Yellow

Blue

What is blue? It was much harder to think of things that are blue! 

Red

We have begun to work on some short poems. Each week, we will add another colour poem to our repertoire. 

We read the poem all together at the carpet, and then focus on the words that we know, and on some new words that we are trying to figure out. 

Next (in another gathering that afternoon or the next day), we brainstorm and list all of the things that are usually that colour. 

In small groups we re-read the poem on our own - some children are focusing on pointing to each word as they say it, some are noticing new words or sounds.

(Some students are working on more advanced poems at their levels). 

We started with Red! 

And we created some dots in shades of red. 

Applesauce! Crabapplesauce!

We made some crab-applesauce on Tuesday! We usually make applesauce a bit later in the season, but the crabapples were ripe and free! I (Ms. Brown) picked the crab apples from the park across the street from my home, and did a test run at home (I canned 14 pints :). 

1. First we had to cut the pre-washed crabapples in half — (mostly to check that they didn’t have worms inside, but I didn’t stress this because I don’t want the children to be afraid to eat an apple). For this step, I did the cutting while they watched (I pre- cut all except for about 10)

2. Then we had to cook the apples. We cooked them in a big pot with a few splashes of water. At this point, everyone went off to centres and came back over to the cooking pot when they wanted to watch and / or stir. We used an induction hot plate on a table ( I stayed with the hot pot throughout, Ms. E supervised the rest of the centres) 

Next we had to strain the pulp. We didn’t take off the skins, stems or seeds before we cooked it -  and those aren’t so nice to eat, so we had to separate them. We used a special conical strainer with a stand, and pushed and mashed  the pulp through with a special wooden masher.  The applesauce goes out the holes of the strainer and then into the bowl on the table, o and the part we don’t eat stays in the strainer. Everyone who wanted to got a chance to push the pulp through the strainer. 

The crab-applesauce was bright red! Some children said it looked like ketchup. 

Some of us liked the taste right from the strainer, but most children found it a bit tart so we added a bit of sugar (about a cup to the 12 cups of pulp).

Everyone opted to have a taste! Most finished their bowls and asked for more :). 

Definitely a success! 

Practice Lunches!

Hello to all new jk parents!

During the next few weeks it would be a great idea to practice eating “school lunches” or “school snacks” with your child. 

We eat snacks sometime during mid-morning (we might eat a group snack together, but is not always scheduled, and we always remind the children to take a break from their work or play).

Lunch is from 11:30-12:00 - then we go outside from 12-12:30. 

Afternoon snack is mid afternoon. Again, they take a break when needed. 

Make sure that they can open everything that you send with them. Tell them that if they need help, or forget a spoon or fork, that they should put up their hand and an adult will be right over to help them! 

Talk about not eating off the table :)

Your child will have about a half an hour to eat their lunch. Perhaps set a timer 20 minutes, and talk about what to do if they don’t finish in 20 minutes (it’s okay! You can eat it later at snack time!) 

Practice packing everything back up, and talk about what should come home with them, and what should go into the recycling at school (same as at home).

We do not pressure the children to eat all of their lunches or snacks. We will give gentle reminders that they should be eating, not talking, if they seem not to be eating anything. 

We have a water fountain in our classroom, but if your child wishes to bring a water bottle, they may! Please write their name on it, as well as on their lunch bag and containers. 

Kindergarten lunch might be a big adjustment for your child and we want it to be as stress free as possible. If you have any questions, please email Ms. Brown or speak to Ms. Brown or Ms. Emerson 

Natural Materials

We have been building and patterning with natural materials. We are trying to reduce our use of plastics, and to use our imaginations more. Our acorns and wood slices are so fun to use in our drama centre -- as they can be fruits and vegetables -- or whatever we want them to be. 

If anyone has any wooden blocks that they would like to donate to our classroom, we would love them! We are also looking for sturdy baskets, wooden bowls and any other wooden things that you think might be fun for us to use. 

Happy Holi! Happy Spring!

On Friday we learned about how people in India celebrate spring! They throw colourful powder at each other :) They welcome the arrival of spring by tossing coloured powders known as gulal on friends, family and even strangers! Everyone sings and dances in the streets. We all thought that this sounds like a REALLY FUN celebration!

We were not able to throw the colours at each other, but we made some colourful drawings and then painted over them to create a resist painting with some very bright colours.

 

We are also learning that although the calendar tell us that it is spring, some days it might still feel like winter and we will still have to wear our snow pants outside. Please send your child in layered clothing to school We are learning the difference between cold, cool, warm and hot. Outside in spring it is cold or cool. In our classroom, it is warm, or sometimes hot.

We will be learning a lot more about spring in the upcoming weeks!

We are All Scientists

Today we had our Scientist in Schools visit today! It was so much fun!

Thank you to Scientist Sarah for facilitating this, and thank you to our parents who were available to help. Thank you Sarah, Lindsay, Charlotte, Eric, Kevin and Jason -- we trulycould not do this without you!

We were Marine Biologists:

 

(we made fish prints)

(we measured our fish prints)

(sorting)

 

(examining shells / exoskeletons)

 

 

 (matching seashells)

We were Astronomers:

 (we made constellations!)

 

We were Chemists:

(preparing to mix some solutions, mixtures and chemical reactions)

 (a solution, a mixture, and a chemical reaction)

We were Paleontologists: 

 

(we made some casts of dinosaurs)

(exploring dinosaur skulls)

(dinosaur rubbings)

(digging for bones)

We were Meteorologists:

(we did so many fun things as meteorologists! Not shown is when we made "tornadoes" in our jars!)

Ask your children about the different things that they did, what they saw and what they learned! We will have our slideshow/video available to be watched on the ipad when you come to visit us on Arts Night (save the date! May 2nd)