We learned about the four stages of the butterfly; egg, caterpillar (larva), chrysalis (pupa), butterfly, and what changes happen as the it moves from stage to stage. Some neat things we learned are that butterflies taste through their feet, don’t have mouths and use a proboscis to drink up nectar from flowers. We also learned that the chrysalis is formed from under the caterpillars last layers of skin as it sheds that skin and when in the chrysalis the caterpillar essentially turns to soup before it re-makes itself into a butterfly. There was definitely some fun pretend play being butterflies and using a proboscis to drink up nectar!
 
The kids and I made a couple of butterfly crafts this week. We painted a coffee filter using food colouring and water to make butterfly wings and added a pom pom covered popsicle stick for the body. We also folded an accordion winged butterfly after we painted scrap paper for it.
 
Of course, we also had to go on a few adventures this week! What beautiful weather we have been so lucky to have. We took Bella to a couple different fields, found many dandelions to blow, walked around the neighbourhood to see what we could see (lawn decorations, a variety of birds and flowers), had a picnic and played with hula hoops, sidewalk chalk and balls in the nearest soccer field.
 
We also practiced identifying and building single digit numbers with our letter/number construction kit. The kids did a great job building their numbers so they faced the correct direction too!
 
Over the past few months we have been reading children’s chapter books at rest time. It has been a great experience listening to make pictures in their minds, a practice in comprehension (pausing to ask what just happened, why, and reviewing the big ideas in the previous chapter before reading the day’s chapter), and making predictions, that make sense, about what may happen next. We have read the Tale of Despereaux and watched the movie afterwards. Right now we are onto our second book in the Magic Tree House series.

The kids have been planning what they would like to learn about over the next couple of weeks and this week was all about dinosaurs. We learned the names of many dinosaurs and how to identify herbivores from carnivores. We learned many facts about varying types of dinosaurs; Brachiosaurus’ sleep under water and breath through nostrils on top of their heads, being a long-necked dinosaur was helpful because they could eat leaves on the tops of trees that many other dinosaurs could not reach, and even though Stegosaurus’ are much smaller than T-Rex’s they were very tough and good at defending themselves with the plates on their backs and the spikes on their tails. 
 
Together we painted and put together a paper plate and cardboard tube Stegosaurus, and made Brachiosaurus’ with foam, paper and popsicle sticks.
 
We have been reading many Todd Parr books over the past couple of weeks. Todd Parr books are great at addressing social, emotional and self-esteem topics at the kids’ level. Out of the small collection I have, the kids seem to really enjoy The Okay Book and The Family Book.
 
What a rainy week it has been! But that doesn’t stop us from going out and having a little bit of fun. We went for a few rainy walks and went on a worm rescue mission. We also talked about how worms can breathe air and in the water and how they use rainy days to surface and migrate without drying out

Over the past couple of weeks, the kids have been noticing the increasing numbers of ants, which has sparked an interest in them. So naturally, we spent a week learning about them.
 
We learned about the types of jobs that ants have, what ants eat, what their ant hill may look like on the inside, how strong they are and how they take care of each other when they are hurt.
 
We made our way up NoseHill twice this past week, the second of which the kids were very excited to be allowed to climb up the stairs to their newly discovered ant hill from last week. They took their magnifying glasses with them to get a closer look. We were all very interested to see what was on the underside of the rock that someone had placed on top of the ant hill since we last visited it. Very neat!
 
For a few arts and crafts this week the kids painted egg carton ants and threaded pipe cleaners through for legs, painted tape resist ant hills and glued black beans to represent the ants within the tunnels of the ant hill, and made paper ant puppets by piecing together circles they cut.
 
We learned about the final letter of the alphabet this week! And practiced building letters using our magnetic pieces. We have building our names frequently with tiny wooden letters; some are working on their last names by choice!
 
We played a game where you roll the dice, read the number and put on the correct amount of beads, as well as took the dog for walks, played with dinosaurs in the park, and explored nature areas.

Happy Mother’s Day and Happy Cinco de Mayo!
 
Getting ready for Mother’s Day was enjoyable. The kids did an amazing job keeping it a surprise for a few days! I hope you are having a wonderful day with your little ones.
 
We had so much fun celebrating Cinco de Mayo! The kids made huge tissue paper flowers to put in their hair and wore them almost every day this week! They helped me make up tacos for lunch. Those were a hit! For a little added science, we made maracas using varying sizes of beans/seeds to see how their sizes and quantities changed the sound the maracas made.
 
Our letters this week were X and Y. We also spent some time on rhyming words as some of our letter’s words rhymed.

We went on a nature scavenger hunt; finding ant hills, beetles, spiders, Crocus’ and other types of plants.
 
We also baked muffins this week, played number BINGO and found objects that matched a variety of shapes.

It finally feels like Spring! And what better way to enjoy and learn about Spring than by exploring nature, insects and the growth that Spring brings. We have been really excited to seen green growing everywhere! For the past two weeks the kids have been pointing out any bit of green they see.
 
We were able to go on our first jacket-less adventures! We have spent a lot of time enjoying being outside in the sunshine. We have been lucky enough to go out at least two times per day, sometimes more depending on which of our activities we can take outdoors. We love to run around large green spaces being noisy, climbing on big rocks, and looking at the clouds and birds in the sky. And of course, we cannot forget the picnics! We also practiced our left, right and straight directions while going on our walks. They took turns deciding which direction to go. It turned out to be a lot of fun!
 
On one of our trips to NoseHill Park we came across some insects that were hiding beneath the rocks and came scurrying out. We talked about where different types of bugs live, what they eat, why they were “running” away or staying perfectly still when we came really close.
 
The kids and I also baked muffins and painted with puffy paint.
 
We spent some time practicing our letters this week; identifying and matching them, as well as building our names with them. The kids really enjoy building things, so this has been the way they have been learning to make their letters, numbers and shapes. The kids also identified the lowercase versions of the letters on their cards and coloured them. I cannot forget to mention how good they are getting at singing the alphabet nice and clear for all to hear!