Tuneful Tuesday!
Today we learned a new song called Aiken Drum.
The original song goes something like this:
There was a man lived in the moon and his name was Aiken Drum
And he played upon a ladle and his name was Aiken Drum
And his hair was made of spaghetti
And his eyes were made of meat balls
And his nose was made of cheese
And his mouth was made of pizza
And his name was Aiken Drum.
Happy Monday!
Our sound of the week is /b/
In honour of Mindful Monday and our sound of the week we learned Belly Breathing.
This week we are learning about where the butterflies are headed - to Mexico!
I was updating my documentation into our learning portfolios and I found this picture that I forgot to share with you all.
We started a weekly gratitude practice last Thursday - Thankful Thursday. There is quite a bit of research around a regular practice of gratitude and the positive effects on our mental health. Each week (as much as possible) we will be keeping a gratitude journal. This week we started our minds thinking about what in our lives we are thankful for. Here are some beautiful answers:
Wonder Wednesday - Outdoor Learning!
We continue to work on our norms and routines for learning outside. We explored the beautiful trees and plants in the school yard. We saw many different colours - fall is on the way!
Tuneful Tuesday!
Tuesdays are the day I bring my guitar in and we sing together. So far we have learned "Mr. Sun", "Shake Your Sillies Out" and "Butterfly Song". Ask your child to sing those songs to you!
I also gave each person a try at playing the guitar with me.
We read Monarch and Milkweed
We learned how these two - plant and insect - are intertwined.
Mindful Monday
Today we learned how to settle our bodies with some butterfly stretching. You could try it at home!
We have also been working on a Butterfly dance that I keep forgetting to post. The kiddos are getting really great at it!
We had our last butterfly come out of its chrysalis yesterday (Sunday). We took one more good look at Roy before he left for his big trip to Mexico.
Some thoughtful questions were asked as we observed Roy;
"Is he scared?"
"I wonder if he wants to fly around the classroom?"
"I wonder if he will sleep in there before his big trip?"
"When birds eat monarchs - do they spit them out because they are poisonous?"
"Why do the boys have dots and the girls do not?"
Can you see the dots that differentiate a male from a female monarch?
We read the book The Mystery of the Monarchs.
In this book we learned a little bit more about how the tagging of monarchs works to track their travels.
Another exciting day!
We started off by saying farewell and safe travels to Sparkles and Gemstone.
"I love you Sparkles and Gemstone."
"I will miss you."
"Have a safe trip."
... and more
Ready to fly!
Cooperative puzzling
Monarch caterpillar beading
Exciting day today!
We arrived to see two of the chrysalis had turned black and we know that means they are ready to wake up and stretch their new wings!
Can you see the wings all wrapped up in there?
Low and behold, by lunchtime we had two beautiful butterflies!
They usually come out earlier in the day and we would release them the same day, but these two came out late. We will tag and release them first thing tomorrow morning. They gotta go, gotta go, gotta go to Mexico!
We brainstormed some names and then had a vote.
(Learning about tally marks!)
Since there are two, we each had the chance to vote twice.
Welcome Sparkles and Gemstone! You will fly tomorrow!
The day started with a beautiful rainbow. A sign it would be a beautiful day!
Our first Wonder Wednesday! (Outdoor Learning)
We will be learning outside on Wednesdays (more information to come). For now, we are getting use to learning outside and the norms and routines that go with it. Ask your child what they need to do when I call "gather!"
Safe travels to Mexico!
We have also been examining the milkweed plant - which is the only plant monarch butterflies will lay their eggs on.
Mindful Monday!
Each Monday we work on different mindful techniques that can help us with our self regulation. Today we learned about a butterfly breath. This is one of many breathing techniques we can use to help settle our minds and bodies down.
Ask your child to demonstrate the butterfly breath we practiced today.
Over the next little while we will be introducing the numbers up to 10.Today we looked at the number one.
We are learning about the many ways the numbers can be represented.
Continuing our learning about Monarch butterflies we read "Hurry and the Monarch."
Hurry has one home, but the monarch has two.
We talked about how home can be in more than one place.
We made it to Friday!!! It has been a pleasure getting to know your beautiful children so far.
Request: Do you have spare plastic bags at home? We could use a stock of them at school to send home clothes that may be wet for a variety of reasons. With thanks in advance...
We are continuing to learn how to learn and play together.
Playing cars together.
Doing puzzles together.
We learned to play the game tic-tac-toe (or Xs and Os) together.
We are still figuring out strategy with this game. Perhaps you want to try playing at home?
Our new families will get to know that Fun Friday means we read an Elephant and Piggy book. I LOVE Elephant and Piggy. Today we read Can I Play Too?
Can you tell your family at home what happened when the snake wanted to play catch with Piggy and Gerald?
.JPG)
