Week of March 28-April 1

Dear families,

I hope you are having a lovely Easter Weekend with family and friends!

Spring is in the air in Room 166! The children have been looking for "signs of Spring" in the playground and on their walk to school. The crocuses came up a few weeks ago, and daffodils, hyacinths, day lilies and tulip leaves are popping up in our Kindergarten garden. I cut several pussy willow branches from my garden at home and put them in a vase. The children looked at them carefully and we passed the branches around. We talked about looking carefully at nature (April is Earth month) and how we would paint them. The children drew the vase and painted them with four different water colours. Then we wrote several adjectives down on chart paper and the children turned them into a poem. (March 21 is World Poetry Day and we wrote another poem about Spring). We read several books about Easter and Spring, and read Jan Brett's beautiful book "The Easter Egg" about a rabbit who takes care of a fallen robin's egg. The children learned that to make "Easter" pastel colours with paint, they just need to add white! Each child painted designs on a large piece of paper, and then I showed them how I made an egg-shaped template which I used to trace a large egg shape on the back of each "poster." Then the children cut them out and we hung them up in the classroom. They look beautiful!

The children read and wrote a booklet called "Here is a..." with drawings and mixed-up Spring words that they had to "decode" and write correctly (i.e. unybn = bunny). We talked about how to do this and did this together first. The children then read the booklets. With their Reading Buddies, they started another booklets called "I Know it's Spring". I also set up an Easter/Spring card writing centre with helper words such as DEAR, TO, FROM, LOVE and several sentence starters as well as Spring words and a class list of names. They love the centre and I'll keep it open for another week or so.

We also talked about Spring weather and wrote about why we do or don't like rain. The children wrote their answers and drew a picture. These are on display on the class bulletin board. We also completed this month's "This is me in... (March) and the children completed the March calendar. These are on display on the hall bulletin board.

Our Science Centre has all natural objects now, as we talk more about the Earth. Stella and Samantha brought in two very different birds' nests which the children looked at and discussed. What did the birds use to make their nest? What kind of bird do you think built this nest? Why? How?

For Numeracy, the children took turns sorting, counting and graphing jelly beans. The children also used elastic bands and a 5x5 peg board to create 2-D shapes, which they then had to draw. We will continue this exercise next week, and will go more in depth about 2- and 3-D shapes. Please encourage your child to look for shapes in their home and in the natural world.

We had our Spring Craft Party on Wednesday. Thank you so much to the mom's of Elizabeth, Martel, Riley, Theo and William who volunteered their time and materials! The children had a wonderful time! It's nice to see the children transitioning independently from one activity to another.

Miss Nisker sent home instructions on how to make the St. Patrick's Day science experiment at home. Thank you!

Thank you to Tessa who shared her sea shells with us, to Matthew who showed and shared his awesome rock collection, to Christopher's mom who helped the children in the Computer Lab, and to Martel who stapled and stamped this month's Scholastic order forms. The next Scholastic order is due April 8. Thank you as well to Iris who brought in more electronics for our ever-popular "Take Apart Centre."

Next week we will continue our SPRING theme in the mornings and 2-D and 3-D SHAPES inquiry in the afternoons. Please send in a hollowed-out egg or two next week. We will decorate them with a magical mix of shaving cream and food colouring, and we'll also use them for making eco-friendly seed planters. One whole hollowed-out egg and one empty egg shell (please send in the larger half of the broken egg) would be terrific. Thank you!

It was our turn to play with the iPads this week. The children take 15-minute turns so that everyone has an opportunity to play with them. The children also enjoyed playing with the Easter coloured play-doh that Matthew's mom made, using various rollers and Spring shapes. Small motor skills are an important part of early learning, and they Juniors especially have made enormous progress here.

This Thursday will be our March Sharing Assembly, celebrating "Honesty." If your child will be receiving a certificate, I will email you.

That's my news for this week - see you on Tuesday!