Taking Shape...

Miss Suzanne was back for our second L.T.T.A. visit.  This visit focused on creating animal "structure" sculptures using paper.  Miss Suzanne gave us some ideas on how we could use the paper to create a strong structure.

The students chose an animal to create, and then twisted, scrunched, folded and rolled the paper to make a strong animal structure.

When Miss Suzanne visits next week, the students will begin decorating their paper animal sculptures.  We can't wait to see their creations!

L.T.T.A. - Meeting Miss Suzanne

We were very excited to welcome our second Learning Through The Arts (L.T.T.A.) artist into our classroom today.  Earlier in the year, we learned about mapping, while dancing with Miss Louise.

This round of 4 L.T.T.A. visits will be led by visual artist Miss Suzanne.  We will be focusing on part of our Science curriculum - Objects, Materials and Everyday Structures, and exploring this topic through drawing, and creating sculptures

Miss Suzanne led the students in a discussion about structures, and focused on animal bodies as structures.

She taught the students some fundamentals of drawing - using different shapes - and demonstrated a few animal structures.

Next, she challenged the students to choose an animal, and sketch it themselves.

Check out these fantastic animals...

Miss Suzanne presented the students with a large assortment of materials.  They used these to begin making a sculpture of their chosen animal.  What a fantastic process to watch the students engaged in!

Sculptors at work...

The students need a little more time to complete this part of their project.  Check back at the end of the week to see what they've come up with so far.  We have 3 more visits with Miss Suzanne - we are excited to see how the projects develop each week.

Making Words

Each morning, as part of our literacy program, we do word work.  Word work consists of many different activities and games that help the children develop reading, writing and spelling skills.  This morning, we investigated a new activity that we will be using during word work throughout the rest of the year - making words.

Given a set of letters, students move the letter tiles around to form and spell new words.  The students started by finding WOW words from the word wall.  They then started finding "chunks" or "word families" they recognized (e.x. -ig, -ed, -an) and added other letters to make new words.  When making words, students also practice reading, writing and decoding new words.  They stretch the words apart and then blend the letters back together.

This morning, the word presented to the class was gingerbread.  Using only the letters in that word, the class worked together and built 53 other words (and there are even some we missed)!  The students really enjoyed making words, and we will try with a new set of letters next week.  Take a peek at the students in action...

Why not try this at home?  Find some scrap paper, and print the word snowman.  Cut out each letter.  Work together with your child to see how many new words you can make.  Have your child record each word you make on another scrap of paper.  Please send in your list - the students would love to see them!