It never ceases to amaze me all of the fun and learning that goes on!
Les yeux ! Eyes! Last week, our morning message asked us what colour eyes we had. One student's pupils were so big that we could not identify the colour, so we went to the window and noticed that they were green. Why was it easier to tell by the window? We did a few experiments, looking into our partner's eyes with the lights off and on. We noticed that the pupil becomes bigger in the dark and smaller in the light. We learned that this is to allow more light into the back of our eye (the retina) when it's dark our and less when there is a lot of light. This also acts to protect the retina in the back of the eye from receiving too much light. Did you know that when we look at an image, that image is seen upside down on the retina. It is our brain that flip it right-side-up so we see it properly! Pretty cool, eh?
We once again filled our French speaking vase and celebrated with a frozen treat! Miam ! It's amazing how much French they are using with little incentives! Bravo, les amis !!!!! They are even beginning to create more complex sentences by pulling words and phrases from commonly used sentences and building their own. WOW!!!
One of our students brought in a whole bunch of decorations, so we had fun learning how to make the artificial trees look real by gently pulling and spreading the branches out, creating decorations for the mini trees, and creating our own decorative trees and snowmen. These are great ways to develop the children's fine motor skills (e.g., scissors skills, pencil grip, gluing, picking up small decorative items), talk about geometric shapes and use them to create visual art pieces, and also learn the importance of balance in visual arts.
With our Science Buddies, the SK's further developed their social responsibilities and environmental awareness, as they collected and sorted garbage found in our little forest behind the school. We collected quite a bit of garbage in a short period of time.
We had a cute, little, fluffy visitor come to class! Mme Richardson brought in her new puppy and we learned again the importance of keeping calm and quiet bodies with animals. She was so soft and energetic, and extremely happy to see us. We know this because we watched her body language. She was very alert, looking all around with her head up, wagging her tail, sniffing everyone and everything, and giving us tiny little puppy licks!
This time of year, we notice that the children are becoming a little bit more tired, with the colder weather and many snowsuit transitions and just because it's that time of year when we are in need of a nice long regenerating break! Thank you again, for dressing your child for the weather and sending them with nutritious foods that keep their blood sugar levels somewhat stable!
Have a wonderful night and stay warm!