Week Twenty-Seven: More Critters at Linden
It has been another great week at Linden. We welcomed yet another set of critters into our community on Monday to help us get rid of our waste - red wigglers. The girls are excited about feeding them our food scraps once a week and watching the worms slowly turn the food into compost. We also loved having fresh tulips in our room to inspire our artwork throughout the week. There were some sunny moments on the roof and the girls tried playing a game of soccer together. We had a fantastic visit on Wednesday with Soteira and baby Evryn, who is growing bigger and stronger each time we see them. I hope that you enjoy our photos from the week.
O takes her time as she paints the tulips onto the mirror's surface. We are using the mirrors as a provocation to make prints of our artwork this week.
After painting an image of the tulips onto the mirror, A covers it with a piece of paper and gently presses down to transfer her image and make a print.
This afternoon we are excited to have Cheyenne, from Sundance Harvest, facilitating a workshop with EL-grade 6 students around worms and compost. She has taught us all about the differences between dirt and soil, decomposers and worms, the types of foods that are good and bad for worms, and more. Cheyenne is showing the girls the red wigglers that we will be creating a habitat for.
A is hesitant to hold the red wiggler in her hand so Tonja offers to hold it instead. A enjoys observing how the worm moves into the shade of the paper tent from the middle of Tonja's palm.
A combines the classroom materials with the shells that she brought back from Barbados to tell a story about the ocean.
N is inspired to build the CN Tower after spotting it from her car window on a drive home one afternoon. She realizes that the tower that she's built is almost as tall as her.
AK and AB test out our new mini-soccer ball on the roof. As we play soccer together, the girls are practicing calling for a pass, using only their feet to touch the ball, and taking their time to control their kicks.
This morning we're playing a math game called "Make 5". Each student takes a turn choosing one card that has five dots, or two cards that add up to five dots. A already is comfortable finding pairs that combine to a total of five.
N uses the dominoes at the Math centre to tell a story about kids in a school.
O is at the Building centre designing and constructing a castle. The king and queen are hidden in the left room of the palace on their thrones, while the princess is checking on her horses. It's hard to see, but on the top of both the left and right sides of the castle there are small cages where the other animals are kept. O explains that they have been divided based on their ages.
Welcome back to baby Evryn (and Soteira). O is excited that Ev is big enough for O to hold them in her lap.
A and Z are all smiles as we end off our visit with Soteira and Evryn.
As she examines the tulips this morning, A notices that their colour has started to change from very pink to a pinky-purple colour. A swirls the pink and purple paints together on the mirror to represent what she sees in the tulips.
O is proud to share the two birds that she made at home with her peers. O explains that she glued all of the pieces of the birds together, and that the orange one's wings flap but the red one's don't. This is probably because the red bird has shorter wings than the orange one.
A completes a post-test at the end of the week after learning and practicing the consonant blends /sc/, /sn/, and /sw/.
O is building a boat that should be able to hold a load using buoyant materials. She is very safe while she uses the glue gun independently.
We are planting seeds this afternoon, hoping to grow a variety of vegetables in the classroom, and then later outside. N gently puts the seeds into the holes that she made in the soil.
A pats down the last scoop of soil after putting the seeds into the soil in her pot. We are excited to see which seeds sprout first, and how the different sprouts compare to each other.