Our "Hoppy" Friend

Today, we had a toad in the classroom.  The students were able to see first hand what attributes this creature has that make it different from a frog.  They were pretty excited to see, touch and hold him.  Some went collecting for bugs as food for the toad, others were keen to make a habitat for him while others were making observations and drawings of the toad.  It is great to see how a live animal can inspire such creativity and engaged learning.

Our "Hoppy" friend back home in his real habitat!

Herman the Worm

We had so much fun making our own "Herman the Worm" puppet from old socks.  Each child was given the opportunity to decorate their own puppet.  At the end of the day, we sang our song, and acted it out using their own sock puppet.  For those of you interested, Herman the Worm is a very cute song, and goes like this:
I was sitting on the fence post,
Chewing my bubble gum (smack, smack, smack, smack),
Playing with my yo-you, (Wee-oo,wee-oo),
And along came Herman the Worm,
and he was this big! (they motion on their arm how big he is)
I said "Herman, what's happening?"
He said "I ate________" (the children make a suggestion for here.
as they do so, Herman eats the treat, and the puppeteer pulls up the sock
a little bit longer.
The song continues until Herman gets quite long on the puppeteers arm.
After so many food items, Herman becomes quite small again, and
when asked: "Herman, what's happening?", he replies in a teeny,
tiny voice, "I burped-excuse me!"

What fun!

Young Scientists at Work

On Wednesday, our students were given the opportunity to play the role of scientist.  We put out a variety of materials and liquids, eye droppers, beakers, measuring cups and bowls.  There was baking soda, corn starch, Borax, epsom salts, vinegar, coloured water to name a few.  The students were encouraged to investigate as a scientist might.  They were so thrilled and they mixed, played, learned and experimented all day.

High Flying!

We have noticed that with our fresh, spring air, comes lots of wind!  Today, we made wind socks.  The students were encouraged to decorate them, add streamers, add string and attach them to a stick.  Then we went outdoors, ran around in our field and let them fly out behind us!

We then flew our big kite.  The students were very excited to see it. Not only is it very colourful and very long, but it goes extremely high into the sky.  They were anxious to try their hand at flying it too.  I was a bit reluctant since if they accidentally let go, there was no telling where it would end up!  Many got the opportunity to fly it and they had fun chasing it's long tail too!

One student was helping to carry the storage bag for kite and noticed "the air is trapped inside the bag".  I have fond memories of making bag kites as a child.  Guess what we will be doing next windy day?  (If you have any old balls of yarn or string that you are no longer using, we would make good use of them as kite strings.  We would gladly accept them~ feel free to send them in!)

Hatching Day!!!

Our 21 days were up.  Despite having no visable cracks in any of the eggs yesterday, one egg hatched at around 8:30 this morning.  Three more followed suit throughout the day.  What a wonderful process to watch.  Most of the kids (and adults) were absolutely fascinated.

Hatching his way around the egg shell using his "egg tooth" which is a special bump on the chick's beak used to crack the shell.  Once out, the chick will lose it's egg tooth.

When it finally struggles out of it's very cramped quarters, the chick peeps a lot and is very wet.

Keeping it safe and warm in the incubator helps to dry off it's feathers,
but also, by peeping, it apparently encourages the others to continue their struggle out of the egg.

After a few hours in the incubator with the warm, circulating air, the feathers on the small chick dry off and become fluffy.  Then it is ready for it's new home-a small pen with food and water (we use one of the classroom's water tables!)

The students were encouraged to make observations about what was happening and to record their ideas through pictures and words.

Plasterine clay art

Barbara Reid is a famous children's author and illustrator who uses plastercine to create wonderfully rich pictures. We watched a short video of her actually completing a picture, then discussed the process.  The students have been given small pieces of cardboard and coloured plastercine to work with.  They have been extremely creative and often will include a short sentence to describe what they have created.

"My dog is sniffing a sunflower"

A Hummingbird

Special Visitor Today

No doubt your child told you about our special visitor today.  We had my daughter's new bunny Cleo visit for the day.  She is a 4 week old Dutch Rabbit. It was an amazing experience.  Of course the students loved her, loved seeing her, interacting and petting her.  But, it also provoked some different kind of projects during our activity time.  We encouraged the students to make use of the clipboards and record some observations, maybe some drawings, labeling or writing of what they saw.  At the block centre, some of the students independently got to work creating a "habitat" for Cleo, ensuring that they had Cleo's needs in mind.  At our plastercine molding centre, some made pictures of Cleo, and used some writing to accompany it.

Recording our observations

A bunny cage-complete with "pee bucket"!

A plastercine picture of Cleo in her cage.  The words on top read "Mia loves Cleo".