May 26th, 2017

Buzzzzzzzz go the bees.

This week, we learned what bees look like, their job and why bees are so important. Many of us knew that bees have yellow and black stripes as well as that they make honey, but we also learned that bees pollinate flowers, to help me new flowers grow.

We played a game where the children were the bees collecting the pollen (pom poms) with clothespins, based on the number they rolled on the dice, and transported them to a paper flower. We made use of the traditional dotted dice, as well as dice with written numbers and number words. Now that many are getting really good at their letter sounds and sounding out words, we have been practicing reading number words.

While learning about how bees we made thumbprint bees, baked bee cookies and painted our own interpretation of what bees look like.

The letters we learned this week were R and K. Thinking of words for the these letters proved to be a bit difficult because some words that sound like they start with R actually start with a quiet W, and many words that sound like they start with K actually start with C.
*Cute pretend play game story*
While playing with a fort that was collectively made, they began a game where they asked each other how old they were, and what their first and last names were, then they had to find their written name on the table and the correct numbered clothespin to attach to it. This was all to get into a pretend movie in the fort. What a creative learning and play experience for them to invent.

May 19th, 2017

“Old MacDonald Had a Farm. E-I-E-I-O”

This week was al about the farm. We talked about the types of animals on the farm and what sounds they make. We sang “Old MacDonald had a Farm” and took turns choosing what animal sound we had to make.  We also discussed what responsibilities a farmer has, and what different animals provide for us. At the playground, the kids had some fun pretending to be chickens laying eggs and warming them on their sand nest. It was quite cute. This led to learning about what happens to i.e.; eggs and wool, after the farmer collects them.

The little ones criss crossed and overlapped paper strips to create a chicken nest, on which numbers were then written. After building the nest, everyone went on a paper egg hunt to find the numbered eggs that corresponded to the numbers written on their nests. 

Farmers are not only responsible for animal but also growing crops. Here they are adding the two numbers written on the carrot and gluing on the corresponding number of carrot leaves.

Building farmers and animals with paper shapes was a fun way to review some of the shapes we have learned.

We explored different tools to paint with. We painted with pretend hay (raffia) and with carrots.

Where does the milk we drink come from? How does a farmer milk a cow? We filled a plastic glove with water and pretended it was a cow’s utter, and learned about how a farmer milks a cow.

We had some great outdoor adventures this week. We discovered a creek within the ravine. Jumping over the creek turned into stepping on rocks to get across a wider part of the creek, to falling right in! To end the week we had a DQ treat after a long adventure and a picnic.

Our letters this week were P and B. Everyone practiced building these letters using pastas and our letter construction kit. Everyone kept thinking of new words consistently, even while we were on our outdoor adventures!

May 12th, 2017

It’s the time of year where we celebrate the special women in our lives.

We have been talking and sharing reasons why we love our moms and what our moms do for us. The kids have been hard at work creating special projects for their moms, to reflect these reasons. Some of the projects we did include; “thumb-body loves you” finger paintings, homemade cookies to share with mom, a special sunshine card, and a painted/decorated box that contains notes about why we love our moms and a few kisses to go with it. We also practiced our singing voices this week, with a mother's day song. It was definitely a very sweet thing to listen to.

We also spent some time this week journaling, learning about the letters J and D (their sounds, formation and words that begin with them).

There were some interesting curiosities this week…vocal cords and ballet. Someone wanted to know where our voices come from and a couple of the kids like to spin and dance, so we talked about being graceful and how there are different types of dance. It was neat looking at how our vocal cords move when we sing/speak, and it was fun practicing our pirouettes and pointing our toes.

I hope everyone has a great Mother’s Day weekend!

May 5th, 2017

Happy Cinco de Mayo! It was a bunch of fun singing and dancing to Mexican music, around a pretend sombrero, and shouting OLE! 

Cheetahs have been talked about for the past couple weeks, so they were our main focus this week. We learned many neat facts about cheetahs. i.e.: They are carnivores and the fastest running land animals; they have to run so fast so their food doesn’t run away first! We also learned that the cheetah has a really long, strong tail to help it turn while it’s running so fast. Because cheetahs run so fast we decided that we should have cheetah races! Some were convinced they could run faster than a cheetah. Too funny.

We had some fun making paper plate cheetah masks and and having roaring contests. We also made pipe cleaner finger puppets. Everyone is really taking an interest in puppet shows recently, making for some great storytelling opportunities. Both also offered fine motor practice with poking pipe cleaners through holes and twisting them. 

Using markers and/or paper polka dots, we gave paper cheetahs their spots. Then came counting them and writing the corresponding number. Some had quite a few spots so we had to listen carefully to what numbers we could hear when saying a larger two digit number. Everyone did so well! We really seem to enjoy making bar graphs together as well. Everyone really liked contributing to the graph with their favourite wild animal.

The letters this week were G and S. Our whiteboard was not big enough to hold all the S words everyone was thinking of! We came to 72 words before we ran out of space. We also talked about how many S sounding words actually start with a C, i.e.: circle, centre.

We were a bunch of explorers this week, walking long distances to new and exciting places! We found a couple new playgrounds and a big hill to watch the airplanes take off! Every week I am impressed by how much farther everyone is able to walk.