Our Final Buddy Project

Our final get together with our grade 6/7 big buddies was last week

and we designed our own puzzle.

I picked up the puzzle at a thrift store and taped it together on the picture side

so it could be numbered and moved easily from classroom to classroom.

The tape was removed when we were ready to start.

We decided to do the puzzle about the alphabet

so each buddy pair was given one piece with the letter written on the back.

They coloured the piece anyway they wanted.

Then they used a sharpie to print their letter on the piece.

So many pieces!

There are 26 for each letter of the alphabet plus pieces that make up the border.

It was a challenge putting it together since the pictures 

didn't give us clues.

But we worked on it for a bit and got a few pieces together.

Then we had to leave for our big buddies to finish.

It has now been re-taped and is hanging on a bulletin board in the hallway.

A Little ABC Fun

We've been having fun with our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Tree.

Reading the book, matching the letters 

and making them climb the tree.

 The tree is a great size for the little ones to discover;

looking up, reaching up and then standing up.

Oh and the guessing games have been fun.

Searching for ABCs

The magnetic alphabet is hidden in wood pellets.

ABC Matching

                                 This fun idea I found at Kindertips

Golden Rocks

After St. Patrick’s Day I brought the pot that we found in a tree back to school.  I wanted the children to make a connection with what we did outside to the school.  I also had left over gold rocks so I made an ABC matching game.
            
       I covered a low table with white paper and traced around the 26 rocks. 
                     On each rock I wrote a letter of the alphabet.
                   
           The pot sat in the middle of the table holding all the rocks.
                     
The children picked a rock and tried to find it’s match.  It was difficult at first since there were 26 choices but as they matched more and more rocks it became easier and their confidence grew.
               
Another difficulty was that I didn’t print the letters all in the same direction, so they had to either move around the table or turn the rock in their hand to make them look the same. 
                  
This was difficult for the younger children who do not yet recognize the letters. 
             
If two people did this at the same time it was an opportunity to reinforce turn taking, waiting for your turn and encouraging each other.

A couple of families did recognize the pot from our Outdoor Adventure the other day and they recalled where we found it and what we did with it.

Outdoor ABC Hunt

                   
This morning we spent a bit of time outside looking for a missing alphabet.
   
                        
I saw this idea at Fantastic and Fun Learning and adapted it to work for our centre.  I hid magnetic letters, A-Z, around our playground before we went outside.
          
The children were to quick to run around the play structure searching and
                                        finding letters.
                   
      As they found letters they added them to our alphabet line. 
        Matching the letters then running back to look for more.
    
The activity provided an opportunity to introduce letters and to reinforce
                        letters in each child’s name.
                       
Another benefit of printing the letters on the ground for the children
         to match was to make sure we found all the letters.