Our Igloo is Complete!

I can't wait to get a picture of the kids around it so you can all see the size. For now you will have to deal with me! 

Igloo Progress

Keep sending in those milk jugs!! 

All About Landon

Landon entertained us after recess with his all about me event. It was extra special because it his also his birthday today! He brought two special guests, his Mom and Uncle Jeremy. Landon read us his book, showed us his car collection and let us dance to a couple of his favourite songs. The kids especially liked Fire Burning and The Good Old Hockey Game! After that, they had many questions for his special guests. Thank you for sharing with us Landon!

Filling the hallway with love!

Thank you so much for submitting all of the things you love about these special little people :) The hearts are beautiful and touching.

Igloo Construction Begins!!

I was a bit leery about mixing hot glue with 4 and 5 year olds, but it has provided a great discussion about safety and asking for adult help! Keep sending those milk jugs and check out our progress so far!

Hibernation Party

Thank you to everyone who came out to our Hibernation Party! The kids had a blast baking birdseed biscuits with you, showing you their favourite centres, and most of all, reading with you! Here are a few pictures from our fun event. I will be adding additional pictures to your child's portfolios as well :)

How do Arctic animals survive?

As we explored winter animals, we asked ourselves, "How do animals that live in cold temperatures survive without having houses like us?"

We did an experiment to see how fat helps to insulate animals. 

First the students stuck their hands in icy cold water... Brrrr! 

Then I filled a plastic bag with Crisco and put another bag inside of it to keep our hands clean. 

We submerged our insulated hands in the water and were shocked at how warm they stayed! What a "cool" lesson! 

Winter Silhoutte Art

We have gotten so many compliments on our winter silhouette art. The kids did an amazing job recreating images from the book Hopper by Marcus Pfister through a variety of watercolour techniques. Aren't they beautiful?

We used plastic wrap on the blue water colour to provide an icy texture, and salt in the sky to make crystals like snow! 

The students then used textured paint (acrylic and flour) to fill the animal stencils. 

All About Everett

We had a wonderful opportunity to listen to Everett share his All About Me book today. Did you know that his favourite song is "Black Betty" and that he knows his whole phone number? Wow! We were very excited to see his special guest Lulu which gave us a great hands on way to talk about dog safety with a very polite role model :)

Thank you to Linda for bringing Everett's special guest and working so hard with  him on his special book! 

Snowman Art

We used puffy paint to make snowmen today. We linked this to informational writing and following step by step instructions with the Vera Trembach book, "Make a Snowman". Check out our first two steps:

1) Mix together shaving cream and glue

2) Make the snowman's body

Stay tuned for step 3!

What is in snow?

Despite my sharing my thoughts on eating snow, I have seen the kids face first eating it while they pretend to be puppies outside. I wanted to show them exactly what was in snow, so we did a mini experiment. We collected snow from 3 places.

We waited for the snow to melt, and to our surprise, we found many yucky things in all three samples including rocks, scum, unknown floating particles and even hair! Yuck! 

We talked about drinking from outdoor water sources and how important it is to only drink or eat known foods from our parents so that we can be safe. 

Rescue the Ice Cube!

How can you get an ice cube out of a glass of water using only string and salt? The PreK/K were stumped. We learned that salt melts ice-- the kids made some great connections to salt trucks and the blue crystals that you sometimes see on stairs. By resting the string on the ice cube and pouring salt on it, the ice cube melts a little and re-freezes over the string! After a few tries, we were able to rescue the ice cube!

Painting with Ice

We continued our exploration of senses in winter with tough. The kindergarteners said that snow feels smooth, fluffy and cold! We used our winter colours (in a tempera powder paint) and cold ice to paint after.

Sing along to those crazy phonic songs with this video!

As requested by a few parents, wondering what the heck their children have been singing about, here is the link to our jolly phonics songs :) 

http://youtu.be/X2YAqhzaheE

Wow! Stunning Winter Colours in the Hall

I cannot get enough of the kids marble paintings and have already received so many compliments about them to pass on to your children! They sure are beautiful :)

Welcome Back!

Hello everyone! I am back and due to an awesome new app on my phone, posting will be a lot easier for me and therefore much more frequent (fingers crossed)! 

After all of the excitement of the Christmas break, it was nice to get back into the routine and hear all about the kids' amazing winter experiences. 

With the frigid weather making a stunning sparkling winter scene to observe through our windows, we started talking about everything we see in winter. Using paint, we pulled colours out of a winter scene. The kids expanded then vocabulary and learned about tints and shades of colour. After pulling many colours out, we voted on our favourites and created designes with marbles! It was lots of fun!