Happy Mother's Day

We hope you all had a fantastic Mother's Day!

We've spent time the last couple of weeks getting ready for Mother's Day.

Here's a short video of us describing some of our work:

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We had a lot of fun creating many special projects for our moms.

While working on all of our Mother's Day projects we were learning and working on:

Social/Emotional: Sharing materials with others, working collaboratively
Physical: Fine motor skills-holding and controlling a paintbrush, pencil grip while writing and colouring, scissor skills
Intellectual: Sharing ideas with others, Vocabulary-colors and shapes
Spiritual: Celebrating a special occasion

Here's a brief look at some of our hard work:

Another free scrapbook by Smilebox

Planting fun

We are continuing to discuss different Spring things at school and have started an idea web about Spring.

Several students have brought in bird nests for us to examine.

As we continue to explore Spring things students are beginning to show an interest in things that are growing.

We have provided students with a variety of seeds to explore and have been planting and taking care of different plants at school.

Through all of our seed and plant activities students are working on many different skills:

Social/Emotional:  Cooperating and sharing with friends when we play in the dirt at the sensory table

Physical: Fine motor skills- manipulating small materials, Holding and controlling a pencil when drawing seeds, Practicing cutting skills when creating our own seed package

Intellectual:  Developing our language skills when we compare and describe different seeds, Learning about plants and how to take care of them

Spiritual:  Appreciating nature as we explore seeds and watch our plants grow

We provided students with a variety of seed packages and allowed them to explore and compare the different seeds.

 

We encouraged students to sort the different seeds both in small groups and in the sensory table.

We have also provided students with dirt and a variety of planting tools in the sensory table to explore.

Family Day Fun!

Family Friday at the greenhouse was a lot of fun.

We enjoyed looking at many different plants and learning all about how different flowers and plants grow.

All About Birds

 Students have continued to show interest in the different Spring things they are seeing outside.  

They were really excited to find a real bird nest in one of our courtyard trees.

Through all of our bird and nests activities we are working on:

Social/Emotional: Sharing and cooperating with our friends, Interacting with our friends making nests at the sensory table

Physical: Fine motor skills- manipulating small materials, holding and controlling a pencil when drawing

Intellectual: Learning facts about birds, Recalling information about birds

Spiritual:  Appreciating nature while exploring bird materials, Demonstrating creativity and curiosity when creating our own nests

A picture of the nest we found in our courtyard.

Finding our very own nest and exploring different nests that have been brought to school as created an interest in birds and their nests.

To integrate this interest into the classroom we took advantage of a sunny day and went on a walk to find different materials to build a nest.

We paired the children up, gave them a plastic bottle and went hunting for materials birds would use to build a nest:

We found a lot of different materials and enjoyed the sunny day of our walk.

Here's a look at the bird nest bottles we collected and some of the nests we have been exploring.

After bringing our nest bottles back to school was spent time examining what we had found and trying to draw some of the things in our bottles.

We have also put a variety of materials in our sensory table (e.g. feathers, sticks, brown play dough, etc.) and some birds to encourage students to try and build their own birds nests.

We used the playdough to make worms for our birds.

We have also been working hard building and painting bird feeders to put in our courtyard for our birds.

Working hard to sand wood for our bird feeder.

Spring Has Sprung

Lately students have been discussing the different things about Spring they are noticing outside.

To incorporate this into the classroom we have been reading different Spring stories and have added Spring items to our science center.

Our Spring science center



As we have worked on different Spring ideas we've been creating a Spring idea web.

Here is a photo of our web:

After adding many ideas to our Spring web we began creating Spring books.

Please check out our classroom display of our finished Spring books.

Working hard to cut out pages for our Spring book.

 


We have also been working hard to make birds and bird nests using different materials.

Through these activities we have worked on many different skills, including:

Social/Emotional: Sharing ideas about Spring with others. Sharing materials with others.
Physical: Fine motor skills when we cut out our hand painted birds and pages for our Spring books.
Intellectual: Learning different facts about Spring.
Spiritual: Willingness to explore different materials, including painting our hands and using a variety of materials to create a bird nest.

We had fun painting our hands to make birds for our nests.

 


We worked hard to cut out our birds to put into our nests.

 












We also enjoyed looking at different real birds nests.

Learning About Spring

Spring Has Sprung

Students have been noticing different signs of Spring.

To incorporate students' interest in Spring into the classroom we have been reading different Spring stories and have added Spring items to the science center.

We have been creating an idea web about Spring.

Here is a picture of our idea web:

After discussing many different signs of Spring and encouraging students to bring in signs of Spring from home, students have expressed an interest in birds.

They were very excited to find a real nest in our school courtyard.

Here's a photo of the nest we found.

We have been creating nests and birds in class using a variety of materials.

Through these activities we have worked on many different skills, including:

Social/Emotional:  Sharing ideas about Spring and birds with others.  Sharing materials with others.
Physical: Fine motor skills when we cut out our hand painted birds.
Intellectual: Learning different facts about birds.
Spiritual:  Willingness to explore different materials, including painting our hands and using a variety of materials to create a bird nest.

Here are a few photos of us working on different bird-related activities in class.

Busy sanding wood for our bird feeder.

Using different materials to create  bird nests. 

Painting our hands to make birds for our nests.      

 


Cutting out our handprint birds.

 

Easter Fun

Easter fun has been keeping us busy over the last few weeks.

Through a variety of Easter related activities we have worked on many different skills, including:

• our cutting skills when we made our Easter baskets
• our pencil grip and control when we made our Easter cards
• our fine motor skills when we made Easter bracelets
• our sharing, cooperating and creativity at the art center while exploring Easter materials
• our sensory awareness when we let Mrs. H. paint our hands at the painting center
• our counting and comparing skills when we found materials to decorate our painted hand bunnies

and of course we had a lot of fun too!

Here's a look at some of what we have been doing for Easter!

(Don't forget-if you click on the photos and videos they get bigger!)

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We hope everyone has a great Easter break and look forward to starting some new learning adventures together when school resumes on Monday, April 16th.