Making Applesauce

On Friday, we worked together to make applesauce!  Thanks to everyone who brought apples in.  All the apples were put to good use!  The children loved working with Mrs. Allan to create our very own applesauce.  A favourite part of the experience was using the machine to core the apples and remove the apple peel.  Guess what we discovered?  Lots of children loved eating the long strips of apple peel.  We had some fun comparing the lengths of the apple peel and using measurement terminology as we did this.

The final product was a success!  Most of the children really like the applesauce and were asking for second helpings!  

Grand Opening of the Grocery Store!

This week we have turned our house center into a grocery store.  Many of the children have been involved in helping to create signs, food labels and organize the materials for this center.  We began by making a list of all the things we would need for the grocery store.

One of our friends decided to print the words "Grocery Store"  all by herself using her "best guess spelling".  

The children loved creating food labels for all the things we could sell at our grocery store.  We couldn't believe how excited the children were to copy letters and have their print displayed!

Check out our little cashiers...

and our little shoppers!

With some modeling, we have been helping the children to print their very own grocery lists.  This friend was using "sound stretching" of words to hear the sounds in the words egg, carrot and rice.  We are so happy to see our friends make their best attempt to sound out words!

Names, Sorting, Surveys, Colours and  A Grocery Store!

Lots of great things are going on in our classroom again this week. Take a glimpse at just a few of the learning opportunities taking place this week...

We love working with our names.  What a great way to learn about letters and sounds!  Here we are making our names using a special glue, sparkle and sand mixture.

Sorting is fun!  Our friends are busy exploring sorting with manipulatives at the water center and using sorting trays.  As we sort, the children are being asked to talk about their "sorting rule".

We have been making class surveys this week, such as asking about favourite colours and finding out which friends in class have a pet.  This lead to the students making their very own surveys and asking their friends survey questions.  The most popular question of the week has been "Do you like pizza?".  The children like to use the clipboards to record how many children answered yes and no.

We have new play food in our house center.  This has sparked the children's interest in playing grocery store.  Tomorrow we will be making a list of all the things we need to turn the house center into a grocery store.  We will then begin working together to make a grocery store center. 

Our Super Science Wednesday experiment involved mixing primary colors together to make new colours.  We think red, blue and yellow are magical because they help create exciting colours.  The children were lined up to take a turn at our "colour mixing" center.  

Welcome to the 2013 - 2014 School Year!

What a great first week of kindergarten!  We are very pleased with how quickly the children are learning our classroom routines.  Thanks to everyone for remembering to return your child's mailbag each and every day to school!

While science is integrated into many components of our program, we like to celebrate science each Wednesday with our "Super Science Wednesday" activities.  Each Wednesday, the children are involved in some type of experiment or investigation.  

For our very first "Super Science Wednesday" activity of this school year, we explored Mrs. Ducharme's BIG sunflower.  The children had the opportunity to use lots of language as they used their sense of touch, smell and sight to examine the sunflower.  We also talked about how this sunflower grew with the help of water, sun, soil and air.  Investigating this BIG sunflower also incorporated some math, as the children were eager to get out the measuring tape and compare the size of the sunflower (e.g., "I am shorter than the sunflower.", "Is Mrs. Allan taller than the sunflower?").

During our final big block of play, the children were free to explore the sunflower using tweezers and magnifying glasses.  Take a look at our young scientists at work!