Week of May 7-11

Dear families,

First and foremost, I would like to wish all the moms a Happy Mother's Day this Sunday! The children have made three very special gifts for you and have been practising two songs to sing to you. I hope you have a wonderful day! This Sunday I'll be with my three children and husband at the Blue Jays Game. Go Jays!

This week in the mornings, the children continued to learn about Healthy Habits and where our food comes from. In the afternoons they are learning about Canadian money.

In Science and Literacy, the children learned where the food we eat grows (under the ground, above the ground, on a tree, in a flower (seeds), on a vine. We learned which parts of plants we eat - all of them! We eat stems such as celery, flowers such as cauliflower and broccoli, lots of fruits, leaves such as lettuce, tubers like potatoes, fungus (mushrooms), root such as carrots, seeds, legumes such as peanuts, and bulbs such as onions and garlic. The children's homework this weekend is to match the plant word with the picture.

We also talked about "every day" foods such as fruits and vegetables ("real food from plants") versus "sometimes" foods such as candy and ice cream. The children completed an "I'm So Healthy" booklet and a "Healthy Habits" food wheel. They helped me spell food of different colours - red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, purple, brown and beige, and white. They also touched and examined seven different grains - millet, wheat, corn, cornmeal, barley, oats, and rice, and learned how they are made into grain-based foods such as bread, pasta, cereal, crackers, etc. We also learned about dairy products (yogurt, cheese, milk, ice cream, butter). The children helped solve healthy food spelling riddles, learned how to draw various healthy fruits and vegetables, and learned that fruit always has seeds inside (so cucumbers and tomatoes are fruits!).

We are also making new plants grow from plant scraps: we are rooting potatoes, a pineapple, a green onion, basil, and celery. The children also planted the sprouts that grew from the seeds they planted in class, and we now have a little "Kinder Garden" outside in the yard. The children are proud to show us their healthy snacks, and they are really enjoying playing in our Pizza Pizza Centre, too, adding healthy toppings to their "pizzas" and counting money!

This week in Numeracy the children learned about the nickel, the dime, the quarter and the loonie, and about why the symbols of the beaver, the Blue Nose, the Caribou/Elk and the loon are on them! They are learning a song to help them remember the values of the coins, and watched a few short documentaries about how coins and "paper" (polymer)money is made. They passed around real money and learned how the shapes, sizes and features help visually impaired people. We will learn about the toonie on Monday, and will do summative work about money values next week.

In Art, they children learned more about Wassily Kandinsky, who was one of the fist abstract expressionist painters. He loved colours and shapes, and believed that art should make you feel emotion just as music does. He made music with paint! The children have made three drawings/paintings inspired by Kandinsky. They are beautiful! The Mother's Day Art is inspired by Kandinsky's "Squares with Concentric Circles" which he painted in 1913. www.wassilykandinsky.net

Thank you so much to Hudson's dad who was our Mystery Reader this week! He read two interesting National Geographic books about Volcanoes and Penguins. Thank you, Ethan, for bringing in your awesome airplane to show how it looked like a bird. We did a Venn Diagram comparing birds and planes. I love it when the children reflect on their classroom learning and bring it home and then back to school!

That's the news for this week! Have a wonderful weekend!

The children did an excellent job at this week's surprise Fire Drill! Good listening!

The words of the week were DID and SOME.