S" and our word of the week, "you".  We played a quick game each day to chant the spelling of this word in silly ways.  Student also had the opportunity to work as song writers this week and write a lyric to our classroom lullaby, "This Little Light of Mine."  The students also had the opportunity to make a name bracelet with letter beads. We also started working on a class book which will be revealed soon!