Today we started our advent reverse calendar were the first batch of children brought in some non-perishable food items for the needy. Tomorrow it is the turn of the following children
Maurizio
Jeanmarie
Jake
Emmalene
We also spoke about a good deed which was linked to our circle time story – The Elves and the Shoemaker.
Just like the elves helped the shoemaker and his wife by making shoes and in return the man and his wife sewed clothes for the elves even we can help others.
We mentioned many ways we can help in class a well as at home. These are some of the things the children mentioned, give the remote to daddy or mummy, clearing the toys, laying the table, dusting our room, carrying a bag or two for mum or grandma, helping with picking up the things from the floor.
Please remind the children of the good deed of the day so they carry out this good deed at home.
The first letter for the 10th week was letter o – oval. The children saw that the baubles on the Christmas tree were special. They have an oval shape.
As you got used to by now we brainstorm for other words which start with letter sound o. The children came up with the following words, orange, Olav and olive. We then used our bodies to mimic on, over.
Last but not least we took a look at the names of the children whose names start with o, Olda 🙂
The children also followed the Jolly phonics story for the letter o sound:
A family moves into a new house. The children’s bedroom has bunk beds in it. The sister has the top bunk. When they are in bed, the brother will not sleep. He plays with the light switch, turning it on and off,/o,o,o,o/.
N.B. I told the children that they should not play with the switches like the boy in the story.
Jolly Phonic Rhyme Letter o sound
Pretend to turn a light switch on and off and say /o,o,o,o/.
Letter o formation
Step 1 – Start at the dot, make a curve
Step 2 – Go all the way round and join.
We ended the lesson by doing the letter o formation using the crayon technique or what we call in class the rainbow technique.
The children also stuck a recycled oval Christmas card representing the oval shape on their workbooks.
Practice Ideas For Home
You can practice the letter formation by using a white board and colourful washable markers using the steps above.
You can place about 5 objects or pictures on the table, amongst which you have objects starting with the letter o sound.
Say the name of each object emphasizing and exaggerating the first letter sound of each object and ask your child if that object or picture starts with the letter sound o. This is a skill which needs loads of practice, so don’t get worried if they are not understanding exactly what this means. Praise at this point is very important to build their confidence 🙂
During our numeracy sessions we also spoke about shapes. In the previous blog I mentioned that the baubles on our tree had a special shape – oval.
Properties of an oval
Ms. Oval is another friend of ours who helps us form her shape. She is actually best friends with Ms. Circle. However Ms. Oval loves to stretch a lot. She looks like a stretched circle. She can stand up of lie down.
An oval is
Like a stretched circle
It can stand up or lie down
It has no sides
It has no corners
It cannot roll
We saw various oval shaped objects: baubles, clock, mirror, face, plate and watch.
The children proceeded to work on their shapes book where they chose the oval from other shapes and coloured it in. They also stuck a bauble made out of recycled Christmas cards onto the same workbook.
O – Oval links us to the literacy lessons. See literacy blogs for more detail.
Rectangle
During the 10th week we also worked on another shape – the rectangle. The children saw that the presents under the Christmas Tree could be square like the shape we had done some time ago or they could be rectangle shaped. Mr. Rectangle helped us see his properties.
A rectangle has four sides.
Two of these sides are stretched.
It has 4 corners
It has 4 angles.
It cannot roll.
The children looked for rectangle shapes in the classroom. They mentioned the following objects, the interactive whiteboard, the window, the tables, books, blocks, the class carpet, the shelves in class, and boxes amongst other things.
We will be gluing rectangle shaped presents to consolidate this concept on our scrapbook next week.
In one of the previous blogs I mentioned that the children heard the story of Mr. Willoby and The Christmas Tree. If you watch the story with your child you will see that each time a piece of the tree was being cut off.
Each time we end up with a big tree and a small tree. This helped us revise the big and small concept. The children consolidated this concept by comparing big and small Christmas Trees on their workbooks using interlocking blocks and colouring in the big Christmas tree just like Mr. Willowby’s tree.
They also revised the triangle shape since the Christmas tree too has this shape. We then moved onto what we can put up on the tree to decorate it.
Each child mentioned what they might decorate their tree with. Some said candy cane, chocolate treats, bows, ribbon, star, little presents, angels and baubles.
The children then started a mini project where they decorated little cutout trees to decorate our class door. (You will see this very soon).
I told them that when Father Christmas came to my house last year by mistake he left behind special shaped baubles which led us to the next shape for this year the oval. (Please see next numeracy blog for details).
One of the most popular figures the children are very familiar with during this festive season is Father Christmas.
We have been mentioning him from a couple of weeks now and we even have a Santa’s hat hanging from one of our windows.
The children believe that he is watching over us from time to time to see who will be on his present list during Christmas time.
Last week we took a closer look at this tradition and from where it originated without ruining the children’s beliefs of this magical man.
They actually sat down for about seven minutes and watched a sweet story related to this which we then discussed:
Santa’s WorkShop
The Night Before Christmas
After the story we went through a list of words which are associated with this character eg. North Pole, sack, reindeer, toys, elves, beard, hat, cookies and milk under the tree.
The children had some time to think and mention the present they would like to have from Santa Claus.
After the concert is over we will write a little letter to Father Christmas and draw the toy they mentioned and post it inside a small letter box for Father Christmas.
During our 10th week of schooling there was a lot of excitement in class because it is the festive season and because we are working really hard on our concert.
The theme for this week was Christmas. We started off the week with the children brainstorming words which are associated with Christmas.
They came up with many words the most common being, Father Christmas, presents, Christmas Tree, decorations, lights, Jesus is born, chimney, reindeer, elves, singing special songs (Christmas carols).
The children then listened to a sweet story called Mr. Willoby’s Christmas Tree:
Moral of the story – They learnt that Mr. Willoby threw out a piece of his tree but someone else benefited from this (reuse and recycle) because someone else had a tree and so forth.
This also linked our topic to the fact that although we might be generous throughout the year, at this time it is lovely to be even more generous especially with the people who are less fortunate and sick.
That is why we spoke about the reverse advent calendar in class and each one of us is going to donate a little can of unperishable food for those in need. (Please see previous blogs for details).
Mr. Willowby’s story was also associated with our numeracy and literacy lessons.
You can find more information about this under the numeracy and literacy blog respectively.
