Week of May 11-15

Dear families,

I hope you have had a wonderful Mother's Day with your children! I hope you enjoy the Mother's Day gifts the children made for you. They were so proud of them and excited about hiding them until today! Included in the gift bag is something to hang their art on the window with. The children wrote "I love you because..." and their answers were all so sweet. Happy Mother's Day!

Last week we had two fun outdoor lessons about Aussie Rules Football. I think the kids had fun!

In our Kindergarten garden the children were very excited to find a beetle, an orange ladybug, a bee with lots of pollen on its legs (we'll learn a lot about bees this week), and ants. Thank you so much to Izzie who brought in a dragonfly nymph, which is the second last life cycle stage of a dragonfly. We watched a video about a dragonfly emerging from the nymph stage. Thank you as well to Cole who brought in books about insects and to Anderson who brought in an awesome guide to insects. And thank you Megan who brought in ants! We also learned, read and wrote a about the praying mantis, common house fly and ants. We wrote a little book called "My Book of Insect Facts" and reviewed all the things we have learned about insects so far.

We continued our Inquiry on Plants; the children have all planted their bean seed in peat, and pretty soon they will see the shoots appear! We learned about how plants grow, and about why plants make seeds. We are learning the who, what, where, why, when and how of plants! In the classroom window are also several different kinds of seeds that will produce different plants, such as beans, carrots, and flowers. Speaking of carrots, I sent home some carrot seeds to plant in your garden/in a planter. Have fun watching them grow and then eating them! We talked about which parts of plants we eat, for example:

Tubers - potatoes
Bulbs - onions, garlic
Stems - celery
Flowers - broccoli
Fruit - strawberries
Leaves - lettuce
Legumes - peanuts
Roots - carrots
Seeds - sunflower, pumpkin seeds

We learned and made booklets about what plants need: water, sun and air and about the parts of a plant. We also are singing a song called "The Farmer Plants the Grain." We are also making a booklet called "Five Little Seeds" which explains what happens to seeds (some are blown away by wind, some are eaten by birds, some grow into flowers, etc.).

With our Reading Buddies, the children used their "foot prints" (literally, a tracing of their foot that they cut out and used to measure) to measure each other, and items in the lunchroom. Then they recorded their results. And then they played together in the playground!

A big thank you to Megan who collated the last Scholastic Orders of the Year. The last orders are both due May 31. Books make wonderful gifts for summer reading! Scholastic order also help the classroom by funding books for our library.

During our daily morning reading time, the children read mini dictionary/alphabet folders I made with simple photos of items and the accompanying word i.e. an apple, "apple." You can make these too at home (summer is a great time for this, for example!) I simply used file folders to cut and glue words and pictures starting with each sound of the alphabet. and made sure the pictures were clear and of things the children were interested in, i.e. L for Lego, P for Princess. Flyers from Toys 'R Us or Mastermind, or catalogues (and of course Google Images) are great for this!

This week we'll wrap up our inquiry on insects and will use the Smartboard to compare and contrast insects with Venn diagrams. We will also learn a fingerplay about a growing seed and practise our song for the next Sharing Assembly. On May 20, we will be honouring Iris, Martel, Avery and Chloe for always demonstrating Integrity. In the classroom, this means always doing the right and kind thing, even if no one is looking :) It is tied with Honesty.

We'll continue to learn about plants and will review 2- and 3-D shapes as well.

In this week's white bag was a copy of the new May words. Please practise these at home with your child.

I hope you have a wonderful week!