Dear families,
I hope you are enjoying this beautiful Spring weather! Well, we've said, "Bye-bye Birdies" to our Inquiry and I think the children learned a lot about birds' habitats, their diets, their young, and fun facts. We saw a video of an Ostrich running (and even chasing a jeep!), hummingbirds in flight, and watched as the baby bald eagles have grown and are starting to stand up in their nests. We learned about the life cycle of a chicken, all about the size, shape and colour of eggs, and put our "Ducks in a Row" by putting words in the correct order to make a sentence, then writing the sentence down. We wrote about eggs in some egg art that is displayed in the hall. The children found it interesting that eggs come in so many different colours, from white to blue to brownish colours with spots, and all the way to black (Emu). We also did "Home Tweet Home" math by helping a bird go home by adding up numbers, and learned how to read and sort our Bird Facts/Not Bird Facts folder. We also completed the booklet "All About Birds", which has all the fun facts about the birds we learned about. We wrote about our favourite birds, why we like birds, and drew our favourite bird. Blue Jays, Owls, Hummingbirds, Penguins, Flamingos and Ostriches were favourites (Go Jays!). The kids also had fun sorting the birds we learned about in groups of "Angry" birds and "Scaredy" birds. All the children's wonderful work went home in Friday's white bag. I hope you have fun listening to your children tell you all about birds!
As a follow up to last week's rain, we wrote about why we like/don't like rain. This work is on display in the classroom.
This week's Popcorn Words are HE and SHE. Last week's words were BIG and RUN. The homework for this weekend is to do the mini books for those words.
A big Thank You to: Megan's family who collated the Scholastic order forms; Avery's dad and Adam's dad who were Mystery Readers; Izzie and Sophie for bringing in bird toys to talk about, and Martel's mom who helped with Computer Lab.
Next week we'll start two new Inquiries, on Measurement and Backyard Bugs.
I hope you have a terrific week!
Saturday, April 18, 2015
Week of April 6-10
Dear families,
I would first like to say a big thank you to our Parent Volunteers who helped the children make their papier mache eggs at our Spring Craft Party: Elizabeth's mom, Christopher's mom, Olivia's dad, Stella's mom, Matthew H.'s mom, and Anderson's mom all gave their time and energy to making the party fun for the children. Thank you so much! The eggs look beautiful! I sent them home with the balloon still inside so they wouldn't break in transit and so you could put chocolates in them if you wish.
Thank you as well to Martel's mom who helped get the computers ready for the Computer Lab class, and thank you to Martel's dad who was our Mystery Reader this week!
This week we learned about eggs and the children had fun cracking the (empty) ones and looking inside. We learned that many other creatures aside from birds lay eggs: turtles, fish, some sharks, lizards, frogs, insects. Chloe brought in a tiny bird nest and Theo brought in a big bird nest and a photo of an owl they spotted on their street. Thank you for sharing those with your friends. We also learned about Feathers and about the three different kinds of feathers a bird has: down, to keep them warm, contour feathers in between the body and the outer feathers, and larger and strong wing feathers. We also talked about all the things we use feathers for.
We also learned more about our first two birds - the owl (a bit of review from first term), and the duck: their habitat, diet, what their young are like, and fun facts. The children are making Flip Books with words and pictures about those facts.
The children also enjoyed colouring their eggs with a "magic" crayon and dipping them in food colouring, then decorating them with gold or silver paint. They look beautiful! Anything the children do with their hands assists their manual dexterity and small motor skills which in turn assists their writing and drawing skills. They did a great job weaving ribbon in their Easter baskets as well!
The children also had fun gluing mini marshmallows on a bunny face and then they counted them and wrote the number.
It was an exciting week on our bald eagle's nest live cam, because over the weekend the eagle had caught a fairly large black furry creature (a bear cub?) and brought it to the nest along with several large fish. The parents are still sitting on their chicks to keep them warm but for the first time they left them alone for a short period of time since the weather was warmer. Lots to learn!
We also started practising our new April words and your child received a copy in this week's white bag. Our new Popcorn words will be BIG and RUN.
I hope you are enjoying a wonderful Easter/Spring weekend!
I would first like to say a big thank you to our Parent Volunteers who helped the children make their papier mache eggs at our Spring Craft Party: Elizabeth's mom, Christopher's mom, Olivia's dad, Stella's mom, Matthew H.'s mom, and Anderson's mom all gave their time and energy to making the party fun for the children. Thank you so much! The eggs look beautiful! I sent them home with the balloon still inside so they wouldn't break in transit and so you could put chocolates in them if you wish.
Thank you as well to Martel's mom who helped get the computers ready for the Computer Lab class, and thank you to Martel's dad who was our Mystery Reader this week!
This week we learned about eggs and the children had fun cracking the (empty) ones and looking inside. We learned that many other creatures aside from birds lay eggs: turtles, fish, some sharks, lizards, frogs, insects. Chloe brought in a tiny bird nest and Theo brought in a big bird nest and a photo of an owl they spotted on their street. Thank you for sharing those with your friends. We also learned about Feathers and about the three different kinds of feathers a bird has: down, to keep them warm, contour feathers in between the body and the outer feathers, and larger and strong wing feathers. We also talked about all the things we use feathers for.
We also learned more about our first two birds - the owl (a bit of review from first term), and the duck: their habitat, diet, what their young are like, and fun facts. The children are making Flip Books with words and pictures about those facts.
The children also enjoyed colouring their eggs with a "magic" crayon and dipping them in food colouring, then decorating them with gold or silver paint. They look beautiful! Anything the children do with their hands assists their manual dexterity and small motor skills which in turn assists their writing and drawing skills. They did a great job weaving ribbon in their Easter baskets as well!
The children also had fun gluing mini marshmallows on a bunny face and then they counted them and wrote the number.
It was an exciting week on our bald eagle's nest live cam, because over the weekend the eagle had caught a fairly large black furry creature (a bear cub?) and brought it to the nest along with several large fish. The parents are still sitting on their chicks to keep them warm but for the first time they left them alone for a short period of time since the weather was warmer. Lots to learn!
We also started practising our new April words and your child received a copy in this week's white bag. Our new Popcorn words will be BIG and RUN.
I hope you are enjoying a wonderful Easter/Spring weekend!
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