Dear families,
We had another great week in room 166 learning about the Earth and finishing our inquiry on 2D and 3D shapes! Their SHAPES folder went home in today's mail bag.
The words of the week were I'M and WAS. We are now learning double letter sounds such as SH, CH and TH. I have sent home the last Phonics Words sheet for the SKs to practise reading and spelling at home.
Thank you for sending in hollow eggs for your children to decorate. They enjoyed decorating them with Q-Tips and food colouring, and watching the primary colours mix to make new colours. If you haven't sent in an egg for your child, please do so by next week. Thank you! We will be starting a new inquiry on seeds and plants and I would like to grow little plants with the children using empty egg shells. Please send in one after the Easter holiday. Thank you. An egg with just the top removed (not half) is best, so we can fit more soil inside it. We will also be learning about how to grow new plants from old plants.
In Numeracy, we made shapes with geo boards and elastics and drew the shape we made. The SKs added the coordinates of their elastics (e.g. A5, B2, etc.) The SKs also did a matching exercise with non-standard objects, such as a shark's tooth and fin (triangular prism, a Beluga Whale (cylinder), a puffer fish (a cylinder that turns into a sphere) and a bubble (sphere). Great job! The kids also made a 3-D Shape Wheel.
The Earth Day toys that the children have made and presented to their classmates are wonderful! We reuse and recycle so much in Kindergarten. The children are enjoying making a step-by-step painting of the Earth. They will be on display in our classroom next week. The children are learning a bit about our Solar System and how the planets and our moon move. We watched a video about this and read several books as well. The children made a mini spherical Earth using three colours of Plasticine (white, blue, beige).
In literacy, the children touched the soft flowers of a pussy willow and we brainstormed adjectives about it. From there, they chose 5 adjectives and created a simple poem about Pussy Willows. Great job! This work is on display on our classroom bulletin board.
We have also started learning about the differences between LIVING and NON-LIVING things. We watched a short video and talked about the differences; that LIVING things GROW, BREATHE, MOVE and REPRODUCE. To get them really thinking, we talked about my stem from the pussy willow branch - it was dry, didn't have roots, and wasn't growing anymore. We'll continue learning about this next week. We watched a BINOCS video of sunflowers moving their heads to follow the sun, and learned a little bit about how plants breathe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1Ymc311XS8
During this week's daily Quiet Meditation Time, the children enjoyed playing with feathers while listening to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4oS680-Dnw. It is an excellent website for guided meditation for children. This also gives Mrs. Mosun and I one-on-one time to read with the children and assess their progress.
Today we had an author visit from Ella MacKay, who showed the children how she creates her amazing art to illustrate her beautiful books. This is her website: www.theaterclouds.com.
The next Scholastic order is due May 10.
LKS had a lot of school spirit this week, wearing PINK to promote friendship and BLUE and WHITE to cheer for the Leafs! Looks like it worked for yesterday's excellent game against Boston!
With our Reading Buddies, we are working on booklets about Signs of Spring.
Thank you so much to our Mystery Reader of the week, who was Kipling's mom!
Next week is the last week before our Easter long weekend, and we will be doing more Spring-themed literacy and numeracy activities.
That's the news for this week. Please continue to send in mittens for your children since the weather is still a bit chilly, especially in the mornings.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Saturday is supposed to be beautiful weather!
