It’s been “All About Me” the past couple of weeks. We have been learning about each other’s favourite things and comparing our physical features such as eye colour, hair colour and height. Over the past couple of weeks, we have been discovering and using words to describe who we are. We have such a wonderful list of characteristics and feelings.
 
The kids drew self-portraits in their journals and we created paper cut-outs of ourselves, including details such as clothing, hair, jewelry, shoes, etc. We also built people out of shapes while discussing the shapes we were using. The kids played a silly game where they had to touch the called body part together with their partners. It was a fun way to remember names of body parts that may not be so easy to remember such as wrist or shoulder. They also played a game called “Who is Missing?” Everyone closed their eyes while one person was tapped on the head to go and hide. When everyone opened their eyes they had to guess who is missing.
 
We have begun talking about our family and other family make ups, what makes our family special to us and what it means to be a family. The kids used their journals to draw about something that makes their family special.
 
We started our focused letter learning this week, with the letters L and F. We are starting with the letters that are easiest to write (horizontal and vertical lines). The kids practiced identifying the letters through games and matching activities such as; finding the L in among magnet letters, identifying L and F in their workbooks by circling or colouring them, sorting F from other letters, and finding paper letter Fs on each other’s backs. They practiced a tri-pod pencil grasp and horizontal and vertical pencil strokes, some practiced writing L and F, and they all had fun playing in shaving cream after writing F in it.  They practiced great restraint and listening ears here! They also used their bodies to form the letter L. They tried with the letter F as well, but that turned into limbs going in all sorts of directions. Too funny!
 
To celebrate Fall we went leaf jumping! We were lucky enough to come across a bunch of leaves that had fallen over the weekend that we could pile up. What fun it is to be a kid jumping in leaves! We talked about the colours we see in fall and which was our favourite. With Fall colours, the kids sponge painted around a cardboard cut-out of their hand and arm to make a tree.
 
Some other things we did this week include free painting, “rock climbing”, and an owl colour/number/shape match game.
 
Our songs this week:
What Am I? by Sesame Street and Will I Am
I’ve Got The Rhythm by Pink Fong
Simon Says by Patti Shukla
 
Some of the books we read:
There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves by Lucille Colandro
Only One You by Linda Kranz
Be Who You Are by Todd Parr
The Skin You Live In by Michael Tyler and David Lee Csicsko
When I Was Little by Jamie Lee Curtis
Families Families Families by Suzanne Lang and Max Lang
The Family Book by Todd Parr

Our learning this week was focused around our emotions and how to identify and cope with them. We practiced our Buzzy Bee Breaths to help us cope with feelings of anger and frustration. We have started adding this to our Morning Meetings as a way to calm our bodies as well.  Some of our activities were centred around identifying how others are feeling (ie: playing a charades sort of game), matching feelings and drawing feelings. The kids built with different emotions using rocks and categorized photos of children into happy, sad, angry and scared/worried. They also made emotion faces out of play dough. There was some great work on how to roll the play dough long enough without it tearing in the middle.

We read some really good books about emotions. Below are some of the books we read and the activities we did surrounding them.

Glad Monster Sad Monster by Ed Emberley
The kids made their own emotion “monsters” and had the task of cutting out their own head circle. Circles are not the easiest to cut out but they are doing a pretty great job at it! 

We learned the story of The Angry Bee.
The kids practiced making colour patterns using coloured strips before they painted their own patterned bee. After painting their bees they added vellum wings.

Ruby Finds A Worry by Tom Percival
The kids drew lines in a circular motion to create our own "worry" from the storybook.

The Color Monster by Anna Llenas
The kids practiced identifying matching colour/emotion monsters, after which they coloured their own.

Pete the Cat and the New Kid by James and Kimberly Dean
We had a good talk about what it feels like to be the “new kid” in any situation and how it feels so nice when even just one person makes an effort to make you feel welcome.

We continued name practice this week. The kids squeezed glue onto their names and covered them with fall smelling spices. They used magnet bars to grab the letters of their names to put on the fridge in the proper sequence. The kids also used patterned circles to either sequence or write the letters of their name, depending on what they were ready for. Working in their journals, they had to find and circle the letters of their names.

Using alphabet cards to build stories. She thought this story she made was pretty funny. The bee turned on the light so he could find acorns. Examples of stories made include: "The whale blew the puck out and it fell in the canoe and the canoe went in the stream to the flag" and "The ant carried an umbrella and ate ice cream in the rain."

The StoryBook Truck dropped by to give us a new box of books for the next few weeks! Even though they are not offering their programming like previous years it is really great that they are driving around books to many people. With these library books comes an even greater sense of responsibility, as we have to take extra good care of these books, so we have been talking about how to store the books in the bucket while still being able to use them. We have been storing books spine up. This has been a good way to learn the names of the parts of books.

The kids were given the task of making a volcano out of play dough. There were a few different ideas on how to build a volcano. Some stuck their finger in the middle of a ball, some made a thick wall then pushed a hole in it and one built walls in a cube type shape. I love the differences!

Out and about with the Bella dog, in the field and where the climbing trees are, building campfires, discovering Fall coloured leaves, playing tag-like games, pretending to be broccoli families and decorating the tree for Christmas using their hats, sweaters and outside toys.
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There was plenty of talk this week surrounding the smoke in the air. We learned about the fires that are happening right now in Alberta, how they may have started, why the smoke has come to Calgary, how to read the fires charts on the fire severities, and who/what helps to put them out. We do like to keep up with current events!

It’s already the beginning of a new school year. I am excited to share this time together with a full house of little ones!
 
We started this year by working on our fine motor skills, working with our names, going on NoseHill Park adventures and learning a little bit about the wildlife there, learning about colours and how to make new colours, and learning about emotions.
 
The kids pulled elastic bands around the bottom of muffin tins to exercising their finger/hand muscles and stretch their hand eye coordination. They also worked together as a team to figure out how to make the elastics stretch over the tin and stay.
 
Another fine motor practice was using their "clippers" to pick up little cubes to place on corresponding colour owl. The kids are pretty great at identifying their colours by now and so we are beginning to learn about primary colours and how to make new colours.
 
There was a big focus on the kids’ name this week. We practiced spelling their names, identifying them, counting how many letters were in each name and comparing lengths of names by using words like more, less, long, short, etc. The main, and quickest, way for the kids to identify their names is by knowing the first letter. The two children who have the same beginning letter have been doing a great job remembering what other letters their names include to be able to properly identify their own name. The kids also used bingo dabbers on cardstock and leaves (the kids were pretty excited to be able to collect them) on vellum, to trace the first letter of their names. They also spent a decent amount of time using the leaves during their crafting time.
 
We were so lucky to see a few deer on our adventures in NoseHill Park! It was a great opportunity to talk about what the deer were doing in the field of grass (eating and how the long grass seemed to act like protection to hide themselves). We also saw a few birds of prey flying overhead, that were much too high to figure out what species they were. We talked about why they seemed to be flying in circles and how they have amazing eyesight from such height.
 
We started our learning about emotions this week and will continue on the following week. This will give us the ability to put words to how we feel, learn coping strategies and begin to understand and consider others’ feelings in addition to our own. The kids practiced identifying varying emotion by playing an emotion card matching games and playing emotion charades. 

We officially had our last week of summer break! We have been so lucky to have such wonderful weather over the past couple of months, so we could go exploring and just be in nature. We cannot wait to see what the new school year will hold!