Amazing Outdoor Fun!

Monday, February 22, 2016

Today we started our day by staying outside for a little bit of extra time in the morning.  To invite the children to play outside, we brought a tarp to sit on, a bin of books, a basket of blocks, some clipboards and paper, and brought out some outdoor play materials from our storage shed.  The children had fun building with blocks on our new outdoor table, and created a castle with the building buckets.

We gradually welcomed the children back into the classroom, by bringing in small groups a few minutes apart.  This enabled the children to be able to transition into the school with more ease and less clutter.  

We asked the children to reflect on the differences between our normal routine and the routine today during our first focused learning time.  We asked them what they liked or didn’t like about starting outside and coming in to discovery time.  The students mostly agreed that they enjoyed the extra outdoor time and early discovery time.

Tessa sits back to admire her handiwork with Cala.

Cala and Tessa work on their structure.

Marleigh and Rhya look on and offer assistance as Brooklyn begins building a “cage” for her pet polar bear, named “Arctic”.

Zoe and Eden inspect the work they have done so far on their bucket structure.

Liam, Zoe, and Ajaydeep look at their shadows as they plan what to do next with their bucket structure.

Ajaydeep, Zoe, and Liam work on a bucket structure while a group of children sit at the wooden table in the background, building with small blocks.

Eden takes off her mittens so she can make notes on a clipboard.

….. and the wall comes crumbling down!

Sahneez and Henry relax with a book.

Zoe records her observations and plans on a clipboard.

Eden tracks down a new area to make observations while Vivian takes a break on the bench in the background.

Brooklyn’s cage for Arctic is taking shape.

Layla builds a structure with blocks at the outdoor table in the kindergarten play area.

Since our morning outside was so successful, we decided to end our day outside as well.  Here, Tessa and Lexi browse through the books on our tarp.

Tharsan takes a look at a book.

Marleigh looks at books outside.

Jayden, Vivian, Ashton, Cooper, Rhya, Zoe, and Layla work with buckets to create a structure.

Trip to Giggles Dental World - February 18 2016

On Thursday, February 18, we took a walk through the neighbourhood to Giggles Dental World.  We visited with Dr. Bath, who taught us all about keeping our teeth clean and avoiding "sugar bugs" (or cavities) in our teeth.

Layla, Henry, Ashton, Mekha, Cala, Tessa, Brooklyn, Rhya, Ammon, Liam, Ms. McCormick, and the whole gang walking to Giggles Dental World on Thursday, February 18.  It was a very cold day, but the sun was nice and bright, and when we got all bundled up, we were actually quite hot!

We arrived at Giggles and sat on the floor to learn about how to take care of our teeth, from Dr. Bath.

Dr. Bath was so friendly!  We all got together for a nice group photo.  Dr. Bath was so happy to have us all around her at her office!  She kept telling us how cute we were and said we could come back for a visit any time!

Dr. Bath passed around a model of teeth.  There were a few black teeth inside.  She said they were cavities from “sugar bugs” and told us how we could keep our teeth clean and keep the sugar bugs away.  We need to brush every day and avoid treats like juice, pop, and candy.  When we do have a treat, it’s important to brush our teeth right away afterwards!

Giggles is a super fun place to be!  There are rooms in different colours, and they have TVs in the ceiling!  When Dr. Bath is checking your teeth, you can watch Frozen or Despicable Me, or a whole bunch of other movies!

Henry examines the “sugar bugs” as Lexi and Rhya look on.

Jayden examines the model of teeth with “sugar bugs”

Dr. Bath teaching us about how to take care of our teeth.

Ajaydeep checks out the “sugar bugs”

Layla investigates the model with the “sugar bugs”