4th Week of May

Tuesday

This week we were excited to arrive at school and see that the beans we planted on Friday had popped up above the soil. The students were very excited to take on the responsibility of giving their plants water and to measure how tall they had grown using a conventional ruler and unified cubes.



We started to learn about bees and pollination. The students investigated bees through various provocations around the classroom. We read both fiction and non-fiction books to build vocabulary, learn new facts, and come up with new questions.

Wednesday

We continued to learn about bees today with the exciting addition of a bee-bot. The students had been learning basic coding symbols and got to put their knowledge to use by creating a sequence of code to drive the bee bot through over a basic grid to get the bee from the flower to the hive. 

Thursday:

Today we read an awesome book called "Dangerous" bu Tim Warnes. It was about a little mole who loved to label everything. The ends up sticking labels all over a crocodile. The crocodile then eats the labels which makes the mole very angry. His feelings of anger make him call the crocodile names, which hurts his feelings. In the end, the unlikely duo exchange apologies and in the end become friends. 

The story inspired the students to use their knowledge of letter sounds to use invented spelling to make labels for a variety of items (and people) around the classroom. What great motivation to write!

Friday

Today we shared everything we had learned about bees. Some of the students favourite facts are that the Queen bee is the only bee who lays eggs; all of the worker bees are female; the bees collect nectar with a straw-like tongue and then spit-up the nectar into wax cells in the hive (some of the students found this fact disgusting). 

The students chose a non-fiction book to read about the disappearance of bees. They learned about different factors contributing to the decline in bee populations and ways that they can help. The 4 ways they decided they could help at home is by 

1. Sharing their new knowledge of bees with friends.

2. Plant flowers that bees love in their gardens (apparently they like purple, blue, and yellow flowers best).

3. Use honey to sweeten foods instead of sugar to help support local beekeepers.

4. Don't use chemical pesticides and weed-control. Here is an eco-friendly alternative for weed spray and 2 Tbsps of dish soap per gallon of water for insect control. 

In the afternoon, we used our blue prints from last week to build our structures with our buddies.
The students used various materials to construct their stairway for the Giant. After completing the structures, they evaluated their design and recorded what they would change in the future.

Upcoming Dates:

Monday, May 28th- Pro D (No School)

May 29th- June 1st - Ride Your Bike to School Day

Tuesday, May 29th- Parent Tea (Our class will perform "My Own Two Hands"

Wednesday, May 30th- Bake Sale and Puff Sale in Afternoon

Friday, June 1st- Blue Day (Wear blue to show your support of being inclusive)

Friday, June 8th- Father's Day Celebration 8:45- 9:15 in classroom (Notice to come on Tuesday)

3rd week of May

This week the students continued to learn about plants, taking a closer look at seeds, specifically beans. The students used various types of beans to make patterns, pictures, to measure, to sort, to compare and contrast, and finally to record observations. We soaked the beans in water to start the germination process and were able to break the beans open and see the beginning of the route and leaves inside the bin. The students found this quite fascinating.

A large group of students has taken a keen interest in insects that they find on the playground and in the classroom.

We have had many visitors over the last few weeks, lots of ants, many wood bugs (roly-poly), an earwig, and a snail. The kids have been cooperating to make different traps and homes for the insects and have been sure that they have all they need to survive their short stay in our classroom, water, grass, and dirt. 

We started reading various versions of Jack and the Beanstalk. It's amazing how many different ways the same story can be told. We practiced our cutting skills by cutting spirals to make our own beanstalk. The students took turns hanging from the monkey bars and pose for a photo that made it appear that they were hanging from the beanstalk. 

We worked together to mix ingredients to bake mini banana muffins. We read "Ferdinand" which is a beautiful story about a peaceful bull who loved nothing more than to sit quietly under a tree and smell flowers. The lovely smell of our muffins through the hallways had many teachers and students coming out to see if they could have a taste. 

The kids carefully focused on all their 5 senses during the process of baking. 

The kids enjoyed one of our building provocations this week to try and recreate familiar structures from around the world. There was a lot of amazing teamwork and problem solving. 

The kids continued to interview each other and gather information in surveys. They used a simple bar graph format to organize their data. 

After letting our beans germinate in the window all week it was finally time to plant. The kids were excited to see the roots emerging from the seed coat. We learned about what soil was made of and why it is important to a plant before planting our beans and giving them a good drink before the long weekend. Each student designed a castle to mark their soil pot and now it is a race to see who's beanstalk will reach the castle first. 

2nd Week of May

Monday:

The students designed and created their Mother’s Day plates. We had a meeting about the final plans for the Mother’s Day celebration. Today the students spontaneously broke out in song with “Peace in My Heart”. They taught me the actions and words and requested to include it in their performance, how could I say “no” to that?!    

Tuesday:

We started to decorate the classroom. The students invented their own flowers to add to mural. They mixed paints to create new colours that resulted in a beautiful Kinder’garden’. The rest of the day way mainly spent preparing for our performance with last minute rehearsals, including recording the practice so that students could watch themselves before the big day. 

Wednesday:

We were lucky to Mrs. Salter in the classroom as a guest teacher. The students created beautiful cards and made a classroom book called, “I love my mom because…” I received a very nice note that said “All of the students were kind, helpful, and simply adorable.” Way to go kiddos! 

Thursday:

Thank you so much to all who attended the Mother’s Day celebration. The kids are still talking about how much fun it was to perform their songs and dances. They all worked so hard on their portraits of mom and plates. We hope you had as much fun as we did.  

After recess, we read a funny story called, “The Incredible Book Eating Boy” by Oliver Jeffers. We discussed how each of us like and dislike different things with a conversation about what we like to eat. The students then conducted their own research by creating a survey about what their classmates like. When they were finished the students counted how many people were in each column and discussed what this information told them. 

All of the excitement of the morning made for a very high energy afternoon. We took time to relax with some yoga and centres to end the day. 

Friday:

Thanks to L.G. for bringing in Shopkins for each student, that was very generous and kind. We read the story “Too Many Toys” by David Shannon and then then kids wrote about their Shopkins or Toys. Some students were inspired to write much more than they ever had before.   

In the afternoon, we had buddies with Ms. Leeper’s class. The students taught each other different math games and worked together to design and build structures. 

POKEMON Policy:

This week we had a few problems involving Pokemon cards. We decided that Pokemon cards are considered toys and that they will only be allowed during class-time on Fridays. If students play Pokemon at recess with other kids in the school, that is fine. They must leave them in their backpacks until recess and lunch. If they are out during class-time they will go to Toy Jail until home-time. They students understand and have agreed to the addition of this rule. Thank you! 

Reminders:

May 21^st- No School (Victoria Day)

May 28^th- No School (Pro-D Day)  

1st Week of May

AMonday:

What an exciting start to the week. We were all surprised with a police officer from the Delta Police Department and his friend Safety Bear. The kids shared a lot of great questions with Police Officer and he reminded the students of important ways to stay safe in the community. 

After the visit we read a book called "Career Day" and all had a discussion about what the students might like to do when they grow up. We created a classroom book to share our interests. 

We were lucky to get our hands on a beautiful bouquet of flowers. We started the week by having the students use their observation skills to sketch the different flowers. 



Tuesday:
We started the day with another flower provocation. The students were invited to create flower art using various materials.









We are all working our way through a flower themed math booklet that focuses on different ways to represent numbers: word, ten frame, picture, tally, and number sentence.  



Wednesday: 

We talked about the different parts of plants and decided to start our plant inquiry by taking a closer look at seeds. The students were presented with various types of seeds and invited to guess what plant they belonged to. The students used their previous knowledge and all quickly identified the pumpkin seeds, but the carrot seeds really sent everyone for a loop. Thank you to those students who continued to wonder about seeds at home and brought in some different seeds that they found: Watermelon, lemon, and apple. 



As a class we cut open some different fruits and vegetables and the students had some hands-on experience digging out the seeds and making observations. 









Thursday:

I cannot blog too much about the other things going on in class right now, as they are being kept a surprise for Mother's Day.... but here is a little teaser. :) 

Friday:

I hope you all enjoyed the day off. As for me I had a wonderful day attending the Aboriginal Convention at Earl Marriot Secondary. We started the day with a traditional welcome from the Musqueam First Nation and a thought provoking lesson on reconciliation. 

My first workshop of the day was a history lesson given by the current Chief of the Semiahmoo First Nation, Harley Chappell. He shared some fascinating stories of about the land that we live on. In the afternoon, I attended a fantastic class on "Story Workshop" which is something that has been used by a fellow Kindergarten teacher at Rosemary Heights. I am super inspired by what I learned and in the next couple weeks should be ready to put my learning into action in our classroom. More information  to come.