3D Space, Literacy and ...

"Sneezy"

 

KR have been reading "Sneezy the Snowman" and "Snowmen all Year".
These stories have given the children great 'writing inspiration' as well as terrific opportunity to learn about 3D shapes and the feeling of achievement when they persevere at tasks that require concentration, fine motor skills and coordination.

We have had a wonderful time creating, exploring and learning !

Here's our Sneezy the Snowman - who didn't melt! (I'm sure your child could tell you what DID happen to the real Sneezy).

The make Sneezy's body we needed two spheres.  KR made these from paper mache - thank you Mrs Naughten for your help in making the glue!

2 1/2 sheets of newspaper - scrunched up!

Then we glued his body to an upside down bowl

 Thank you Mrs Van Helden and Mrs Mayo for helping us glue their bodies.

 Next we glued his head

Then it was time to do his face
We used small beads (what shapes are these?) and cut-off orange pencil tips (what about these shapes, what are they called?) 

SO CUTE!

 Next was Sneezy's hat, buttons, some 'glitter snow' and scarf.
The hats were made from 2D shapes - a circle and rectangle.
Everyone did a fabulous job!
The scarves were finger-knitted! (Thank you Mrs Rowlands for helping with this such intricate of all the tasks).

It began with many "I can't do this!" exclamations, but once each student got the hang of it, their exclamations changed to "This is easy.  I really like finger-knitting" - some took theirs home.  Others took extra wool home to knit another one!  A job worth persevering with.  The resulting satisfaction each student expressed made it worth it!!

 What a fabulous job they all did!!
So proud!

The finished Sneezy

During this time KR was able to write about what they had done so far.
Here are some pieces written after we had finished the steps up to the gluing him to the bowl and finger knitting:

 (To make Sneezy I scrunched up balls.  I had to scrunch up the big ball and we put the little head together on the plate upside down.  I liked the finger knitting.  I made the scarf from all of it)

(To make Sneezy we made hime white like a snowman and we made it a sphere.  We made Sneezy little and big)

 (To make Sneezy we scrunched some newspaper up into spheres.  Then we glued the head onto the body.  Then we painted Sneezy white.  We glued him on a bowl)

 (We made made Sneezy with paper mache and spheres.  We glued Sneezy together and we are going to put eyes on him.  We have done finger knitting for Sneezy's scarf)

 (To make Sneezy we got paper mache.  We also had upside down bowls.  Spheres are circles.  We also scrunched up newspaper.  There was glue, yucky sticky, that was like a big blob of snot)
When I read this to the class it got a huge reaction, as I'm sure you can imagine!

 (To make sneezy we got two spheres, stuck them together.  Then we got to get our bowl.  Got it upside down.  It was messy and fun and we did finger knitting it was fun as well)

Don't you think KR are great story writers!  

To spell any unfamiliar words the students are encouraged to say the word they want to write, listen for sounds they can hear, check the word wall, butterfly chart, dictionary chart and any other print in the room.  At the time we try to focus on one or two things only - eg capital letters for names and sentence beginnings, spaces, full stops, spelling familiar words, etc.