This week's post is a short one. For the first couple of days this week we spent a lot of time outdoors in open spaces. We went sledding and explored NoseHIll. You can tell when it's been a good day....everyone comes back muddy from head to toe! We also introduced our new little one to Mat Man.

I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy at home!
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See everyone again soon!

I hope all families are doing their best to stay healthy through these uncertain times. I know here at Blooming Butterflies we are as lively as usual. We have talked about COVID-19 as being a sickness that is going around that many people are catching and there are ways we can help to not get us or others sick. The kids have been doing well with hand washing and covering sneezes and coughs, and making sure to not touch their faces as much as possible. I always know when handwashing is happening because I can hear them singing Happy Birthday, or similar songs, at the top of their lungs. Many of the children enjoy singing and I think they think it’s fun when we can hear them from the other side of the house and start singing with them. 
 
Like I said, we are going through our days are normally as possible. It was recently St. Patrick’s Day and the kids were super excited that the Leprechaun came to put gold coins at the end of their huge rainbow. They spent a bit of last week and a couple of hours on Monday painting and decorating it so it would be ready for the Leprechaun to see. On St. Patrick’s Day we drank "Leprechaun juice", decorated paper Shamrocks and counted and grouped gold coins.
 
Throughout the week the kids also sorted rainbow coloured blocks, worked on their fine motor skills by picking up rainbow blocks and placing them on the grey squares on cards, put beads on pipe cleaners that corresponded represented the number on their rainbow cards, and did some rainbow blow painting with straws.
 
The kids are really into mazes of varying types; building pathways in the snow, constructing kid sided block mazes to walk through to get to the other side, using their fingers to find their way out of paper mazes and tracing dotted lines to take snowballs to the snowman at the bottom of the page. 
 
Our letters this week were J and D. The didgeridoo was a very interesting D word to us. We listening to what it can sound like when it is being played, in a traditional way and in a modern sense.
 
Some other activities we did this week include baking, yoga, and playing with play dough. And we cannot forget that we celebrated a very happy 3rd birthday!

​We were very excited to invite a new friend to join our cohort this week. Everyone has helped to make her feel welcome and included in all that we do. They have done anything from asking her to play and showing her all the toys and supplies, to helping her set her spot at the table for meal times and singing her songs when she is feeling down. This is what preschool is all about!
 
As St. Patrick’s Day draws near, we have been talking about rainbows, leprechauns and pots of gold. This offers the perfect opportunity to review our colours, and some fancy colours such as gold and silver. Some of us are even learning about what letter each colour starts with. Our colour wall is definitely helpful in sparking these conversations. It is wonderful to see the increased interest, as the year progresses, in letter learning as it associates to things that are relevant to the kids at the time. Our letters this week were G and S. The letter S was really exciting for some as it is the letter that their names begin with.
 
With a little bit of science and art mixed together, we stirred up ingredients to make many colours of puffy paint that were then used to create some rainbow colours artworks. The kids started making their big rainbow for the leprechaun to find. The little leprechaun may leave a special surprise at the end of the rainbow if he can find it!
 
The kids did St.Patrick’s Day number puzzles, where they had to count the amount of images and find the corresponding number. This kids also flexed their hand muscles by using clothespins to clip over the correct number of images on the card.
 
Other activities we took part in this week include playing with play dough, building with Legos, and shoveling the neighbour’s sidewalk to lend a helping hand.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!
 
We sure are enjoyed our Dr. Seuss books this week! The kids were quite the bunch of little readers!
 
We focused on a few of Dr. Seuss’ books, but enjoyed MANY more as well.
 
You can’t have Dr. Seuss week without The Cat in The Hat! The kids practiced their number identification and sequencing on Cat’s Hat, drew Cat in The Hat patterns in their journals, and painted Thing One and Thing Two portraits. They did a great job writing their names on their portraits too!
 
We read What Was I Scared Of? This is a wonderful book about being afraid of the unknown (in this case the animated pants with no wearer) and shows how a little understanding and acceptance of one’s differences can allow new friendships to form. The kids cut out paper pants and with a little guidance wrote what they were scared of.
 
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish is a great rhyming story with some great moments for colour recognition as well. The kids played a One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish game where they rolled the dice, read the number and put the corresponding amount of fish in the bowl. They also made paper fish to go along with the story.
 
Go Dog Go, by PD Eastman, was another book we focused on. It is often associated with Dr. Seuss. This book is great for learning opposites, colours, and rhyming of course. We played a musical rhyming game to the tune of The Farmer in The Dell and made cardboard tube cars.
 
Additional favourites that were read multiple times this week:
Fox in Socks
Wacky Wednesday
Green Eggs and Ham
Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?
Hop On Pop
Yertle The Turtle
 
Our letters this week were O and Q. We learned that O is a vowel, so it has two sounds. We definitely learned some new letter Q words that we had not heard of before.

This week we spent a descent amount of time outdoors, as the weather has been wonderful! We’ve been building snowmen, digging out snow to make ‘houses’, making trails in the snow, rolling down the hills, climbing the trees, boot skating on the ice, and visiting the little libraries in the neighbourhood.
 
We all made a drawing using oil pastels and then applied watercolour paints on top. To help us make sense of why the watercolour paint does not cover up our oil pastel drawings, we did a mini science experiment with water and oil to show how oil and water never mix and that oil will always go to the top.
 
The kids built people and monsters with play dough, buttons and sticks. They turned it into a two hour creative pretend play session. I love seeing them delve deep into their pretend play when they are all contributing and having a positive experience.
 
Our letters this week were U and C. Last week we started playing a letter hunt and say game, of which we continued this week. The kids seem to really like it. Magic C Bunny also made an appearance, as his favourite letter is the letter C. He loves to dance to letter C songs and loves to hear what C words the kids have to tell him. We talked about what C sounds like, and then also what it sounds like when it has its neighbour H beside it. Two of the kids start with C; one with the C sound and one with the CH sound, so they were quite interested.
 
We also had some free journaling time, did a directed drawing of Magic C Bunny and baked oatmeal cookies.