Poinsettias

A favourite Christmas flower, the poinsettia is a traditional bloom for the holidays.  After viewing different varieties of poinsettias and studying their shape and colour, the children glittered and sponge painted their very own festive flowers.

Up Close Snowmen

Winter stories have been popular since our first snowfall.  We've enjoyed many snow inspired books including some with snowmen.  This project focused on perspective.  Can you draw a snowman up close?  Pretend you are standing right in front of it, looking up.  They did an incredible job!  I encouraged them to be brave and go for it with black pastels, no pencils allowed!  They drew three big circles, off the paper, and then added the details.  Then, it was off to painting.  Once dry, they were outlined once again in pastel and embellished with some decorative snowflakes.

 Finished snowmen to come.....

Trimming the Trees

We've been busy colouring ornaments, making paper chains and snowman decorations to adorn the trees for the Winter Concert.  We also made a class wreath with our handprints to hang on the classroom door.  Check out our activity advent too.  Each day the special helper pulls an activity card for the day.   

 

Poppies

Remembrance Day

In Flanders Fields

oil pastels and tempera paint

Books for ME

Once a month, we're fortunate to have Books for Me visit CHA!  The children can choose any book they'd like to take home with them to add to their very own library collections.

Visit http://www.booksformevancouver.org/index.html for more information!

NOISY Reading

Each morning we begin our school day with NOISY reading.  Children choose whatever books they want to read, with who they want, where they want (within reason of course).  BIG books have quickly become a favourite to gather around.  Choral reading (group reading) is a wonderful way for emergent readers to build confidence as they take risks rereading familiar texts, which often include repeating patterns and lots of rhythm and rhyme.  This is a favourite time of the day for me, seeing the children so engaged and immersed in books.  Here's a peek...

Pumpkins!

We have been looking closely at the pumpkins in our classroom at our exploring table and we've been reading about pumpkins too.  We enjoyed the book, Pumpkin Circle:  The Story of a Garden, by George Levenson.  We also read some great books on colour including, Full Colour, by Etienne Delessert.  Using only primary colours (red, blue and yellow) the kids made magic happen right on their pages.  After sketching pumpkins and leaves, they mixed red and yellow to make orange for the pumpkins and yellow and blue to make shades of green for leaves.  Once dry, they were cut out and assembled on black paper.

 

The kids used chalk pastels, in white and yellow, to add moonlight and stars to their nighttime pumpkins.  Strips of green paper and curled ribbon were added to embellish the green vines.  Didn't we create a beautiful pumpkin patch?  Love how they're all different!