Bunnies and Eggs

Monday:

This morning we had a visit from a Sergeant from the Delta Police Department. He spoke to the students about how police officers help to keep the community safe. The children then had a chance to see his police cruiser and were even invited to sit inside.

We read a story called the Colour Monster by about emotions.

Our caterpillars have grown a lot! The kids can't believe how much they changed over the weekend.

Tuesday:

The kids started their day by creating a colour monster to represent how they are feeling today.

Today we read a story called "Harris Finds His Feet" and completed drawings inspired by the illustrator.

We completed a bunny yoga class.

Wednesday:

Today we learned more about eggs. We watched a video of a chick hatching and discovered that it takes a lot or work to do that.

We read a short story called: "Max finds an egg"  we stopped the story part way through to make a prediction about what was going to hatch from the egg. We had a large range of guesses, from ostriches to dinosaurs. In the end a chick hatched from the egg.

Our star of the week brought in one of my favourite stories, "The Gruffalo" by Julia Donaldson.



Thursday:


We read the perfect nest to continue on with our egg inquiry. It's one of my favourite stories of all time. We played a game where the kids had to work together to pass a plastic egg around the circle using our new Doughnut Pointers.

Our buddy class organized an Easter egg hunt for us and then we created bunnies by tracing the kids legs. The kids love spending time with Mrs. Leeper's class.

Eggs Hatching:

Chick Hatching 
Ostrich Hatching 

Stories:

The Colour Monster by Anna Llenas
The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson
The Perfect Nest by Catherine Friend
Max Finds an Egg by Wiley Beans
Harris finds his Feet by Catherine Rayner

Yoga video:

Peter Cottontail by Cosmic Yoga

Caterpillar Week

Tuesday:

We started the day with a little excitement around a surprise. The kids found a treasure box with something hidden inside. They were invited to make predications.

After lunch we opened the treasure box and found some books about butterflies. We read a book about the life cycle of the butterfly and then found a container of baby caterpillars underneath. Exciting! 

Wednesday:

We learned more about caterpillars and their lifecycle. We read the Very Hungry Caterpillar and cut and paste the life cycle of a butterfly. We also did a yoga version of the story that you can find here:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Yoga

Thursday:

We started the day with story workshop. I wanted the students to not worry too much about recording their words for their story today, but to focus on creating a story with a beginning, middle, and end. After the completed their illustrations they dictated their stories and I typed them on the computer. You will be invited to read them at the student led conferences on May 2nd. If you cannot make it, you are welcome into the classroom before or after school anytime and alternatively I can send materials home to share. 

One of our students brought in some water snails to share with the class. The class had many questions about the little creatures and really enjoyed seeing them. 

Friday:

We started the morning with a visit from a Toronto Rapper name D. O. Gibson. He put on a very entertaining and inspiring presentation about anti-bullying, self-confidence, and leadership. 

Here is a song that he sang for the kids:

I Stand Up by D.O. Gibson

The kids were sitting for a long time, so we decided to go for a jog after the performance. This may become a regular event. 

In the afternoon our star of the week taught us how to play, "Guess Who?" and we invited Mrs. Kinton's class over to join us for centres. The kids enjoyed sharing our class and getting to spend time some extra time with other Kindergarten friends. 

Stories this week:

Superworm by Julia Donaldson

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

The Very Impatient Caterpillar by Ross Burach

The Wonky Donkey by Craig Smith

Worm Week

Happy Spring!

This week we started to look at signs of spring looking at plants, seeds, and grass. 

... lucky for us one rainy day brought out a bunch of worms. We spent the morning collecting worms from the sidewalk. We researched how to make a worm habitat aka. a "wormery" and then got to work. The kids worked together layering soil and sand into an ice cream bucket. We added a layer of old leaves on the top as compost. The kids were all very brave and each student carefully transferred the worms to the wormery or to another bucket to return to the forested area in front of the school. 

We spent the rest of the week learning about worms and making observations of our burrowing worms. We learned that worms do not like sunlight so we made sure that the worms were protected from the light by a black piece of paper. 

We practiced our letter recognition and beginning and ending sounds with some worm themed literacy centres. The kids also read many non-fiction books about worms and illustrated their own fact books. 

We had a measurement math challenge with a 3-Act Task created by G Fletchy. You can see the videos with the link below. 

Shark Bait 

The kids had to estimate how long the worm in the video was. They worked in partners or small groups to make an estimation. 

The kids had a great time and one group happened to guess the exact length. Wow! 

We complete another fun measurement activity where the students each selected a different length of paper and created a worm. The students were then challenged to figure out where their worm fit on the shortest to longest graph.

 Once the students had decided the worms were in the right order, we mounted them on the wall.

In the afternoon did a drawing lesson for a cartoon apple and worm. The kids are very excited about our little squirmy guests... It looks like we may be inquiring about some other Spring critters this month... stay tuned! 

Drawing Lesson

One of our student brought in some awesome gems to check out under our new magnifying glasses. 

Stories this week:

We Are Growing by Laurie Keller

The Worm by Elise Gravel

Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin

Songs this week:

Herman the Worm by The Learning Station

Video this week:

Worms are Wonderful by Sci Show Kids