Blog Archives

Lunar New Year

1/29/2023

Happy Lunar New Year to all who celebrate!

To celebrate the new year, the kids made paper lanterns, red envelopes and cardboard tube/tissue dragons. We also had fun figuring out what animals our birth years were, doing a cross between the lion dance and the dragon dance underneath a sheet, and used chopsticks to pick up cotton balls.

The books we read this week were
My First Chinese New Year by Karen Katz
Bringing in the New Year by Hannah Eliot
How to Catch a Dragon by Adam Wallace
Ruby's Chinese New Year by VIckie Lee
Lunar New Year by Hannah Eliot

Our letters this week were T and I. There was a lot of singing, dancing, puzzling, matching, building and writing of these letters.

Some others things we did were journaling, built addition puzzles, and play dough .

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Arctic Animals

1/21/2023

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Since we learned about penguins last week, it was only fitting to learn about animals at the opposite pole of the Earth. We sure learned a lot about Arctic animals this week! I love all of the questions they kept thinking up; they just wanted to know everything they could! There are so many animals, land and water to learn about that live in the Arctic, and we needed to know what they eat, how they stay warm, who their predators are, what type of home they live in, how they use their body characteristics to their advantage and many other things. It was really excited to see a few videos of the sounds beluga whales and walrus' make as well as the way Arctic foxes hunt for lemmings.

The kids worked on matching, sorting and making complex patterns on their own! They also drew narwhals with a patterned tusk in their journals.

We have been practicing storytelling using mini picture/word puzzles. And to see them bring out this box of puzzles during their free play and all take part in creating stories together was so wonderful! So many skills were being worked on; teamwork, taking turns, letter recognition, letter sounds, sequencing parts of a story, and creativity/imagination, to name a few.

Some weeks there is always something that the kids seem to gravitate towards during their free play. This week there was lots of puzzling, playing board games and reading together. Some of my favourite things to watch little ones do.

Our letters this week were E and H.

There was also some penguin sliding, brush exploring (and lots of burrs to pick off clothing) and play dough playing.

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Penguins

1/14/2023

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We learned about penguins this week! We learned where penguins live, what they eat, how they stay warm, who looks after the eggs and who hunts for the fish to eat.

We did a blubber experiment when talking about how penguins stay warm. The kids helped prepare the ice water by working together to pour the water and put in the ice. Then they wrapped one hand in a buttered glove before putting both hands in the ice bath. It was quite amazing to feel the difference between the two!

The kids had a lot of fun doing the Daddy Penguin Waddle by trying to walk while carrying a large pillow and holding an "egg" between their feet. So cute and funny to watch!

The kids practice matching various items like their uppercase and lowercase letters, shapes, and colours. They matched penguin letters to igloo letters, and clipped the correct lowercase letter to match the uppercase letter. They also matched coloured toques with the corresponding coloured penguins. Some practiced spelling the colour words too.

The kids exploring the technique of splatter paintings too. I enjoy watching them explore techniques they haven't used often. I'm not sure if more painted ended up on the painting or on their hands!

We had a lot of fun exploring the outdoors, building teepees and playing tug o' war.

We also made a new batch of play dough.

We started up our letter learning for the year. Our first letters were L and F.

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We're Back!

1/8/2023

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And we're back! Everyone was so excited to see each other and share what they did over the holidays!

We spent our week celebrating the new year and exploring the outdoors. We celebrated the new year by practicing a countdown from 10 and from 20, and once we got the hang of this we made Pom Pom Poppers to add to the end of the countdown! So much fun! The kids practiced writing the new year number and decorated all around it, in their journals. They also practiced their cutting by snipping rectangles on a cardboard tube and bending them back to make a firework shape, to then do some firework paint stamping.

Since we love singing our months of the year song so much, we started a new months of the year song where we have to help keep the beat.

We sure enjoyed our outdoor time! My little explorers were quite adventurous in where and how they chose to play and climb in the ravine. There was definitely a lot of problem solving and team work involved when dealing with the uneven landscape, snow and ice. As a teacher, this is so great to watch.

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Lunar New Year

Arctic Animals

Penguins

We're Back!

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