Castles, Knights and Princesses

We are nearing the end of our first month in school and everyone is settling in nicely. Our classroom is a busy place with 32 students and two adults. There are lots of exciting things to do and many learning experiences in which to indulge.

Toward the middle of last week, the question was posed...”What would you like to see our Dramatic Play Centre become? This sparked quite a buzz of excitement as ideas were shared by many. A list of possibilities was written on chart paper with well over 20 ideas contributed to it. It was then left over night for the children to ponder. On Thursday afternoon, the list was revisited and read several times with everyone sitting at the learning carpet. Afterwards, each child was given a sticker so that s/he might cast a vote for her/his favourite idea. The results are in! With over a quarter of the total votes cast, the boys and girls chose to transform the Dramatic Play Centre into a castle. The excitement level was palpable. With the decision now made, everyone was asked to consider what they knew about a castle and what would be needed to create one in our classroom. Again, another list was composed with many great ideas. As classroom space is limited, some design suggestions might need to be drawn onto the backdrop, rather than be built out of cardboard and blocks. There was quite an interest in ‘clothing’ for princesses and knights. If any families have costumes in their dress-up boxes that they would not mind donating to the cause, that would be greatly appreciated. Students have been asked to not bring in swords of any kind for obvious reasons. Label costume items with your child’s name and we will do our best to see that these items are shared fairly and treated with respect. Monday’s work is cut out for us. We will be developing a plan before our ‘castle building project’ begins. Check in often to monitor our progress.

Along with castles, knights and princesses, we are spending lots of time reading great books and talking about story elements in fictional text. The children are learning about the roles of the author and illustrator in the writing of children’s literature. As well, students are learning how to identify characters in a story and how the story revolves around them. Our next story element focus will be on the setting of a story. We will learn that the reader uses pictures from the text, clues from the author and our own schema to determine the setting(s) in a book. Please pay attention to these elements in the stories that you read to your child at home. Question him/her about them and praise their understanding.

The letters S, A, T, P, I, and N will be our alphabet focus for the next several days. Opportunities for sorting, letter identification, sound correlation and upper/lowercase matching will be made available throughout the room for children to investigate as they choose. Time spent at home discussing these letters and the sounds that they make would be extremely helpful and help to tie into the learning that is occurring in the classroom. 

Counting is the mathematical focus for the month. We have learned what counting is and why it is important. Throughout our day, Ms. Campbell and I capitalize on opportunities for counting with the children. This, too, can be a focus for parents to support and practice at home. Reading counting books and engaging in authentic counting experiences throughout the home makes the learning real and purposeful.