Week of March 6-10

Dear families,

Last week we continued our inquiry on the Ocean! We read and coloured a booklet called "In the Deep Blue Sea" and have started to decorate the hall bulletin board with ocean life. The children first each painted a large piece of paper blue, and that is our background for the bulletin board. They have finished making Blue Whales and Orcas and have started making sharks! They will be learning and writing about Octopi, Crustaceans, Seahorses, Jellyfish, Mollusks and Sand, and we'll add their work to the board as well go along. It will be awesome! Some of the children said they were going to a beach for the March Break so I gave them little bags to bring some sand back - that will go in their dioramas and they can share it with their friends for their dioramas, too.

We read lots of fiction and non-fiction books about ocean life, whales and sharks, including the classic "Amos and Boris." Our science centre has shells, sand, a sea sponge, coral, a sand dollar, a bracelet made of shell, a real sea horse, a horseshoe crab, and a shark tooth in it!

The children are learning several poems about ocean animals and the ocean. This week they learned "Smiley Shark" and "I'm a Great Big Whale." With their Reading Buddies, they filled out a shark adjective chart, and wrote what sharks CAN (do), HAVE, and EAT. We also watched National Geographic Kids videos about humpback whales, sharks and Orcas, and learned the word "diversity." They listened to the sound of ocean waves during quiet time, and during quiet time they took turns working with us on their bulletin board art. The children helped fill out a Shark Chart with SCHEMA (what they already know), NEW LEARNING ("there are over 400 different kinds of sharks) (sharks have cartilage, not bones) (baby sharks are called pups!) and MISCONCEPTIONS (i.e. "sharks are mean").

Thank you to Sebastian for bringing in an Ocean book; Catherine for bringing in a mermaid puzzle; Ella for sharing her sea turtle stuffy and shell; Rielle for sharing her sea shells; Alex for bringing in amazing photos of the ocean life he saw in Hawaii (a starfish, whale, and dolphins!); Maddie for sharing her stuffy dolphin; and Kate for the postcards she brought from Mexico. Thank you as well to Michai's mom who was our Mystery Reader; Adam from Ms. Kim's class who brought in an amazing painting he made of a real hammerhead shark he saw; and my former students Carly and Lola for pair-share reading "Shark Trouble."

The words of the week are SAY and WITH. Before we said goodbye for the March Break, the children shared their guesses about a "mystery object" (a daffodil bulb :)). We put the mystery object in some water and will revisit our observations and predictions when we come back after the break.

I hope you have a lovely holiday with your wonderful kids - when we come back it will officially be Spring!!

Week of February 27 - March 3

Dear families,

This week we started our inquiry on THE OCEAN! We started small - by learning about our classroom fish, Bubbles the Betta fish :) We went went BIG by learning about the biggest creature on Earth, the Blue Whale! We watched a National Geographic video about the Ocean and about Blue Whales, and played in various classroom centres: tracing blue whales, making a 3-D Blue whale, doing a large ocean puzzle (thank you Ruby for sharing that with us!), writing Blue Whale facts and adjectives, reading ocean and whale books (thank you Alex for sharing books with us!), counting and sorting sea shells on ten-frames (thank you Ella and Alexandra for bringing in extras!), playing pirates and ocean animals in the dramatic centre, doing a blue whale crossword puzzle, labeling a blue whale, and putting together small ocean puzzles. The kids also made 3-letter words in a "There are words in my submarine" centre. During quiet time the children listened to real whale sounds. In Numeracy, the children counted goldfish in groups of 2, 5 and 10 and also added goldfish together. The they ate them :)

We also started our Ocean dioramas - thank you for bringing in shoe boxes for this project. If you have extras we would really appreciate them! The children painted the inside of their shoe boxes and we will be creating a 3-D diorama with each of the ocean animals we learn about. This ties in nicely to the Kindergarten Curriculum expectation of learning about 3-D shapes. We are learning a song called "In the Ocean" and will be learning several poems about ocean animals during this inquiry, copies of which will be sent home. With our Reading Buddies, we wrote what Blue Whales CAN (do), HAVE and EAT, and read a booklet called "In the Deep Blue Sea." In the Computer Lab, the children are learning more about oceans on "Pebble Go." ***This March Break at the ROM there is a special exhibition on WHALES*** - I'm sure the kids would LOVE to see it!!! www.rom.on.ca

The kids had a great time on Wednesday's Field Trip to see Musician Jack Grunsky. Thank you so much to Andrew's mom and Michai's dad for volunteering!! Thank you also to my former students Izzie and Nathalie for reading to the class, to the Grade 8 students who read with the kids each day during home room, and to Jackson's mom who was our Mystery Reader this week!

The children are also making super-cute Leprechaun masks for St. Patrick's Day. Thank you Miss. Santiago for assisting the kids with this!

Next week we will continue our inquiry into oceans, and will learn about Orcas and Sharks!

That's the news from Room 166 - I hope you are having a great Sunday.