This week was all about number learning and drawing people. The kids built numbers with our letter/number construction kit and traced numbers with stickers in their journals. To help us learn how to draw people we used Mat Man from the Handwriting Without Tear program. We practiced singing Mat Man’s song and building him together; It was a great test in teamwork and sharing, in addition to remembering the parts of the body. We continued to use Mat Man to help us through our people drawing and building activities this week. 
 
The kids made drawn self-portraits in their journals, directed drawings of Mat Man, painted themselves on mirrors, made self-portraits with beans and yarn, and Drew a friend of theirs using the Mat Man song to help remember to add the details (they also decorated a frame for their friend drawing).
 
We took advantage of the good weather and had a blast outdoors; bum sliding, boot skating, rolling down hills, running through tunnels and reading maps at NoseHill Park.
 
We celebrated another birthday this week as well. We have so many January birthdays!
 
*We are looking forward to Show and Tell next week! *

Happy Lunar New Year! It’s the Year of the Rat! 
 
We learned what Lunar New Year is, the legend of Nian, the race the animals had to make it to the Jade emperor to see who would have years named after them, and the Lion Dance. The kids know the Legend of Nian well! They know who Nian is and how he scared all the people and animals on the day of the new moon, until a wise old man told them the three things Nian is afraid of (the colour red, fire and loud noises) and that is why the Lunar New Year is celebrated with the fireworks and the colour red. We all enjoyed figuring out the animal that corresponds to the year we were all born in. The kids definitely pretended to be these animals all week.
 
We did a lot of cutting this week for our year of the Rat crafts. Everyone is doing so well holding their scissors properly, moving the paper/scissors to follow a curve and remaining positive even when it gets tough. We also cut and decorated red paper lanterns.
 
We were so happy to be able to be able to spend time outside this week! We spent hours on the bum sliding hill. The kids had a great time. Even though the hill was iced over towards the end of the week, they were determined to bum slide even if they had to crawl up the hill. I may have joined in on the bum sliding too!
 
The kids continued to practice recognizing, spelling, sequencing the letters, and writing their names. This month has been the start of our days of the week practice; the kids enjoy singing our Days of the Week song every day to figure out what the day is. Each day we practice counting on the calendar and recognizing the number that is that day, and what numbers make up the double-digit days. The kids have also been working in their journals. They do so well holding their pencils!
 
We can’t forget that we celebrated an exciting 5th birthday too!

This week was all about keeping our teeth clean and healthy. Many of us knew that we brush our teeth twice a day and that if we don’t our teeth will be yucky. We learned what cavities are and how to prevent them. The kids tried flossing themselves. The faces they made were just too funny!
 
The kids worked on their fine motor skills, counting and number recognition when they used tiny “clippers” (as they call them) to pick up mini marshmallows and put the correct number of them into numbers muffin tins. Everyone is really doing a great job at identifying numbers! There has been a lot of improvement over that past few months.
 
We all practiced their cutting skills by cutting out “sugar bugs” and then they decorated them with glitter glue, sequins and googly eyes. They also threaded yarn through paper teeth, painted with toothbrushes, and made teeth picture patterns.
 
The kids played a “roll and cover” number identification games where the numbers were written on the teeth and they had to colour the numbered teeth that corresponding their dice roll.
 
Our week was spent inside. That never happens! We spent our extra time indoors listening to Raffi, prepping and cooking food while learning safe ways to do so, and dancing to some fun action songs.
 
During our Morning Meeting this week we started singing out Days of the Week song so we can start to figure out what each day is called. The kids also continue to work hard on writing their names.
 
We continued to learn about 2D shapes this week. In their journals, the kids counted how many sides certain shapes had and although the younger ones were not expected to practice writing the number they wanted to anyway. They want to be just like the big kids!
 
Some other things we did this week were baking muffins, Lego building and having some creative fun with play dough.

We started our new year with a couple of birthday celebrations! We still have two more to go this month! There was plenty of baking to do. We've been working on how to measure as close to exact amounts as possible, by using the back of our hands to brush off the excess. Some of the kids used their knowledge of patterns to make a colour pattern with their cupcake sprinkles! Very neat!
 
Aside from the excitement of two birthdays, this week’s focus was on 2D shapes and New Year celebrations. 
-The kids practiced matching shapes of everyday things, building shapes that were drawn on the learning board, sorting round shapes vs not round shapes, and colouring shapes certain colours as per the instructions. They did a great job choosing the correct colours, colouring in the lines the best they could, and helping each other to identify which shape was the shape I called. It also happened to be the kitties birthdays this week so we made paper kitty crafts using different shapes to build a cat face.
-We made many artworks and crafts with fireworks in them; glitter fireworks, used a fork and paint to make fireworks, and cut cupcake liners to make fireworks.
 
The kids have been working very hard at recognizing the letters in their names, knowing what they are called, and building and/or writing them. Each day during Morning Meeting they either spell or write a portion of their names. This week they wrote the first letter of their names every day on the board, used stickers to trace the outline of the first letter of their names, and work together to spell their whole name. We have been trying to remember to always start at the top!