It’s Spring! We have been so excited to spend more time outside! Now we are just waiting for picnicing weather!
 
What reminds us of Spring? We did some brainstorming, listening and dancing to spring songs and reading books about Spring related activities. There are so many wonderful changes that happen in Spring!
 
We learned about the colours of the rainbow and how they appear. We also learned a little bit about why we see certain colours…it’s a bit past some of their understanding but they really wanted to know. Love the curiosity! The kids went on a colour hunt and made a rainbow cloud.
 
Our letters this week were D and P. The kids built these letters using wooden curves and lines, as well as practicing writing them on the board and in their journals. We also played letter Go Fish and a game called “Pick a Pig” which involved sequencing and looking for similarities and differences in pictures.
 
Word Work this week was quite funny! I brought out many of the words we have been informally learning throughout the year (ie: no, on, I, a, you, is, me, we, see, she, he, etc) to see what they could remember. It turned into everyone making hilarious nonsense sentences by placing these words side by side and then trying to read them. After they tried reading it, I would read it as quick as I could and the giggles that came out of them was too funny. Playing with language is such a fun way to learn!
 
The kids also did some free painting, Spring journaling, and started drawing pictures to decorate for next week’s chocolate party.
 
We finished our Charlie and the Chocolate Factory book this week and we were sad to see it come to an end.  L  We are very excited to be celebrating the imagination, creativity, and fun of this book with our Chocolate Party next week! Woo hoo!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! The kids were so excited to have the leprechaun leave them gold coins at the end of the rainbow they worked so hard to make together! After the leprechaun came they were so excited to open the leprechaun’s bag to see what was inside! They then lined up all the coins to count and grouped them to see how many each person got. 
 
The kids worked on a variety of St. Patrick’s Day themed number puzzles this week. They matched numbers with number representations, we also blocked out the number so only the number word was showing so we can practice our number words, and they sequenced numbers 1-20.
 
The kids also worked on finger printing and painting a shamrock using only the one finger of their choice.... some fingers proved harder to use than others!
 
Our letters this week were S and J. The kids made a shamrock S in their journals and moved in many ways that began with S ie: slither, sit, stand, shuffle, skip, etc. J was also a great letter for movements.
 
And we also cannot forget we celebrated a very special 5th birthday with rainbow cupcakes and all! Thank you for baking those very appropriately themed treats!

This week was all about dogs, as it was Bella Dog’s birthday! She was pampered at a spa, where she received a massage, some scratches, a facial, a brushing and trimming. We made Bella some dog treats. The doggy treats were also enjoyed by the pretend dogs! The kids sure made her birthday special!  <3 
 
We already know so much about dogs! We had a wonderful brainstorming session! We learned about jobs that some dogs have such as guide/helper dogs, police dogs and herding dogs. It was fun to learn about varying breeds of dogs too.
 
We learned why dogs are stinky, especially when they are wet. Who knew dogs had tiny microorganisms living in their fur and on their skin to help them stay healthy, but also leave waste as they do so?!
 
We had a lot of fun playing dog games like tug ‘o’ war and fetch and had some fun following dog commands which turned into quite some silly commands. We also made our own paint for paw print art. That was quite a lot of fun seeing everyone’s process.
 
We really enjoy the book Go Dog Go by P.D. Eastmann, and so we played a game where I would give them a shape/colour/size to find then yell “Go Dogs Go!” and they would run in search of such an item.
 
Our letters this week were Q and G. The kids built Q with our wooden lines and curves, as well as played search and find activities.

This week was all about The Farm. We started by brainstorming all we knew about the farm, such as the animals and some of their characteristics, what animals give us, the farmers’ job (in a general sense), and the fruits and veggies that a farmer can grow. We watched videos on milking cows, goat sounds, pigs and chicken coops.
 
The kids journaled about something they really liked about The Farm and we played a game called “Do You Have My Moo?”. After learning how to milk a cow, the kids did some udder paintings using a paint-filled disposable glove with holes poked in the fingertips. Messy fun! Some of us had a little extra fun filling the big paper barn with different barnyard animals too!
 
Our letters this week were C and O.
 
Our “all” word work continued this week. The kids even did word work during their play time! The drew “all” word pictures on the whiteboard and then spelled the words too. They sure are doing well with “all” words!
 
We can’t forget all the frosty, icy, snow hill playing days we have had. What fun!