Happy New Year! Welcome Back Old Friends, Welcome New Friends!

Wow! What a busy first week back after the holidays! Our afternoon crew more than doubled, and that meant a lot of excitement for everyone! It was fun watching all the new and old students get to know each other and explore the classroom through new eyes. Mrs. Robinson brought in some new activities to play with and discover as well - the room was buzzing all week! Plus, we got outside LOTS! There are so many possibilities for outdoor play. We look forward to more explorations with snow and ice this month.

Fort fun - the students always have
something interesting going on here!

The sandbox provides a quiet place to chat

and take a break from busier activities.

The students had fun with sledding
races. It's so great to get outside again!

Whew! That was exhausting trudging 

through thigh-deep snow! 

We read the book "Snowballs" by Lois Elhert and made

our own snowmen out of anything we wanted in the classroom.

The students had fun choosing their materials and decorating

as they wanted. C made a really neat snowman with mirrors!

We always start going down straight, but the snow

and sleds have a way of changing our direction!

Each slide down is a new adventure!

H and R had fun doing a finger puppet show. There were

queens and kings, dragons and sharks!

K had fun discovering one of the "small worlds"

Mrs. Robinson brought in. We have a polar world,

a sea world, and a savanna. They are lots of fun

for developing imaginary play.

H had fun and created a beautiful

painting at the easel. 

The new "take apart" centre was a huge hit 

with all students. It was amazing to see how

quickly a keyboard could be taken apart

by these students, and really cool to see

what's inside!

We had so much fun getting outside again after the long,

cold days of December. Whether sledding, jumping on

snow piles, or walking through the woods, it is great to be outside!!

As we transition from early fall to late fall (no, this isn't winter!), we have enjoyed our final days with colourful and crunchy leaves, and now are spending all of our outdoor time having fun in the snow. What could be better than making snow angels, looking at the hoar frost on branches, making tracks in the snow, looking for animal tracks, jumping off snow ramps, and our favourite, tobogganing?

Look at these beautiful leaf pictures!

 

We had so much fun designing a face, carving our pumpkin, and pulling out the pumpkin guts!

 

We read about spiders then designed our own webs and made spiders out of
beautiful stuff. Each student's spider was unique, and, of course, SCARY!!!

 

After we made spiders, we had to go out to the playground and BE spiders
Can you spot the tarantulas, black widows, and daddy long legs...?

 

We have enjoyed working with a variety of art mediums. We made plasticine self-portraits,
and did a lovely display of poppies made from recycled plastic bottles for Remembrance Day.

 

 

Our final days with crunchy leaves! Such delight and laughter!

 

Hello snow! We have had so much fun sledding since it started to snow!
In pairs, alone, forward, backward...ALWAYS with squeals of joy and a huge smile!

 

We noticed these tracks in the snow and are pretty sure they belong to a rabbit.
Some students decided to follow them into the bush to see if they could spot a rabbit
hiding in there. We didn't see any critters, but we'll keep looking!

 

 

Fly and be free! We love snow!!

New Beginnings

This is the first year of KinderCare for Ecole River Heights, and it has been an exciting start for everyone! I truly aspire to make the program "A Place For Wonder", as we explore different open-ended play areas inside, as well as head outside every day to have an adventure either in our beautiful playground, the local park across the street, or along the South Saskatchewan river and its banks. 

  


We have been to the river, playing in the sand, looking

at the geese and gulls, and wandering along the riverbank.
We are amazed at how soft the sand is!



Exploring the neighbourhood. There were

so many worms on the sidewalk here!


Throwing sand makes lots of ripples in the river!

 

 

 

We have had fun running up and
down the hills in our playground!

Flashlight Friday is a big hit!

We made plasticine representations
 of our classroom critters - fish, snails,
stick bugs and superworms.



We had fun sorting, comparing, and exploring
a variety of gourds. We noticed some spin
better than others, they all rolled, some had
spots, some had lines, and some had stems.

Sketching our gourds was really challenging!



 


Looking closely at ladybugs.
We have seen so many of them this year!


We had a lot of fun colour mixing. D wondered,
"So, I'm mixing new colours - so I can paint with them?!" 

Everyone working together with the gems and rocks.

We have had so much fun playing in the leaves!

 

The Nature Playground at Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg, Manitoba

Improbabilities............

I took these photos on our October trip to Vancouver and Vancouver Island. I was struck by the the fact that life continues to exist in these seemingly improbable/impossible locations. What cheery little sprigs of colour amongst the grey!

What a great, busy day!

Look at our "Caterpillars"!
Luckily, these ones are edible!

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Swimming is so much fun!

Sploooooosh!

We are having so much fun with school swimming. We have students at all stages of swimming, from those who haven't had lessons yet to others who have had lessons and are more experienced swimmers. We've had lots of fun doing star floats, bobs, kicking, and having free time in the deep end and the hot tub. What a super opportunity for the students. Many many thanks to all the parent volunteers who have donated their time to come and supervise!

Planting our Front Flower Garden and More

On Monday afternoon, our class went out to the front garden to plant the beautiful flowers generously donated to us by Poitras Greenhouse. We have a beautiful, colourful selection of red, pink, purple and pale yellow petunias, as well as some bright gold marigolds. Look at the before and after pictures below - the students worked so hard to create such a stunning garden!

Mrs. Wielgosh demonstrating how to plant the flowers.

Our finished garden - WOW!!

On Friday, June 8, 4 wonderful volunteers - Mrs. Kowalchuk, Mrs. Omichinski, Mrs. Leochko, and Mrs.Wielgosh came in to help us sew our own sandwich bags to further reinforce the learning we did in May about the 3Rs - reducing our waste, reusing containers and sandwich bags, and recycling paper, metal, and plastic, and composting. We are all doing a better job of practicing the 3Rs, and LOVE our new sandwich bags - don't you think they are great?

Goodbye to our little feathered friends :(

Yesterday we said goodbye to our sweet little chicks and ducks. Our chicks hatched 3 weeks ago and our ducklings 2 weeks ago. We were able to watch a miracle of life in our classrooms. They have shared time between Rooms 188 and 192 and between Mrs. Wielgosh's and Mrs. Robinson's homes. They went to a very good home on a hobby farm. We had one last visit with them in the front garden of the school, where we got to watch and sketch them. We are going to miss them very much, but it's time they went to a bigger place where they have more room to roam.

Caramel and Cheetah, our chicks, and
Sunshine and Moonlight, our ducks.

Sketching the chicks and ducks one last time.

Swimming in the pool!