Under the Sea

We continued with our undersea adventures this week. We learned a new action song called, Slippery Fish. You can join in the fun here: https://youtu.be/Y_k45_iyVG0

We looked at an ocean book. The Pre-K students identified many different ocean animals and shocked us with their knowledge of interesting ocean vocabulary words like tentacles!

We took a closer look at two sea animal: jellyfish and octopus. Check out the cool crafts we made!

Jellyfish

Before starting this craft, students matched letter pieces with the letters in their name. They did a great job with their name puzzle and then practiced writing their name. After this great pre-literacy activity, the Pre-Ks painted away and shook on some glitter on the half paper plate to make a colourful jellyfish body. The next day, they used glue to glue on some eyes and tentacles. The final touch was the smile!

Octopus

This was an awesome fine-motor and math craft. The Pre-Ks used their pincer fingers to pick up cheerios and glue them onto the Octopus arms. The students made some very interesting math observations as they worked hard to cover all the suction cups. "I have covered 4 arms!" "I have 4 more arms to cover!" Love seeing their little minds at work!

Healthy Hearts and Minds

We did a few mindful activities this week. We love having these calming moments during our active and exciting days. Listening to ocean sounds while looking at glitter jars, yoga, belly breathing while listening to ocean sounds, and mindful colouring all brought calming practice to our day.

Pool Noodle Boats

After singing The Waves in the Sea we were excited to try making our very own boats out of pool noodles, straws, and fun foam. The true question was... will they float? Our classroom was full of delight as our students built and tested their little sail boats. This little scientific experiment not only introduced the concept of buoyancy, but was also a great chance to practice cutting and strengthening our hand-eye coordination!

Floor Hockey Fun!

At Robina Baker our older students sure love floor hockey, and Pre-K proved to be no different! It was so fun to try a new sport in the gym this week!

Check out more pictures of our week here!

Upcoming

• March 17th and 18th - Wear green to celebrate St. Patrick's Day!
• March 19th - Crazy Sock Day
• March 19th - Spell-a-Thon - PK students will be spelling their name!
• March 27th - April 5th - Spring Break
• April 8th and 9th - Early Dismissal Days
• April 10th - Good Friday, No School
• April 13th - Easter Monday, No School

Ocean Week

We started an Ocean theme this week! We sang new songs and did a super fun art project. Our favourite song was a Laurie Berkner song called "Let's go Swimming!". Listen to it here at home, but don't be surprised if you start swimming around your living room!

The other song is sung to the tune of Wheels on the Bus and called Waves in the Sea. This would be a fun one to sing in the tub!

Bubble Art

We practiced our blowing skills and were excited to see the really big colourful bubbles that formed as we blew in our straws into coloured soapy water. We used paper to pop the bubbles that resulted in some pretty cool art. We decided to laminate the art to use as cheery new placemats for snacktime!

Sensory Play 

We engaged our senses indoors and outdoors as we participated in activities like snow painting, water table and sensory bin play, and fishing!

Games Day!

We love Games Day! Not only do we get to practice patience while turn-taking, colour and number skills, fine-motor skills and eye-hand coordination, but we also get to enjoy spending time with each other laughing and having fun. And that just feels so good. We played Pop up Pirate, The Hedgehog game, and participated in a challenging obstacle course in the hallway.

See more pics of our week here. More ocean fun to come next week!

Coming Up!

• March 27th - April 5th - Spring Break
• April 8th and 9th - Early Dismissal Days
• April 10th - Good Friday, No School
• April 13th - Easter Monday, No School

Fossils and Friends

We learned a new vocabulary word this week: Paleontologist. A paleontologist studies fossils and are always on the look out for dinosaurs! Keep reading to find out how we were like paleontologists this week!

Watercolour Fossil Discovery

After watching a video clip of a real archeologist dig,  we got to work discovering fossils, and strengthening our fine-motor skills, by brushing watercolour paint over white paper that had a hidden white wax crayon rubbing on it. It was such a surprise to unveil the dinosaur fossil on our paper!

Hatching Baby Dinosaurs

We had so much fun building fine motor skills and hatching the baby dinosaurs out of eggs this week.  The icy eggs made for an excellent sensory experience. We used a variety of tools including hammers and eye droppers to try to get those baby dinos out! The Pre-K students worked so hard and were very persistent. They didn't stop until the dino was free!

Paleontologist Dinosaur Hunt 

This visual matching activity had us searching high and low, and even under, to find the special dinosaur pictures/words hidden around our school. The students were great paleontologists and found them all! They each had their own clipboard so they could stamp the pictures as they found them. This was a wonderful fine-motor and eye-hand coordination activity. Anyone who heard the shrieks of joy as we found each picture can attest to the fun we had as we made the very exciting discoveries in this dinosaur hunt.

Dinosaur Movement

We had a ton of gross-motor, body moving fun this week: doing dinosaur yoga, playing dinosaur games in the gym, and making dinosaur movements using our dino action dice.

Pink Shirt Day

This week we participated in Pink Shirt Day. We learned an important message about friendship though a story called Lila and the  Crow. It is a beautiful story and the students were very engaged in the book talk and discussion. They had so many wonderful thoughts and ideas to share. We recommend reading the story if you have the chance. In this book and on Pink Shirt Day we are reminded that colours don't matter. Friends are kind to each other. We sang a friendship song together.

For Mrs. Bowers and Baby-to-Be!

The Pre-K's have been working on a surprise for Mrs. Bowers and her baby. We gifted it to her this week as it was her last day in our classroom. We think she loved the book we made with our baby mat man drawings and predictions on the babies gender and name. The Pre-K's also added drawings to a baby blanket for the baby. We will miss you Mrs. Bowers but we are very happy for you and can't wait to see pictures of the baby!

Click here to see more pictures from our paleontologist week!

Upcoming

• March 4th and 5th Early Dismissal
• Morning class will dismiss at 10:45 am
• Afternoon class will dismiss at 2:25 pm
• March 17th and 18th Wear Green
• March 30-April 2 Spring Break

Dinos!

We went prehistoric in Pre-K this week! Here is a Dinosaur chant we learned:

How Big is a T-Rex foot?

We explored dinosaur size by watching a video on how big a T-Rex really was and comparing dinosaur feet. The T-Rex foot was WAY bigger than ours! We tried to predict how many of our feet would fit on one T-Rex foot. Can you guess?! (It was 20!)

Jurassic Park

We built gross motor skills and understanding of directional language while having fun crawling through, climbing over, and balancing on a variety of equipment in our very own Jurassic Park in the gym! We walked on dino feet up and down our hallway.

Show and Tell

The highlight this week was certainly Show & Tell! The students did a great job telling about the item they brought to show. They were very good listeners when their peers were sharing too! We will do Show & Tell again in the spring.

See more of our Dino fun here!

Upcoming:

February 26-27 Pink Shirt Day (wear a pink shirt)
March 4-5 Early Dismissal

Be my Valentine!

I Like Hearts

We had a wonderful week with all our PreK friends. We learned a new song about hearts. Not only was it great colour recognition practice but helped us build important listening skills too.  We all held a coloured heart in our hand and as we heard the name of our heart colour, we placed it in the middle of our circle. 

My Heart Fills with Happiness

We read this beautiful story about different things that make our heart happy. After we all shared something that makes our heart happy. We collected all the ideas on a big heart.

Drumming

In the story, My Heart Fills with Happiness, the author talked about drumming. We decided to try a drumming circle. The PreK's did a great job beating the drum fast and slow. We moved our bodies to the beat.

Valentine's Hunt

We went on a scavenger hunt throughout the whole school hunting for valentine-themed pictures. We stamped our paper as we found them!

Heart Art

We made 2 different, both very cool, hearts using different painting techniques. One was marbling using shave cream and paint. The other used baking soda and liquid water colour. It was exciting to see the colours fizz as we squeezed the paint onto the heart!  We practiced our scissor skills cutting our hearts before making our awesome art creations.

Valentine's Party!

We were so excited to celebrate Valentine's Day and meet new friends on our party day. We played party games and popped popcorn. Thanks so much to all the families who sent in snacks. The highlight of the day was definitely delivering valentines to all our PreK friends and teachers. 

Click here to see the rest of the pictures from our week.

 Upcoming

Monday, February 17 is Family Day, No School