We had a lot of fun this Term with our topic ‘Stories people tell’. We read many classic stories but we mainly focused on “The Hare and the Tortoise”, “Goldilocks and the three bears,” and “The gigantic turnip.” For Chinese New Year’s we explored Chinese stories that explain the festivities and the Chinese Zodiac and during Valentine’s day we read “Pete the Cat: Valentine’s day is cool.”
During this term we emphasized topics regarding environmentally friendly practices such as using our food and paper waste to make compost and we also discussed the process of planting and growing food, which we will continue through the remainder of the school year.
Making a compost bucket with the Maple, Birch and Walnut classes
We got together to introduce an important topic that will be a part of a big school project regarding composting and planting food. We made a compost bin using different materials that are leftover from our daily activities and snacks (e.g., paper, orange peels). We also made distinction between nitrogen and carbon and discussed how they go well together to make compost. We talked about what compost does for the earth and about being grateful for everything the planet gives us.
Nitrogen: We explored the different smells and textures of used materials like green tea leaves, coffee grains, orange peels, egg shells and , strawberry leftovers.
Carbon: We cut up our paper scraps and egg cartons into small pieces and mixed it with sawdust to help the nitrogen materials to decompose and to also help with the strong odours that come with rotting food scraps.
The Gigantic Turnip
During circle time we discussed more in depth about how the foods we have for snack will rot over time and we looked at some of our leftovers.
We complemented the composting lessons with this lovely story that is all about planting and farming vegetables.
We used different images and materials to learn about how we can plant seeds and roots to get food. We also use this as an opportunity to practice our math skills buy adding seeds then taking them away when we harvested them.
The Hare and the Tortoise
We had a lot of fun exploring this classic fable and understanding its message: “Slow and steady wins the race”. We also used the characters to learn more about biology and understanding the similarities and differences between a hare vs. rabbit and turtle vs. tortoise.
We also made hare and tortoise puppets, which gave us many opportunities to be creative when acting out the race and storyline.
We even took the hare vs. tortoise race out into the orchard and shared some fun times with our friends from the Maple class.
Chinese New Year
To celebrate Chinese New Year we cooked some traditional Chinese dishes with the Maple, Birch and, Walnut classes and we got to eat together with our older siblings and friends.
In the classroom we learned about the Chinese New year story, which taught us all about the Chinese zodiac animals and creatures. We also learned that 2023 is the year of the rabbit and we made our very own bunny ears using the traditional red and golden colours.
We played matching games, made lanterns, got our lucky money and our favourite, got to make our own dragon masks.
Goldilocks and the three bears
We learned all about this fun story by using puppets, pictures, games and also by acting out the storyline with the Maple class.
We made some porridge together and we experimented with different spices and flavours. We used our sense of smell, taste, sight, and touch to really delve into our cooking experience. We made five badges of porridge: Turmeric, paprika, caramel, vanilla and cinnamon. It was interesting to have different preferences, some students liked the savoury porridge and others liked the sweet porridge. All and all we had a lot of fun making it and we learned even more!
We used the story of “Goldilocks and the three bears” to practice the sound ‘G.’ We also used our fine motor skills and sensory skills to place little paper balls and paper mache pieces on Goldilocks.
Valentine’s day
We made Valentine’s day cards for our friends, we had an epic “heart harvest” in the orchard and we learned so much about friendship. We had puppets shows in which the students were presented with different scenarios that can occur between friends when playing or interacting in the classroom. The puppets taught us to use our words and gave us tools to resolve conflict that may occur between friends and classmates.
We also made Vantine’s day cookies for our families and to enjoy amongst ourselves.
We are so excited for what is to come in term 4. We have noticed that the students are very interested in animals so our topic will be the animal kingdom!
