Recently we have been doing a lot of playing with shapes. We have been studying their form and observing how they appear in different ways in the world around us. Ayesha can confidently name the common shapes: circle, triangle, square and rectangle. She is also challenging herself to learn the names of new, more complicated shapes which she shows in this video. Ayesha's favourite work with shapes was when she played with the shape stamps. She chose to include this piece in her portfolio because: "I made it for Emma so she would think it was wonderful."
Ayesha has been interested in making patterns during her free play. One day she made long chains of patterns with her friends. They hung them on a tree we have in our classroom. This action shows that Ayesha understands how to create and extend patterns independently, as well as a concept that patterns are a part of aesthetic design.
As our 'How we organize ourselves' unit of inquiry is coming to an end, we are reflecting on all of our experiences and learning and working on "showing what we know". This week, Ms. Alison, Mr. Nathan and Ms. Karla set up a playscape in the playground full of extra equipment and materials to move with. Students participated in free play or movement with the equipment and then sat down with a teacher to explain how and why they move in certain ways. Here is Ayesha's conference using the 'Explain Everything' iPad app: ) Ayesha's favourite part of our 'How we organize ourselves' unit of inquiry was our field trip to the Adventure Playground.
She chose to include this experience in her portfolio because: "I was playing with my friends and climbing and holding onto the rope and walking up stairs. I balanced by myself." Ayesha also reflected on this experience through drawing in her movement journal: As emergent writers, we are always taking risks in writing. We are experimenting with sounds and letter formations, as well as pencil grip and different writing tools. As the year continues we are learning to make more and more letter and sound connections to express our ideas through writing. In our journals we do our best to add labels, descriptions, or short stories to our drawings. We also participate in free writing sessions where we write whatever we want for one to two minutes and use the writing centre and class mailbox to communicate through writing during free play.
Here is some of Ayesha's journal and free writing work. Ayesha has a strong sense of the consonant sounds in the words she writes and is passionately exploring independent writing and letter formation at home and school. We watched a video with Bert and Ernie on the Sesame Street website called 'Guess What's Next'. They made patterns for each other and then had to complete them by guessing what would come next in the repeating sequence. After the video, we played this game in partners in our class with different manipulatives and materials.
Ayesha said this game is an example of her best work because "I'm good at guessing what's next." Her work in this game shows her ability to extend patterns. |