March 24th, 2017

Spring has sprung! We brainstormed what characterizes spring i.e.: cards, bugs, new plant life, the change in weather and some of the activities that we can do now that the snow is melting. We explored NoseHill Park, on the search for signs of Spring, and used our 5 senses to do so.  There were tiny new green plant life growing, sounds of birds chirping and the warmth of the sun shining on our faces. What a wonderful season!

To celebrate spring we made tissue paper butterflies by bunching the tissue and twisting pipe cleaners to hold them together. We also used paper cups, cut up the sides for petals, to make flowers; they were fun to decorate and add glitter to. 

Everyone did a great job collecting pieces of nature (twigs, pinecones, grass, etc) to make bird nests. 

We explored numbers and patterns through our spring theme this week. After cutting out and gluing together ladybugs, we identified and represented the number on the ladybug by adding the appropriate number of painted fingerprints. Bumblebees are a great way to explore pattern making. Patterns such as AB and AABB patterns were made. Vellum (translucent plastic) was used to make the bumblebees wings. 

Some other things we did this week include; explored magnetic shapes, number hunting/sequencing, journals, and play dough.

March 17th, 2017

St. Patricks’s Day celebrations are always a bunch of fun! As a team, everyone taped together pieces of coloured paper to make a rainbow for the leprechauns to find and leave gold for us. They also left a shamrock path to lead the leprechaun from the door to the rainbow. As soon as they found the gold a couple of them immediately started to count how much we had all received from the leprechaun. Their excitement was priceless. On St.Patricks’ Day we had some wonderful treats brought by a few families. Treats are always exciting. And we also had a leprechaun drink. It was funny to watch them drink it because they thought it tasted funny, even though it was only orange juice with colouring. It’s funny how the colour of our food/drink can play tricks on the mind. 

We made two different types of paintings this week. Using straws they blew into a mixture of water, soap and food colouring, to produce bubbles on which they touched their papers to to create a unique bubble painting. And there were many different interpretations or rainbows using tempera paint. Even though it wasn’t quite painting, green shaving cream was used to “paint” the kitchen table!

Rainbows, leprechauns and gold were fun ways of practicing math concepts this week. They bar graphed their favourite colours to see which colour was the most and least popular. They had to complete the rainbow by matching the number with the correct quantity of dots. They counted the number of St. Patrick’s Day images and matched them with the appropriate number/number word, as well as counted images and attached a clothespin to the correct number.

Some of us have shown a great interest in journals lately; adding many details to their drawings/creations and wanting to write multiple words in one sitting. It has been wonderful to see them trying so hard.

Now that we have learned our way through the alphabet, we are taking some time to practice writing our single digit numbers. Everyone’s growth in pencil grasp and hand strength/coordination has been amazing!

It was sad, but we had our last day on the snow slide down by the ravine earlier this week. We had some good times on that slide…good bye until next winter!

March 10th, 2017

There are so many types of community helpers to learn about! We spent each day this week focused on one particular helper. We learned about firefighters, librarians, farmers, chefs/bakers and mail carriers. 

Firefighters have quite the dangerous job! Many of us know what a firefighter’s job is so we went into more detail, talking about the tools they use in different situations, fire hydrants and how they work and what colour they are, how smoke detectors work, etc. We had our own fire drill and practiced how we would get out of the house safely when fire was in different parts of the house; we crouched low so we could be below the smoke, and we moved quickly but carefully outside. But what about if your clothes catch on fire? STOP, DROP and ROLL! That was quite the fun thing to practice. We also made a craft to show a firefighter spraying a tissue paper fire with a yarn hose.

Next we learned a little bit about librarians and libraries. A couple shared their experiences going to the library and some expressed interest in visiting a library sometime. We talked about how to properly put a book in a shelf, keeping an organized bookshelf, and how we have to respect others around us by being quiet in a library. We even learned how you can take a book home for a little while if you have a library card, which led to us a talk about barcodes and how the computer scanner knows what book we are borrowing. After learning what bookmarks are for and how to use them, we created our very own bookmarks and decorated them with two and three part patterns. Some of us worked on making our very own mini books. It was cute to see them writing little stories and them using their bookmarks in their own books.

Farmers have a very important job that helps all of us! We talked about where our food comes from and the steps it takes to get to our plate. Who knew it was hard work just to get healthy food on our tables. We explored measurement by using pretend fruits and vegetables to measure items within the house. It was a great chance to practice working as a tea, counting, writing numbers, and remembering which number should be written first when writing a double digit number. We also talked about the animals that are often on a farm. We painted using toy animals to make footprints and played Animal letter sound bowling. They had to tell us which animal they wanted to bowl over, what letter the animal started with (based on the sound they could hear) and toss the orange to bowl it over.

We had a very special 4th birthday this week! We took this opportunity to learn about chefs and bakers, as we always love to bake treats when it is someone’s birthday. Baking is such a fun way to practice measuring and reading measurements, counting, working as a team to get it done, working on patience and who can forget the tasting part! Everyone made their very own chef hats to wear while baking this time, and took turns helping at the stove this time. 
​
The fifth community helper we learned about was the mail carrier. We often see and talk to our community mail carrier, so this job seemed fitting. Everyone made, addressing and stamped this letters to give to someone in their families. This was great writing and letter sound identification practice!

There were some wonderful special leader day photos that came in last week; anywhere from shovelling the neighbours sidewalks to baking neighbours to family members who were helpers and they wanted to be just like them.

We worked on the letter Z this week. Everyone is improving greatly on making and writing diagonal lines! 

During journalling time some of the kids really are going above and beyond, wanting to write multiple words to describe what is happening in the pictures they have made. Everyone is so helpful to each other, working together to figure out what letter sounds they hear in the words they want to write. I have a couple children who are now starting to be able to say the word and hear the sounds mostly on their own; I do not have to exaggerate the sounds for them as often!

How can you be a Community Helper?
​This week we started learning about what a community helper is and how to be one. We brainstormed the types of jobs you can have to be a helper; whether that be a job you can do as an adult or right now as a kid. “People in Your Neighbourhood” by Sesame Street is a great song that has been done and redone multiple times since the 1970’s. This song has some outdated jobs but the song itself is quite fun to sing and add our own words to to talk about different helpers in the community. We used play dough to build the faces of some community helpers such as firefighters, chefs and construction workers. We also searched for the objects/tools that specific community helpers would use to help them help others. As the week went on and we knew a little bit about community helpers, everyone helped to identify which play dough cookie cutters were community helper ones.

Letter Y was built this week using our letter construction set, play dough, threading yarn through a Y and used our bodies (upright and upside down!). We learned about the sound letter Y makes, words that begin with Y and that there is more than one right way to write Y. Practicing our yodelling was quite entertaining too! It was so sunny that, while we were building letters, we discovered coloured reflections from our letter construction pieces. What a great intro to why and where reflections come from!

Nature is always more fun than a playground! We found a natural snow slide down into the ravine. We spent a lot of our outdoor time there this week. Climbing up the hill to go slide again wasn't easy, but was a great opportunity for everyone to work on their gross motor skills such as balancing, climbing, and core muscle strength. It also took a lot of problem solving to figure out how to climb up the hill when it was too slippery.

We had a lot of fun building with marshmallows and toothpicks. You don’t know how challenging it is to not eat the activity until there are a bunch of 3 and 4 year olds doing it!

We also did some sponge painting and journaling this week.