All Categories - Blooming Butterflies: Early Learning

Ocean Creatures

2/24/2019

February 22nd, 2019
This week was all about ocean creatures! We talked about what creatures live in the ocean and also compared them to creatures that do not. They sure knew a lot of sea creatures and kept adding to the list as the week went on!

We read Mister Seahorse by Eric Carle. We learned that the daddy seahorse holds baby seahorse eggs in a pouch, much like a mommy kangaroo. We also learned that there are a lot of daddy fish in the ocean that are solely responsible for taking care of eggs and sometimes baby fish. We then sponge painted seahorses using a stencil.

We read Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister, and talked about how, when we have many of something it is nice to share with others. It can even make us feel happy when we do. We also followed up with a You Can’t Win Them All, Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister. This highlighted how you cannot win or be the best at everything all the time, that it is okay, and also how to be a good sport when you do not win. We made a Rainbow Fish by glue paper scales to a Rainbow Fish outline, adding one special tinfoil scale and colouring the fins.

The kids used individual games to practice matching shapes, numbers, words and letters with letter sounds.
-Matching shaped fishies to the correct fish bowl
-Finding the pictures and lowercase letters of the uppercase letters on the shell
-matching the correct number shells together
-Crab word matching

They also threaded the number of pipe cleaners that matches the number on the jellyfish

The kids continued to work in their journals, practicing their letters and drawing ocean creatures.

Our letters this week were I and U. The kids practiced writing them in their salt trays, building them with paper pieces and building them with magnets pieces.

And of course we had so much fun playing in the snow drifts, building walls of snow and sledding!

Valentine's Day

2/15/2019

February 15th, 2018

Happy Valentines Day!

How do we show someone we care or love them? They thought of some really good ideas! Anything from helping people, to hugs, making crafts for them and a few things in between.

For Valentines Day, everyone had little fun with baking soda, vinegar and heart shaped cookies cutters and practiced pattern making using hearts. The big kids practiced AB and ABC size patterns while the little ones practiced AB colour patterns. We made popsicle stick butterfly love bugs. The kids cut out their own heart butterfly wings, glued all of the pieces together and decorated them to their liking. We baked and decorated Valentine cookies and decorated cookies for a very special 5th birthday! On these cookies they practiced writing the letter T with their sprinkles because T is the first letter of the birthday boys and name and happened to be the letter we were focusing on this week. We also made finger-painted hearts with the words I Love You. The big kids worked hard to sound out the words they wrote, a couple of the kids used vocal direction to write the lines needed to spell I LOVE YOU.

Our letters this week were H and T. They practiced writing letters by feeling hardened sand letters and writing them with their fingers in salt. They also used construction paper lines to form T, and then cut them into smaller pieces and glued them in a T shape.

The kids have been working hard in their journals this week, not only with their letter practice but also drawing the people whom they love. To help them with drawing people with body parts in correct places, we have been singing and building Mat Man from the Handwriting Without Tears program. The little ones are starting to make progress! Great job to the big kids for helping out! Teaching others is a great way to reinforce ideas and concepts, and helps build the feeling of community.

Chinese New Year

2/11/2019

February 8th, 2019

Happy Chinese New Year! We learned what Chinese New Year is, where it is celebrated and some of the legends that are told. We researched the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac, learned their story and figured out which ones everyone was; we have horses, sheep and a monkey. This year is the year of the PIG, so naturally we did many things “PIG” this week. We practiced cutting out circles to have the pieces to build a pig. Some added accordion papers to make the legs and arms pop off the page. We also practiced pig letter matching, for the older ones. Uppercase and lowercase letter matching was reinforced in the older ones as they worked together to help teach the little ones to make these matches. Before this the little ones had the opportunity to help sort and match the colours of the pigs on the other side of the letters.

To celebrate the New Year we made paper plate fans and used cut toilet paper tubes as stamps to paint fireworks. Everyone coloured red envelopes for good luck too. Of course they were most excited for the treats they got to put inside!

Our focus letters this week were F and E. The kids practiced building the letters using our Letter Construction Kit. They are getting really good at figuring out how the pieces snap together and copying them facing the proper direction. They also used their journals to trace the letter E with stickers.

We have been using our Journals over the past couple of weeks, adding things like letter practices, drawings and word writing (for the ones who are ready). Everyone, even the littlest of them, are doing a great job at holding the pencil correctly when drawing!

During Morning Meeting we now recording the weather, taking note of special days, and counting the days of the month thus far. They are always super excited find out that together they can count higher than they thought they could. We have been encouraging each other to try hard even though it may seem difficult, because the feeling you get when you complete or accomplish something you thought was too hard, is so great.

Penguins

2/3/2019

February 1st, 2019

What do we know about penguins? We know that they have a beak, flippers, and webbed feet. They have feathers and are more fluffy when they are young. They can swim much better than they can walk. We also know that the daddy penguins takes care of the eggs and baby penguins while the mommy goes hunting for fish. Knowing this, they had daddy penguin races, holding a baby penguin between their legs and a holding a large pillow to act as their belly.

We researched a few types of penguins, taking interest in the Emperor Penguin because of its size. We made penguins out of play dough, using play dough balls to represent numbers of penguin eggs on a penguin image.

We made folded paper penguins with google eyes, a beak and a fishy in their tummies. The kids did a great job adding their own details to make their penguin special to them as well (feet, decorations, a smile, etc.).

We have begun our second round of learning learning this year, after working with more of a focus on numbers and shapes over the past couple of months. Our letter this week was L. We have been working hard on making nice, straight lines when writing L. It’s not always easy! It has been great to hear the older ones identifying the L sound not only at the beginning and end of a word but also in the middle them!

Winter and snowflakes

1/25/2019

January 25th, 2019

This week was all about winter and snowflakes. What discussed what snowflakes are made of and what happens to them when we bring them into a warmer temperature. They had fun running snow obstacle courses and pretending to be little scientists using their magnifying glasses to look at snow and leaves. We practiced many math concepts through our AB foam snowflake patterns, sorting snowflakes by colour, size, and shape, representing numbers with buttons on snowmen, and writing numbers of buttons counted. Everyone also made their own paper and play dough snowmen.

We continued to learn bout shapes 2D shapes this week, with he addition of 3D for the ones who know many of the 2D shapes. We sang and danced to shape songs, went on shape scavenger hunts, and matched two shapes to make a snowman.

We also worked on journal drawing/writing, equals/opposites puzzles, and our velcro games (colour names, shape matching, letter matching, tallest to smallest sequencing).

Occupations

1/20/2019

January 18th, 2019

Happy New Year! We are back at it again after the Christmas holidays. The kids were excited to finally see some snow this week! They have been waiting for it during this oddly above temperature winter. There was so much fun to be had making snow angels, rolling down the hill, eating the snow of course, and we even saw a rabbit camouflaged into the snow. How exciting!

We learned about different occupations one could have when they grew up. A couple of the most popular ones were pet groomer and race car driver! We talked about how we can be just about anything we want to be; it doesn’t matter if you are a boy or a girl. The kids matched images that represent what a person does in a given occupation. They practiced their cutting and gluing skills to make occupation person crafts, and used their little fingers and imaginations to make play dough faces on occupation person mats. They added details like eyebrows and facial hair. Some of the faces were pretty funny!

We have been learning a lot about 2D shapes this week; how many sides they have, which ones are curvy vs straight edged, what these shapes resemble in real life, etc. We built straight edged shapes using popsicle sticks, and played shape matching games that also flexed their finger and hand muscles. They also practiced drawing circles, squares and triangles on the whiteboard. They all have been doing really well with their pencil grasp too.

We also baked muffins and practiced colour mixing to get new colours while we painted.

Christmas Fun

12/11/2018

December 14th, 2018

Merry Christmas!

We had a lot of fun during our last week before the Christmas break! We baked and decorated gingerbread men with icing and sprinkles. We made salt dough ornaments, and something special for moms and dads! And of course we cannot forget our two PJ movie days!

I hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday!

Hanukkah and the Christmas Elves

12/4/2018

December 7th, 2018

We learned about Hanukkah this week; what it is and the traditions families takes part in. We used the menorah candles as our main number and counting focus this week; going on candle hunts, counting and keeping track of what day of Hanukkah it was each day. We also made our own handprint menorah and played the Dreidel game. The kids especially enjoyed the Dreidel game…even more so after a couple of days of practicing because they got to use chocolate to play the game instead of just pretend coins.

We read a book called Shmelf the Hanukkah Elf by Greg Wolfe. It was a great way to talk about how not all kids celebrate Christmas and get presents from Santa, and that’s okay. At first a few of them thought that was a very sad thing but some people have different holidays they celebrate with their families that they enjoy very much, and have traditions that make them just as special as Christmas is to us.

The elves have come to visit us this week. What an exciting time! Not only do the elves report to Santa about the kids behaviour, but they also keep an eye out for the kind things they do. We have talked about how it feels good to give instead of just receive, so the kids were busy making crafts for Santa and the elves, as well as each other. They also seemed to want to help each other out a lot this week. It was wonderful to see the Christmas spirit!

We made it to our last letter before the holidays, Z!

Zucchini-Chocolate Chip Muffins

11/30/2018

Zucchini-Chocolate Chip Muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup shredded zucchini
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.. Grease 12 muffin cups, or line with paper muffin liners.
Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl. Mix egg, oil, milk, lemon juice, and vanilla extract in a bowl; stir into dry ingredients. Fold in zucchini and chocolate chips. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full.
Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes.

No Cook Play Dough Recipe

11/30/2018

Here is the play dough recipe that we use, that lasts for months in an air tight bag or container!

In a bowl mix:
2 cups flour
1 cup salt
3 tbsp cream of tartar
2 tbsp vegetable oil

Add and knead:
2 cups boiling water

Knead in:
food colouring or icing colouring (will make a more saturated colour)