We had a week full of art! We learned about different types of lines, primary and secondary colours, and that art can be so many different things. Inspiration for our week came from an artist called Piet Mondrain, who worked with primary colours (with black and white) and lines.

The kids did a great job brainstorming many materials used for making art. They even came up with items like wood and fabric!

The kids made art within the letters of the word ART. used primary colours to make secondary colours with baking soda and coloured vinegar, used oil pastels and black electrical tape to make a Piet Mondrian inspired artwork, made art with cardboard, used loose materials to make art, and sorted primary and secondary colours.

Our letters this week were A and M. The kids identified, wrote and built these letters. We sure like singing our "Where do you start your letters" song before we start writing. We try really hard to remember to start them at the top!

And of course we cannot forget the great time we had running down a snowy hill!

We spent some time this week talking about giving, in the spirit of Christmas. We discussed the importance of giving back when and where we can. This year we are participating in London Drugs' Stocking Stuffers for Seniors. We talked about who seniors are and what it means to be "in need". The kids were very excited to be able to make the long trek down to the store, which surprisingly only took us a half hour, to pick out Senior wish list tags. We hope to make many smile this Christmas.

Our letters this week were R and K. Those diagonal lines can be tricky but everyone is doing a great job!

A big thank you to Mrs. U for giving the kids a wonderful art filled Friday morning! The kids were very proud of their little art gallery of prints!

Some others things we did this week include pattern making, letter matching, number counting/identification and colour word matching.

This week we honoured Remembrance Day by learning about what the day signifies, at an age appropriate level. When asked what this day means, they may tell you that "it is for remembering the soldiers and animals that help keep our country safe". We learned what why people wear red poppies and that you can even wear a purple poppy for the animals.

We also learned a lot about what peace means. Peace in a larger sense and peace in our everyday lives. The kids made ripped paper doves and made a cut out heart that they decorated. The paper heart represented the love we have in our hearts for ourselves and others. I love that they wanted to write things like Love and Peace on their hearts too.

The kids went on a poppy hunt to find, organize and count poppies. They then figured out which number was larger/smaller, more/less., and wrote them on the board. Some used the calendar and number wall to figure out how to write them and some knew already.

The kids practiced  number identification, number writing and number representation, depending on where each of them are at. And then painted a free drawing.

We read some great books and our two Morning Meeting songs were a great spring board into learning our learning.

The books we read were:
Ava's Poppy by Marcus Pfister
The Peace Book by Todd Parr
I Am Peace by Susan Verde (and one of my favourite illustrators, Peter H. Reynolds)

Our two Morning Meeting songs were:
I've Got Peace in my Fingers by Susan Salidor
I Am Peace by Emily Arrow (I love that she gets permission from authors/illustrators to make songs about children's books!)

Our letters this week were P and B. The letter P was great because we were learning about what peace means. These guys are getting the hang of find words that start with the letters we are learning about. Even if they get it wrong, they are usually close! Many of the big kids are really getting excited about writing; they are wanting to write signs for their games or write a word to go with their drawings. This is great organic writing practice... the best kind!

We had such a busy week last week that we decided to have a relaxed week this week. We spent our time fort building, Christmas decorating and playing in the snow.

The big kids have been working on spelling words that are significant to them in regards to what they see in the story books we read. Now that we are into the swing of letter/letter sound learning, they are more than ready to start incorporating spelling of small words. The words that have been of interest are I, A, NO, ON, SAY and our newest one is YOU.

Our letters were J and D. The kids built the letters using our wood pieces and drew pictures that started with the letter D in their journals.

The kids continued to work on learning 3D shapes, and so they went on a hunt to find spheres, cylinders, cubes and rectangular prisms.