Sunday 16 June 2013

New class pet!

We have a bunny! Last week I went to Bond Lake PS to pick up our new class bunny - Hop! She just beautiful and the kids love her a ton.

We brought her into the classroom and soon enough she made herself more comfortable and came out to explore the classroom while the kids were around.

The kiddos are all curious about many things. We will begin documenting our year long journey with her on Cottontail Crescent to add to her journey through Rabbit Road this year.

We would like to thank Joanne Babalis and her kindergarten class for providing us with the beginning of our journey. We will be sure to post often on our class website as well as through Ms. Clark's Instagram account.

And our journey begins ....

Hop is very happy in her new environment.

And she ventured out while the kiddos waited and played around her.


Wednesday 12 June 2013

Bringing Nature Indoors

We have been very busy in room 109. Lots of outdoor play with our new kite that the Grade 7/8 teacher (Mr. Mio) has lent us. Pictures to come - I-pad pictures outside are not the best :-(

Picking beautiful wild flowers takes up a lot of our outdoor play activity time. We are lucky to have several green spaces right outside our doors where flowers grow. Many of the kiddos make beautiful bouquets to bring in and observe at the nature table. Next week I will make a concerted effort to change this into a wonder table and sit with the kiddos to really explore their wonders about these beautiful flowers.

Many worms have also made their way into the classroom. Without being squeamish, we have begun wondering about them and what they eat. We had a little experiment to see if they eat paper, however I think they may have died and we will have to do some research to see if we can do a bit of a better job feeding some new one.

Beginning of our Worm Inquiry

We have also been fortunate enough to have a new Kindergarten friend of mine, Laurel Fynes, collect rocks from Lake Ontario for our class. Today I introduced these beautiful rocks with the provocation of showing the kiddos pictures from Peter Reidel's website. He creates beautiful balancing art with rocks. Many of our kiddos wanted to try and create their own balancing art. We actually have a long wait list for a turn.
Here's a sneek peek at some of today's creations. The kiddos are learning patience - this can't be accomplished quickly.


Balancing art


Leaning tower



















Another area of the classroom that has been very busy these past couple of weeks is our Tim Horton's store. The kiddos spend quite a while making all the donuts and timbits. They created menus, and price boards.

We have lined up the customers, and created a drive thru road.

Making donuts
 
Setting up the store
Making the menu with prices
 
 
This has allowed our class to really focus on money and continue to use different coins in a variety of real-life scenerios.



Lots of learning has happened and I will post again soon with some of our paintings.