February 24th, 2017

What is an Arctic Fox? This week we learned a little bit about Arctic animals, specifically the Arctic Fox. We learned where they live by searching on a map, taking notice that the white parts on the map must mean those are the coldest place because they are covered in snow. Clever kids! We worked on a bar graph to see how many people liked which Arctic animal the most/least. Everyone is getting pretty good at reading this type of graph! Everyone went on a scavenger hunt for Arctic animal pictures and then using two types of images they were given the task of creating a pattern (most of them on their own). I had a few easily choose and AB pattern and a couple chose a harder ABB or AAB pattern without me giving any pattern ideas. Great job!

How do Arctic Fox’s stay warm? What do they eat? How to do they get their food? We talked about the difference between how humans stay warm and Arctic Foxes stay warm, and how our bodies would feel living way up there! We had a bunch of fun learning how the Arctic Fox hunts for its’ food. It was so funny watched everyone pretend to hunt for a mouse by sniffing, listening and pouncing head first into the snow with their bums in the air. We also made two Arctic Fox crafts that helps us to review our triangle and circle shapes.

For our art experimenting this week, everyone was given a rose and two colours of paint. It is always so interesting to watch and see how each child responds to these types of activities. A couple used the rose to stamp with, a couple mixed their paints on the page with the rose, someone stamped so many times to make a neat texture and someone completely destroyed the rose on the page.

This week’s letter X was a tricky letter to find words for. Some letter X words don’t even begin with the letter X sound! But we did find many words that end in X or have X in the middle. Also, now that we have been learning about letters that use diagonal lines, many are getting really good at writing them.

Now that we have the hang of how to use our journals; after creating something on the page we sound out and write a word that represents that work. Everyone is working really hard!

Some other activities we did this week include; baking, using play dough to review letters and numbers, and played the pom pom game with clothespins (pinchers).

February 17th, 2017

​This week was short but sweet. The weather was on our side, which made for some fun times outdoors! We played on the big snow hill; sliding, climbing, jumping, rolling. And found sticks and pinecones to make a pretend campfire to roast marshmallows on. We also had a great conversation about the flowing water going down the street; why it was going the direction is was, why is was going so fast and where it was coming from. It was a great way to once again discuss gravity and why things go down hills.

Special Mail delivery! We see the postman almost every day and he often says hello to us and gives high fives, but one day this week we were invited to help him put mail into the neighbours mailbox. What fun! There was only enough mail for two people to put in the mailbox so others helped by holding to gate open, understanding that next time different children will have a turn. 

This week’s letter was W. It was cute hearing them running around repeating the letter W sound. I am quite impressed that many of the kids are remembering which letters are consonants snd which are vowels! We recently have been playing a letter sound game before going to eat snack, where they pick a mystery letter from the pile and tell me what it is called and what sound/sounds it makes.

Creative time is becoming this wonderful thing where the kids are making elaborate creations and are helping each other do so. I’m beginning to see more than just drawing, cutting and pasting. I see them hole punching and threading, helping each other to ripe and cut tape, writing friends names, making “mail”, more elaborate drawings that have stories and even attempts at making 3D objects.

Baking heart shaped cookies and decorating them with icing and sprinkles was a fun way to celebrate Valentines Day, albeit a day late. Some of us made a heart shape using two painted handprints and practiced writing the word LOVE. There were also many Valentines to share. I can see how hard they worked on writing the names of their friends!

We also had a very special 3rd birthday to celebrate as well. It is always fun baking cupcakes! Happy Birthday!

Valentines Day is coming up! 

How can you show someone you love them? There were so many great ideas; giving hugs and kisses, saying “I love you” and using manners like “thank you” and “sorry”, making/giving something, sharing, spending time together watching movies, going to the park and reading.

Decorating is a fun way to get ready for Valentines Day! After cutting out and hole punching paper and foam hearts, we threaded them onto a string with straws to separate them to make Valentines garland. What a tricky task. The looks of concentration were priceless. We had a lot of fun making Valentines crafts including clothespin butterflies, salt dough ornaments and a Valentines wreath made from tissue and foam hearts.

Baking soda and vinegar experiments are always a hit! This time it was glittery fizzing hearts; baking soda filled cookie cutters and a glittery vinegar mixture. I asked what they thought I gave them for the experiment. At first they thought it was water, then I said to smell it and immediately someone said vinegar! Then I asked that the white stuff was. The first thought was flour, then baking powder, then baking soda. Some of us are getting really good at remembering basic ingredients we use for baking.

We practicing our number identification and representation by matching a number with the correct representation of dots. The number was on on half of a heart and the dots on the other half. We practiced making a new pattern with Valentine images (ABB and AAB).

We started using our journals this week. Journals are a great way for children to use their creative minds and make anything they like using the supplies and tools provided. Next week we will begin associating a word to their creations, of which, depending where they are at, they will sound out individually or with the help of friends.

This week’s letter was V. We practiced the sound it makes, words that start with V, using different tools to build V, and searching for Vs in the magnet letters and letter blocks.

Some other things we did this past week include; a scavenger hunt for hearts so we could compare/count/sort, baking coconut cookies, and having impromptu discussions about gases such as steam and how steam happens, and of course the favourite about body gases.

February 3rd, 2017

Groundhog Day! 

We have been patiently waiting to see if the groundhog would see it’s shadow. We talked about what it would mean if the groundhog did see it’s shadow…it would get scared and jump back in it’s hole and we would have six more weeks of winter. Not only did we talk about what happens on Groundhog day but we also learned about what hibernation is and when the groundhogs hibernate. We learned where they live, how they dig tunnels and live under ground, discovered what they eat (we looked some images of them and saw what their teeth looked like which gave us the hint that they mostly eat plants), and we also listened to the sounds a groundhog makes (who knew they sounded a bit like a bird). It was also pretty fun pretending to be groundhogs to one of our groundhog movement songs! It is always entertaining to pretend to be different animals.
As a team, everyone built ‘human-sized’ groundhog tunnels, and has bunches of fun pretending to ‘pop’ out to see their shadow and run back inside. It was tricky at times to figure out how to make the blankets stay on the objects being used to hold them up. We definitely learned a thing or two about how easily gravity pulls things back to the ground and how we need to use heavier objects to hold the blankets down.

We turned out the lights and turn on only one little lamp, set up our papers nice and close, and chose small objects to place on our paper for us to draw the shadows of. We explored how to change shadows by changing the position of the light and/or the position of the object we were drawing. If we were closer to the light our shadow was smaller and if we were farther from the light our shadow was bigger.

On Groundhog Day we went out in search of groundhog holes around Nosehill Park. Some of us certain we found a few! We were also convinced the groundhog saw it’s shadow because we saw ours while outside. On our adventure to find a groundhog hole we found an ice skating rink and a ‘secret’ playground. We liked it so much that we went two days in a row! It was so far that I’m surprised some of them made it there and back!

Our letter this week was N-. We practiced building it with play dough, our bodies and with our letter construction kit. We also made an N is for noodles craft where we glued coloured elbow macaroni to our letter N.

Some other things we did this week included; making a groundhog craft where the little groundhog on a popsicle stick could pop out of its hole (paper cup), baking mini loaves for snacks, painting, and play dough building.

We had a very special 4th birthday this week! I hope he had a wonderful birthday weekend!