What Can You See?

Tuesday, 17 March 2015

What Can You See at the Park?

We recently took an outing to the immaculate park we are lucky to have beside our school. Students advised me on the pictures I should take and we co-wrote a second book. Students enjoy reading it during "Read-to-Self" and practice reading the pictures and even the words! I turned the book into a video and I have gotten quite a few great lessons out of it:

Literacy:
We practice our letter/sound knowledge - "What word do you see that starts with the "ph" sound?
We are building our schema! "Why do you think...?" "What do you think...?"
Math:
We compare measurements - "What word is the shortest/longest? How do you know?"
Can you count the words in the sentence?

Here are some of the great thoughts I documented as we watched our movie:

What happens at the mosque?

I think it’s to pray. (Z.K.)

I think families go there to be safe. (Z.H.)

How do we know when it’s time to pray?

I think when we hear the mosque sound, we know it’s not time to play, it’s time for prayer. (A.K.)

Let’s look at these trees. What do you notice?

I think they are different because some are small, medium and bigger. (Z.K.)

If you don’t walk nicely to the park, your mom will not let you play at the park. (A.K.)

What do we think is happening in this picture with the consteuction?

I think the men are taking the flowers because we don’t need the flowers and they have ants and spiders. It’s closed and they’re fixing it so nobody can come here. (M.C.)

I think they are watering the plants and trees so they grow up. (Z.K.)

What is the trolley used for?

I think it’s to put sand in and nobody touch it, Hold the handles and put sand down. (R.i.)

We cannot make grass dirty from the sand. (A.K.)

I think it’s to pick up and throw the dirty and dead trees in the truck. (Z.K.)

What is this (seed)?

I think you take it from the tree to put in the sand and put water on and a tree will grow. (M.C.)

Looking forward to more great sharing and learning through the "What Can You See?" Project. I am astonished at the growth in vocabulary and the interest my students are showing in being involved. We are looking forward to a Skype conversation next week with Egypt.....




Saturday, 7 March 2015

The Beginning Of Our Blogging Journey

I am very excited to join the "What Can You See?" Project. Students have been very involved and excited about not only our own project, but also about exploring other schools' posts. The project has helped to increase their vocabulary and has made students more aware of their surroundings. We have been working on writing and talking about "What Can You See?" and will be starting to focus on "What Do You Think?" which also supports our learning of schema.

Here students have written what they see in the photos. Some students chose to draw while others sounded out the sounds they hear in words such as "swimming pool".

We are working to complete "What Can You See at the Park?". Stay tuned!