Dear families,
This week and next we are learning all about Birds and Spring! We are listening to real bird calls (Audobon Society), learning about what birds are, parts of birds, what they have, can do, eat, where they live, what they do, and how they make nests. We are continuing to watch live cam of a Bald Eagle Nest in Pennsylvania, and this week the eggs hatched and two little chicks emerged! The children were so excited! We are watching as the male and female take turns bringing fish to the nest and feeding the little ones. We are also writing about what we see happening in the nest.
The books we are reading about Spring and Birds are fiction and non-fiction (mostly non-fiction).
Speaking of nests, the children are making a nest themselves! Some of them are finished and have gone home already. They first put "mud" (brown paint) in their bowls, then put sticks and twigs around the sides and bottom. Then they placed softer items such as dried grass, soft leaves, pussy willow, and lint in the nest. Finally, they glued both halves of the egg shells they brought in "("Are they real?") and we put a little chick inside. A very special THANK YOU to Iris and her family who are sharing the Robin's nest they found with us. We are looking at it and eggs carefully in the Science Centre with magnifying glasses.
We will be focusing on 10 different types of birds in the next little while, in this order: owl, duck, flamingo, chicken, hummingbird, ostrich, penguin, blue jay (Go Jays!), peacock, and woodpecker. I picked up some beautiful feathers this weekend and will add them to our Science Centre. We'll learn what the different kinds of feathers are for and how birds fly. We will also be learning more about what eggs are and about the life cycle of a chicken.
We are talking a lot about the Signs of Spring and I have posted the children's ideas in the hall bulletin board. We also worked on our beginning and ending sounds of words starting and ending with the letters in S-P-R-I-N-G. The children drew a picture and completed the sentence "I know it is Spring because..." Te children also made a very cute card called "Happy Spring." The cards are drying and will go home next week. The All About Birds inquiry folder will go home when we are finished.
In our painting centre, I cut the large pieces of easel paper into large egg shapes and added a lot of white paint to each of our colours, making Easter/Spring colours. The children did a lovely job painting the eggs, and they are on display in our classroom and in the hall.
In our Building Centres we are doing something new: I found large photos of about 20 famous landmarks (such as the Tour Eiffel, the Taj Mahal, the Banff Springs Hotel, etc. and the idea is to be the builders - to copy those buildings using blocks, lego, Treo. They are doing a terrific job!
The Popcorn words for this week were HAVE and SAW. Please add the words to your child's home folder.
The children did a terrific job at the Sharing Assembly, singing the song M-A-R-C-H ( a copy of which will go home). Congratulations to Sabrina, Luca and Sophie who received awards for Honesty.
My students also enjoyed seeing a performance in the gym about Hansel and Gretel by the Shoestring Opera, and they wrote about why they enjoyed it so much.
Thank you so much to the Parent Volunteers this week: Lauren's mom was Mystery Reader and Martel's and Matthew C.'s moms helped out with Pizza Lunch. Thank you so much for your time and energy.
The March Scholastic Order is due on Tuesday. Thank you.
This Wednesday will be our Spring Craft party in the afternoon. Thank you in advance to the parents who are volunteering! It's going to be fun!
Just a quick note about scooters: For safety reasons please leave them in the area inside the MAIN FRONT school doors. Thank you.
I hope you are having a lovely weekend! It's supposed to be 11C on Thursday!
