Fire Fighting & Compassion!

Fire Fighting Fun 

A few students found a bin that had some tubing of various sizes and lengths. They asked if they could use it for play and then began a Fire Station that has at some point involved everyone in the whole class all week!

 They "hooked" the tubes on the hooks by the cubbies and made a place to start. Some made plans, some had phones to take the emergency calls and others lived in the house where the fire might be.

 Below is a fire extinguisher that has been used all week for little fires.

Below is the "fire station". The clock was used for time, levers to turn things on and off and even a steering wheel at one point!

 The boys below are putting out a fire in the house area that was called in. 

Baby Kade

This week students were preparing for Baby Kade's visit next week. While Baby Kade is not here, we use Baby Dani- a doll to help us with some of our discussions.

 Below is a list of questions students came up with to ask Mommy Randi next week about Baby Kade.

 

Compassion

The character attribute for February is Compassion. The Roots of Empathy program helps our students learn how to be compassionate towards others. For the month of February our class is responsible for creating a bulletin board by the office about compassion.

Below are parts of pictures that will be displayed as part of the board. 

 One girl is helping another take care of her sick baby.

 One of these boys was hurt and the other was showing concern.

 These two are sharing a puzzle.

 One of these girls is helping the other zip up her coat.

 Below Miss Donaldson is helping students make a handprint heart to put up on the compassion board.

 

 Room for one more print!

Ask your child what it means to be compassionate or show compassion.

 

 Below there was a group of girls who decided to build a castle together. It grew throughout the week and many details were added!

 

Valentine's Information:

On the newsletter this is explained as well but here's an extra reminder. We have 19 students including your child. We will not be sending a list of names home. Please have your child only print who it is from on it. This makes it easier and faster to distribute their cards. This is also a great opportunity for them to practice their name! Let them print it instead of you. If they do a few a day, the cards will be ready by Friday February 12th which is our celebration.

 

100th Day of School

This is on Thursday February 11th. We will be doing several activities that revolve around counting and understanding what 100 really means! Please help your child find a collection of 100 items to bring that day. It can be anything they can carry or fit into a bag to carry. If you have a collection of 100 bigger things, please send a photo.

Hint: We have been practicing making 10 groups of 10 things to get to 100!

 

 



Estimation, Investigation & Observations

This week we continued estimating. Can you "guess" or estimate how many dinosaurs are in this container?

 During purposeful play time, students had the opportunity to estimate.

Ask your child if they remember how close they were to the actual number.

 

Bus Safety

Madame reviewed bus safety and the importance of where and how to wait for a bus. Students practiced entering and sitting on the bus.

They sat in their seats while they reviewed the various safety rules of riding a school bus. 

Ask your child what is important to remember when waiting for or sitting on a bus.

 

Investigation: Snowflakes

We learned that no 2 snowflakes are different!

We thought we would try making our own.

We used pipe cleaners to make a star shape then mixed Borax laundry soda with hot water to make a solution. We hung the stars in the water for a few days to see what would happen.

  By the end of the first day we could already see a change!

The crystals were starting to form on the side of the container!

 Students observed the changes as the week went on and the final product was a crystalized snowflake!

 



Baby Kade, Owls & other Fun!

Baby Kade 

Baby Kade came to visit us this week.  He is growing a lot and he can do something all by himself now! Ask your child what it is.

We were experimenting with senses and what senses he was using during his visit.

 

On Tuesday we watched a presentation sponsored by Ontario Power Generation about Owls.

Students learned a lot about owls and that they need 4 things to survive. Ask your child if they remember what they are.

Can you see the owl below!?!

Alexandra the Great Horned Owl came with Tracey to help students understand some interesting facts about owls.

 

We have also been estimating. We are learning that when we estimate we use our prior knowledge to guess something. It doesn't have to be the exact number but our prior knowledge tells us we know these examples can't be a big number like 100 but they are obviously more than 1 or 2.

 

SNOWMEN!!

 We used marshmallows to see how many would fit in different sized circles.
Each student stamped marshmallows in their circles then counted how many fit in each of them.  When we were done, students made snowmen out of them.

 

Later in the week we read the story "Sadie and the Snowman". We have been talking about different temperatures and how the temperature can decide what the weather might do.

We went outside to find some "packy" snow.

It was kind of tricky, ...

 ...but with some warm hands, ...

 ...we managed to make 4 small snowmen.

We put these snowmen in 4 different places and predicted what would happen by the end of the day and then the next morning.

 One stayed in the classroom.

One was put outside the back door.

 One was put in the freezer.

And the last in the fridge.

 

Students came up with a lot of great predictions. (Even some silly ones)

We checked them at the end of the day and the next morning, this is what we found!

 Outside.

 In the classroom.

 Fridge.

Freezer.
Ask your child about what happened to each and why.

 



Measurement!



Students are learning to measure things using various measurement tools. Some use different kinds of blocks, clothespins, straws, paperclips, rulers and meter sticks. Below is a city type structure that students made and added to until they could reach no higher.

How many blocks tall is it?

 

We have been learning about non-standard units of measure. Students understand that you can use anything to measure objects as long as they are the same size.

 



 

The alligator is about 2 blocks long.

 



The Skittles box is about 10 cm wide and 14 cm long. We are also learning what centimeters are and how to put the ruler at the edge to get a proper measurement. If its a really big object to measure, we can use meter sticks because they are 100 cm long!!

 Below the students used the blocks to measure the carpet then kept adding and measured the blocks with meter sticks. It was 453cm long!

 

 

We are also learning that when you mix the proper amount of ingredients together you might get something fun like "Frozen Dough" with sparkles!!

 

Measuring cups are another way to measure things!

 



 

Story Time:

We read the book "A Hat for Minerva Louise".

She is a chicken who likes to explore. She loves to go out in the snow and noticed it was cold and everything around her was wearing a white, fluffy hat. She went searching for a hat of her own.

Ask your child what she found!

 



 

We went to work and made our own hats!

 



 

A class of hats for Minerva Louise!