This week we thought about and discovered many jobs that people in our communities do, and why those jobs are important. The kids were especially excited by the thought firefighters and astronauts.
 
Our week-long project of making uniforms to put on our clothesline went great. This activity was based on one of our books called Clothesline Clues to Jobs People Do by Kathryn Heling and Deborah Hembrook.
 
We had a wonderful first experience with the Calgary Public Library’s StoryBook Truck. We took part in rhyming fingerplays, songs, exploring new toys, and reading of course! We were very lucky to have been given a bucket of books to keep for the entire month! New books are always fun to read! We love forward to the StoryBook Truck again next week!
 
Our letters this week were P and B. The kids did great trying to say the sound each letter made and/or repeating words that started with those letters in our letter songs. Those who are new to Blooming Butterflies this year have started figuring out how to listen for words that begin with each letter sound that we focus on. Great to see!

We learned about what Remembrance Day is and what it means to many people. Our focus was on being thankful for the freedom we have, the people we love and the country we live in. We talked about what peace means in larger sense (ie: everyone getting along and working together to live happily) and what can mean individually (ie: cuddling with parents, using kind words and sharing toys). We read a few books about peace, including The Peace Book by Todd Parr, Ava’s Poppy by Marcus Pfister, and What Does Peace Feel Like by V. Radunsky). Peace was the topic of our morning songs and we watched a short Charlie Brown Remembrance Day video.
 
The kids practiced their cutting, how to hold scissors and how to carry them safely, when they cut out a paper poppy. They also did a directed poppy painting.
 
We brought out our Mat Man pieces to show some of the new little ones how to the Mat Man song to help us build the pieces of a person. Mat Man, from the Handwriting Without Tears Program, is great for understanding and learning how our bodies are put together, counting limbs and appendages, and how to draw a person. Our letters this week were D and J. We practiced building them with our Mat Man pieces.
 
There was definitely a lot of fun to be had in the snow! We were fortunate to have the snow and beautiful weather at the same time.

This past week was all about bats! We learned that there are many different types of bats in the wild, and that only 3 types out of hundreds drink blood. We learned that bats use eco-location to “see” what is around them. We also discovered that bats like to live in trees and caves, are nocturnal, and sleep upside down! We played a BATS under HATS memory game, went on a coloured bat scavenger hunt, made handprint bats, and sponge painted bats using a stencil. Our favourite bat book was There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat by Lucille Colandro.
 
Our letters this week were U and C. Magic C Bunny (from the Handwriting Without Tears Program) made a special appearance because his favourite letter is C.
 
Daily, since the beginning of the school year, we have been using the calendar to help us count to the day’s date. Some of the kids are now able to, or are close to being able to, count all the teen numbers without missing any! And even if they are not sure, I still hear their voices trying to count along! This is so great because we have been talking about how some things can be tricky but the more we practice the better we will get, and having a positive attitude about trying helps everyone learn better too. 
 
Some other things we did were pumpkin line tracing, made orange play dough, and built with Lego.
 
And of course we cannot forget that we celebrated a very special 5th birthday too!

​We Are Thankful
 
As a group, we talked about what it means to be thankful. We used Todd Parr’s The Thankful Book as a starting point for our discussions. The kids were quite understanding of what being thankful meant and were quick to share what they were thankful for and why. To show the things they were thankful for, they made a Thankful Paper Turkey where they drew a picture of what they were thankful for on each feather. Some things they were thankful for were shirts, music, kisses, family, and rain, to only name a few. In addition to this turkey, they also made an overlapping handprint turkey and made red turkeys (inspired by The Little Red Hen even though she is not a turkey).
 
We played a Gratitude game to help us continue thinking about the many things we are thankful for. You had to pick a coloured popsicle stick out of a bag, match it to the colour image on the board that listed the name of a person, a place, a food, or anything that you are grateful for, and give an example of the one the popsicle sticks matches to.
 
To work our fine motor muscles this week we practiced line tracing while trying to hold the marker in a tri pod grasp, the kids used their Velcro names, and they threaded beads and a child made feather/paper bead to make their very own necklaces. 
 
The kids went on a scavenger hunt for Thanksgiving images, played a Thanksgiving memory matching game, matched coloured feathers, and practiced counting how many leaves they saw and then bingo dabbed the corresponding number of times.
 
Some of the books we read this week were: 
-Bear says Thanks by Karma Wilson
-The Little Red Hen told by Paul Galdone
-The Thankful Book by Todd Parr
-There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Turkey by Lucille Colandro
-Monster Munchies by Laura Numeroff
 
Our letters this week were T and I. We practiced the sounds these letters make and listening for words that began with these letters within our morning letter songs. I have been starting to notice an increase of interest in letters; the kids wanted to show me many different letters they could make with their bodies individually and with a partner. So wonderful to see!

This week was all about Fall. Unfortunately it snowed, but the leaves fell on top of the snow so we were happy about that! We talked about all the different colours of Fall. We learned that leaves make food for the tree and when Fall comes the green colour that is responsible for harvesting the energy from the sun fades away to reveal pretty fall colours. The kids took laminated yellow leaves that had green dry erase marker on top and erased the green to reveal the yellow.
 
Some Fall activities we did this week include; sequencing leaf images by size, creating AB colour leaf patterns, counting and clipping a clothespin onto the correct number they counted on a fall image, Fall number recognition and representation practice, threading a piece of yarn through the holes in a laminated paper leaf and painted trees with Fall coloured leaves, 
 
We had a few BINGO dabber activities this week. The kids really like to use them! They used the BINGO dabber to make the letters L (for lead) and F (for Fall) that we learned last week. They also used a it to show which shape matched the one on the leaf and filled in a leaf shape with a dabber as well.
 
Some other activities we did this week were free painting, letter matching, identifying letters within each other’s names, practiced cutting a variety of line types, built a snowman, had a little baking soda and vinegar fun while exploring colour mixing, and play dough. 
 
Our letters this week were E and H. We danced to letter songs, repeated the letter sounds to the music, listened for words that began with each letter and tried to find the letters in a letter hunt activity.
 
We started our daily yoga in the afternoons. The kids have really taken to it! Their concentration and effort for each pose is amazing.
 
There were three more ME BAG leaders this week. We only have one left to go! The kids have had a great time sharing their special items. They have such enthusiasm!
 
Some favourite books we read this week include:
-Let It Fall by Maryann Cocca-Leffler
-The Cat In The Hat Came Back
-There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves by Lucille Colandro
-We’re Going On A Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger
-and a variety of Pete the Cat stories by James Dean

It was All About Me week this week. We started our ME BAG sharing. It was great to see some of the things that are important to each child and what they like to do. Any sort of show and tell is always exciting, especially when you also get to be the leader of the line that day! The leader was also responsible for helping to set the table at eating times and moving the arrow from activity to activity on the visual schedule.
 
As a part of our All About Me theme we had many conversations about how we are all unique and that is wonderful! We compared how many people lived at each of our homes, how many siblings we have, and how many moms and dads we have.  We read books about and talked about different types of families and how not everyone’s family make-up is the same. The kids worked hard making their own family photo house out of popsicle sticks and decorated them with gems, feathers and yarn.
 
Because everyone is unique we all have different fingerprints as well. The kids used magnifying glasses to see the differences in everyone’s fingerprints. Using their fingerprints/thumbprints, they made and represented numbers with in ink. We also baked thumbprint cookies.
 
The theme-based books we read this week were:
-It’s Okay to Be Different by Todd Parr
-Be Who You Are by Todd Parr
-The Family Book by Todd Parr
-What do you love about you? By Karen Lechett
-Families Families Families by Suzanne and Max Lang
 
We started out letter learning this week, with the letters L and F. Focusing on letter recognition and building letters before we try writing. We start with the letters that are easiest to write/build because they have straight vertical or horizontal lines.  Many children have the letter L in their names so we compared names and counted how many Ls, if any, that each child had. We also listened to letter learning songs for words that start with each of the letters L and F. The kids did a great job practicing what the sounds of each letter make.

Some of the kids worked with Mat Man this week. Mat Man teaches skills such as body awareness, drawing & pre-writing, and counting.
 
The kids also did many things outside of our theme including: Lots of Lego, puddle jumping, yoga, working with shapes to build pictures (this is great for counting, spacial awareness and shape recognition), enjoyed the beauty of nature with all the of colourful leaves and butterflies, and there was a lot of work being done on a very tall tower. There was a lot of great teamwork and problem solving happening. They had many trial and error moments until they realized that the tower kept falling over because it was too skinny without a base to support it.

Kindness is everywhere, sometimes where you least expect it! We ran into a nice, older gentleman, on our walk back from visiting a little library, who gave the kids brand new bubble wands. They were so excited and surprised. It prompted a great mini conversation about generosity and kindness.
 
We continued working with emotions this week by relating to our stories, hunting for/identifying/sorting emotion cards and having a few morning meeting discussions about what makes us feel angry, sad, happy, or scared. We also talked about how we can make negative feelings less overwhelming, how we can identify different emotions in the people around us, and how to help others when they are feeling down. We had some great books to help spark discussion along the way:
 
-The Colour Monster by Anna Llenas
-The way I feel by Janan Cain
-In My Heart by Jo Witek
-One of Those Days by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
-Llama Llama Mad at Mama by Anna Dewdney.
 
While reading The Colour Monster we learned that our emotions can be represented in colour and that sometimes it is hard to know exactly what we are feeling, so our colours are all messed up together, until we talk to someone. We had a fun time colouring our own Colour Monsters with crayons in swirly lines and straight lines.
 
Everyone became scientists when we did an experiment called Dancing Rice. In the end it ended up being cous cous and quinoa that danced for us. We learned that our rice was too heavy for the baking soda/vinegar bubbles to carry it up to the surface. We also discovered that yellow and red made orange when we added colour to our dancing rice water.
 
After heading out on an adventure, we brought back the beautifully coloured leaves everyone collected and made leaf rubbings. We also painted our portraits on mirrors, as we saw our own faces.
 
Our name activities this week included crayon rubbings over hot glued names, Velcro name letter matching, magnet letter name building with and without references for some and identifying the letters of everyone’s names before having the letters cut out and having to re-sequence them.