Week of May 6-10

Dear families,

Happy Mother's Day! Your children have two special gifts to give you on Sunday :). I hope you have a wonderful day on Sunday! You deserve it!

This week we continued our inquiry on Insects! We learned facts about the firefly and the praying mantis. We also watched a Binoc episode about mosquitoes and a Magic School Bus episode about insects. We watched a Binoc episode about fireflies, and read Eric Carle's lovely book "The Very Lonely Firefly." The children made firefly and praying mantis puppets. With their reading buddies, the kids read and coloured a little book I made called "Dragonfly, Dragonfly, What do you See?," following the pattern of Eric Carle's beloved book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear." Pattern books (books with repeated words, phrases on each page), are an important step in teaching children to read, and they give children a feeling of success because the patterns are easily followed. The children also made a pattern booklet called "Is it an Insect?" and learned about which creatures eat insects, and what insects eat. They are also learning about where they live and how they build their homes.

We continue to do Mindful Meditation every day during Quiet Time, and this week they did Cosmic Kids Yoga "Fairy Floss" and "Frozen" episodes. They enjoyed holding onto feathers and pompoms to help refocus their minds and be calm.

We have also started to rehearse for the June 21st Sharing Assembly! I think the children are enjoying learning how to and teaching their friends how to say "Hello" in their native language and the language of their ancestors!

Our Mystery Reader this week was Chris' father - thank you! Thank you as well to the moms of Abigail, Emma, twins Estella and Simonne, Kipling and Reina for assisting the children during the Art in Action Artist visit!

The words of the week were THERE and THAT. We are also working on the double letter sounds TH, SH and CH. These double letter sounds occur in many English words.

This Wednesday is our field trip to Reptilia. Please remember to pack two snacks and a litterless lunch.

This Thursday, May 16 is the Scholastic Book Fair in the Library. Don't forget to send money in a plastic baggie with your child's name on it, if you wish your child to purchase a book.

That's the news for this week! I hope you have a lovely weekend and I wish you a WONDERFUL Mother's Day!!