Blog 2.6: February 8-12

These last couple of weeks have been filled with different kinds of celebrations. This week, we carried on with our interest in the Chinese New year and also celebrated Valentine's day.

Our class has been very interested in dragons, so we made paper cup dragons to celebrate Chinese New Year.

Cooper adding flames to the dragon's mouth

Forty using paint and glue

Angie using paint and glue

Taj gluing on scales

Peach gluing on scales

Forty gluing on scales

Class picture

We worked on our maths by creating a real life example of one of our favorite songs, Five Speckled Frogs. You can help at home by singing and acting out the song. 

To celebrate Valentine's day, our class mixed, cooked and decorated cupcakes to share with friends and family over the weekend.

Blog 2.5 February 1-5

Happy Chinese New Year!

This week we learned about and prepared for Chinese New Year by learning the fable of when the zodiac animals had a race across the river to get to the King. We were especially interested in the dragon, which represents good luck and wisdom.

We reviewed basic shapes and learned that we can tell one shape from another by counting how many corners a shape has. For example, a circle has no corners and a triangle has three corners.

We put our shapes to good use by making dragons to decorate our class doors.

Forty making a "mommy and baby" dragon

Angie working on a dragon

Nine working on a dragon

Our book for the week was, The Ugly Duckling. We talked about how it is important to be a good friend and to be kind to others. Our class has become very interested in eggs and baby chicks, and are looking forward to dying hard boiled eggs later this week.

Blog 2.4 January 25-29

This week our class was bug crazy and we ran with it. Ants were a particular favorite, maybe because we have many model any bugs in the classroom. We read books, watched clips and went on nature walks to find out as much as we could about these bugs we see every day. The class worked together to create a giant model ant. We practiced making decisions together by voting on its name, Mr. Ant- and the color of its eyes, purple.

We learned about leaf cutter ants and how strong they are. We made our own leaf cutter ants out of spoons and pipe cleaners, and went on a nature walk to find heavy objects to put on their backs and in their pincers. 

I-Aun decorating her ant

Wen Wen sticking a leaf on his ant's back

Angie holding up the finished product

A colony of ants

Our class also experimented using different tools, such as spoons, popsicle sticks, and toothbrushes to free our bugs from the ice.

Nine, who has mostly freed his animal from the ice. We found out that the heat from our bodies is good at melting ice, even though it feels cold!

Cooper using a toothbrush to free his bug from the ice

This week we are working on language by thinking and talking about what activities we do throughout the day. For example, a student in the morning we wake up, brush our teeth and get ready for school. Our class is very good with the school timetable, and I would like to expand on that idea by talking about what we do outside of school. After school, maybe we have a piano lesson or a play date before having dinner, having a bath and getting ready for bed.  You can help at home by talking with your child about typical activities your child does every day, or for special occasions on week days and on the week ends. I would like for my class to begin to understand that their peers have interests and lives outside of school that are similar and different from their own.