Week of April 23-27

Dear families, I hope you are enjoying this beautiful weather!

This week we finished our inquiry on the Earth and learned about how to take care of it. With Ms. Patel, the children learned about the three Rs- recycle, reuse, and reduce! We do a lot of reusing in Kindergarten and also repurpose a lot of home and classroom items (HINT! Mother's and Father's Day Gifts!) We learned about the difference between garbage and recycling. The children also learned about different kinds of pollution and watched a Berenstain Bears video called "Don't Pollute." Together as a class the children decorate a big Earth with tissue paper and wrote their names, pledging to take care or the Earth. The children also painted paper plate Earths. They completed the sentence "To take care of the Earth I can..."

Several seeds have germinated in our "How do Plants Grow" centre. Dante found a maple tree sprout and we planted it in our indoor garden too. I wonder which will grow faster, the sunflowers or the maple tree? The children watched a video of a sprouting seed.

The children continued their inquiry on Birds. They wrote three facts about birds and made a bird face booklet with real feathers. With their Reading Buddies, the children worked on an Owl fact booklet. We also reviewed the numerals 3-9 with Angry Birds work sheets, remembering not to reverse the numerals (for example making a P instead of a 9). The children helped me write what birds CAN (do), HAVE and ARE on chart paper. We also graphed and tallied how many children have seen an owl. We learned about how birds fly and turn, and how airplanes lift off the ground. We watched videos of eagles, ducks and geese flying, and learned about how ducks will bond with people if they see them when they hatch.

Even though it's almost May, please remember that the children play outside for at least one hour a day (usually more) and that they need appropriate clothing. No flip flops please. We also go to the gym when it's available and the kids need running shoes in order to be able to safely participate in activities.

The words of the week were LITTLE and OUT. The homework for this week is to complete the LOOK mini read and write book. I have sent home the new May words and May Bingo. Thank you so much to our volunteers this week! Hudson's, Kate's and Elea's mom helped with Pizza Lunch, and Rielle's dad was the Mystery Reader.

At the Sharing Assembly, the children recited the poem "What the Robin Told" and Kate, Mia and Elea were acknowledged for Co-operation. We will present Elea's certificate at the next Sharing Assembly.

We have also been very busy creating art gifts for Mother's Day and Father's Day. :) Next week we will finish our inquiry on birds and will learn about which parts of plants we eat and Healthy Habits.

That's the news for this week! I hope you have a terrific weekend!