Dear families,
Last week we continued our inquiries into 2- and 3-D shapes and Spring, learning about maple syrup and more about nests. We also started a larger inquiry about taking care of our home the Earth.
Shapes: The children turned 2-D shapes into 3-D shapes with scissors, turning a circle into a spiral and, with assistance, a rectangle into a chain. They also cut 2-D shapes and made a collage, traced 2- and 3-D shapes then drew them independently. They did a 3-D shape hunt in the classroom and tallied how many they found.
A special thank you to Camilla who brought in a piece of a sugar maple tree from the Kortwright Conservation Centre, which prompted an inquiry about maple syrup. We wrote and then read the who, what, where, when why and how of maple syrup on chart paper, and watched a short video about it. The kids loved tasting the syrup the best I think! Camilla also brought a book about maple syrup and the children took turns saying a sentence about each page (retelling).
Our inquiry on nests continued and the children learned about how birds build them, which reuse them, and why birds build different sizes of nests. We watched videos of birds building them and did a sorting activity about smallest to biggest. We read a fiction book called The Best Nest, and Peep and the Wide World.
April is Earth month (April 22 is Earth Day) and this week we talked, wrote and illustrated "I care for the Earth when..." and "I love the Earth because..." These are on display in the hall bulletin board. The children did a colour-by-number picture of the earth, watched a short video about our beautiful planet, and we are reviewing what goes in the recycling bin.
Please send in a wallet-sized photo of your child's face for an Earth door hanger. We also talked about how often we reuse objects in Kindergarten, and I am encouraging the children to make something at home from recycled/reused objects. We will put them on display in the classroom. We re-purposed a pop bottle as part of our (top secret!) Mother's Day art, for example. We will continue the theme with the books "Beautiful Junk" and "Recycling Things to Make and Do."
I hope you had a wonderful time at the LKS social if you went! The children made a poster with their names in their handprints to decorate the venue.
Exciting news! On June 15 the Kindergarten classes will go to Springridge Farm. Permission forms will be sent home soon. If you are available to volunteer please indicate this on the form. Thank you!
April 13 is International Wear Pink Day. Wear pink if you have it!
The sight words this week were AS and JUMP.
Thank you to Martel's and Theo's moms who volunteered in the computer lab this week, to Tessa who shared a photo of a nest with eggs in it, and to Samantha who shared her shell collection. It lead to an interesting discussion about the beautiful shapes of nature.
Next week we'll continue our learning about Shapes and Earth.
Have a terrific week!
