*This blog post combines two of our weeks *
 
We learned about how to care for the Earth! As a group, we discussed what it means to take care of our Earth; what is good and bad for its health. After a couple of days talking/reading about this, the kids played a game where they had to run to either side of the room if the action called out was either good or bad for the Earth. I even snuck some tricky ones in there and they did a great job explaining why they thought what they did about each action called out!
 
To celebrate the Earth the kids did green, blue and white marble paintings, made and painted a paper mache Earth, Reused tiny pegs and styrofoam balls to make tiny Earths and made handprint flowers.
 
We had a lot of fun making homemade paper using abaca, poppy seeds and nutmeg. It was quite the process of ripping and ‘cooking’ the fibres, blending them (which I momentarily forgot to hold the lid on!), making a slurry out of it by also adding ingredients for decoration (poppy seeds and nutmeg), learning how to use the paper strainer and gently popping any air bubbles in the wet paper. The pieces have taken days to dry and will finally go home next week!
 
Speaking of the Earth, we had quite the crazy weather! We made snowmen, went puddle jumping, got rained/hailed, got really dirty on a Nose Hill Park adventure and had a beautiful day for a picnic. 
 
The kids did a fair amount of exercising their fine motor muscles, after being off for a few weeks. We made and played with new play dough, played the letter activities listed below, used varying combinations of two fingers to pick up coloured blocks and run them to their colour tree, and attached pipe cleaners they beaded with clothespins they searched for.
 
We finished up the alphabet with the letter Z and started playing some letter/letter sound review games. We played letter Go Fish, water sprayed chalk letters in the order their name is spelled and popped coloured bubble wrap bubbles if they knew that colour started with the letter called.
 
A couple other activities the kids did included pattern making of their choice and a number game where they had to roll the dice read/count the number and pick the correct digit from a pile.

We continued this week with our Spring theme. We have been very excited to see the many signs of Spring and hope to again after this fresh new snow melts! We put those little fingers to work ripping construction paper into tiny bits to make a robin (one of our collective favourite signs of Spring).
 
We have been talking a lot about the weather; why it rains, how clouds move, how rainbows are made and how temperature affects precipitation. We have some very curious minds! The kids practiced more of their rain cloud numbers and adding and made name clouds where they had to practice drawing, cutting, hole punching, threading and writing!
 
Speaking of the outdoors, we have been lucky to spend even more time outside these past few days playing in the dirt and out in the ravine, going on mini adventures in NoseHill Park and even singing and using sticks as musical instruments.
 
Our letters this week were X and Y. We had a lot of fun making X with our bodies, over and over again; so much that it turned into a jumping jacks sort of exercise. Too funny! The kids also made X with stickers.
 
A couple other activities the kids did this week included journaling about parts of a story we read called "Llama Destroys the World" by Jonathan Stutzman, and identified a shape, then traced it and its shape word and ran off to find an object of the same shape.

Spring is here! It’s starting to feel more like Spring than a few weeks ago! We are all very excited to be able to stay outside for longer periods of time and do more of our afternoon activities outdoors as well. We cannot wait for picnics!
 
We brainstormed the signs of Spring, of which we have seen many! It’s always exciting to see new growth outside! The kids journaled about the signs of Spring they are most excited to see. 
 
We made fingerpainted flowers, peanut butter birdseed treats for the new birds we have been seeing and did a science experiment to make ‘rain in a jar’.
 
The kids practiced identifying the beginning sounds of words with our cupcake toppers game. The kids practiced their number identification and addition by matching numbered clouds with the corresponding number of felt rain drops and adding them together when necessary. 
 
We combined a couple of our games that included number, colour and shape identification, threading and colour mixing knowledge. For this game the kids had to search for two-piece owls, run back and tell me the number, shape and colours on the owl, then find the correct colour beads (if there were no beads of a certain colour, they would have to figure out the primary colours that make that colour and use those two beads) and thread them on the string.
 
Our letters this week were V and W. There was a lot of fun to be had when trying to make these letters using our bodies; The kids each took turns directing their friends on how to lay on the floor in an W shape. We have also had quite a few laughs when we acting out words that start with the letter we are working on. Ie: Watermelons wore wigs while waving to wasps when waddling in water.

Happy Easter! 

I hope everyone is having a happy and safe Easter long weekend!
 
The kids and I had a fun time doing all things Easter this week. We worked together to make salt dough, cookie cut the dough into egg shapes, baked them and of course painted them. That was quite the two-day project! The kids practiced their capital and lowercase letter matching by ‘planting’ capital letter carrots into lowercase letter soil. They counted eggs and matched them to numbered Easter bunnies, as well as wrote their age inside of their own drawn egg. Everyone worked on directed Easter bunny drawings too.
 
The kids went on a couple of Easter egg hunts. The first was a hunt for eggs containing letters, of which they told me the name and sound(s) and erased them off the board, and the second was a hunt for eggs containing chocolate. Exciting times!
 
Our letters this week were M and N.
 
Over the past couple of months, we have developed in interest in Jan Thomas books. They are quite funny! It started with The Rhyming Dust Bunnies and A Birthday for Cow, and now Let’s Sing a Lullaby with the Brave Cowboy and The Easter Bunny’s Assistant.