Yoga

A big thank you to Cindy for coming in on Thursday afternoon to do a yoga class with Ash class! We have been doing stretching, balancing and some yoga poses outside with the children since September, so they were also familiar with it before she came. The children absolutely loved it. They were so good at doing a variety of poses, playing games and yes, relaxation (you may want to try this before bed time! :) When they saw Cindy today, she got a warm welcome and wondered if she was going to do another yoga class with them. They shared with her how we practised our poses outside this morning! We hope Cindy can come again in the new year, (if she is still able, with her growing belly :)). We will also look forward to Elizabeth coming and doing some yoga with the class in the new year as well. What a wonderful and enriching activity to be able to offer our children!

Winter concert - more details

Time is quickly passing and we are having fun getting ready for our Winter concert!
Again, it is on Tuesday Dec. 17 from 2-3 pm. Try and dress your children in white shirts and dark bottoms. At the moment it is in the library, but we are trying to see if we can do it in half the gym instead. We will let you know the final venue on Monday. I had mixed up my Davinci events and food is not something we have at our Winter concert, so no need to worry about that at this time. However, the Grade 5/6 class will be selling small samples of Chocosol, a mexican drinking chocolate after the show. It is a school fundraiser, so bring quarters if you would like to try some! As well, we may need some helpers to help set up or clean up the gym afterwards. If you are able to volunteer to do that, please email me directly. We are looking forward to Tuesday!

Stay bundled,

Jodi and Bernadette

Winter Concert songs

Here are the songs Ash class had been practising for the Winter Concert:

Winter Song

Thumbs in the thumb place,
Fingers all together
That's what we say in mitten weather
Hats on our heads and scarves around our necks
Warm boots, warm boots so we don't get wet!

Rabbit

Rabbit run on the frozen ground, who told you so?
Rabbit run on the frozen ground, how do you know?
I caught a rabbit uh-huh!
I caught a rabbit uh-huh!
I caught a rabbit uh-huh!
I caught a rabbit oh!

Foxy run on the frozen ground, who told you so?
Foxy run on the frozen ground, how do you know?
I caught a fox uh-huh!
I caught a fox uh-huh!
I caught a fox uh-huh!
I caught a fox oh!

Bear run on the frozen ground, who told you so?
Bear run on the frozen ground, how do you know?
I caught a bear uh-huh!
I caught a bear uh-huh!
I caught a bear uh-huh!
I caught a bear oh!

Turn the world around (sung together as a whole school)

We come from the mountain,
We come from the mountain,
Go back to the mountain,
And turn the world around (3 claps)
We come,
From the mountain,
Go back to the mountain,
And turn the world around (3 claps)

We come from the water.....
We come from the sky.......
We come from the fire.......

I like Winter (Poem)

I like winter
I like snow
I like icy winds that blow
Seasons come
and seasons go
But I like winter
I like snow

Bread Recipe

I had meant to post this recipe after we did the breadmaking. Elizabeth used a recipe very similar to this one. It is from the Waldorf Kindergarten snack book:

Rose Room Rolls

2 T. yeast
3 cups warm water
2T. honey
3T. oil
8 cups of flour

1. Stir together the honey, warm water and yeast. Wait for it to get foamy.
2. Add the oil and flour and stir until it forms a dough.
3. Knead the dough and form dough into rolls.
4. Let rise for 30 minutes.
5. Bake at 325 for 18 minutes.

Winter Concert

Our winter concert will be held on Tues. Dec. 17 at 2 pm. All families are welcome to join us to watch your children shine! All of Davinci will be performing! Ash class has been practising very hard and is looking forward to our concert! We ask that you dress your children in white shirts and dark bottoms if possible. In the past, parents have brought in baked goods to share as part of our festivities. I will update you more on that early next week.

High Park Nature trip

Our High Park Nature Centre Trip was wonderful. Thank you to our volunteers Cindy, Jen and Alex, Netta, Lina, Danai and Anne. The sun was shining and the snow was just right! We learned a lot about animals and their habits leading up to winter. Our walk on the path was beautiful and informative. We found lots of treasures! We had fun singing songs and playing nature games outside. We are looking forward to our next trip in February!

The Little Red Hen and so much more.....

We had such a full and enriching day today! We are continuing with telling our Little Red Hen story, which the children love! Today, Elizabeth came in and helped the children bake bread. As we sat around in the circle,  inquiry was working at its best....knowing, wondering, watching - what will happen to the yeast? The children made predictions, and made their observations as they watched the changes. "It's changing colour", "I can smell it", "It's getting bigger", "I see bubbles". Everyone had a hand at pouring and mixing, and to their delight, ended up with their very own bun at lunch time! Thank you Elizabeth for coming in and helping the children have that lovely experience. The past few days, we also have had a station set up with a mortar and pestle and wheat kernels and the children have tried coming to grind the wheat, just like the little red hen. They are seeing how difficult it is to do it by hand, and I think, would prefer to go to the mill! Today, I brought in my spice grinder from home and in small groups they each had a turn to press the button and grind! When they saw we made flour, there eyes lit up - Flour! they would exclaim - just like the one we used to make the bread (That was the a- ha moment!) They have seen the wheat stock, the kernels come out from inside, the bowl of kernels, and themselves turned it into flour. So the next time you ask them where flour comes from, hopefully they won't just say "Loblaws"! :). We also have a centre set up with a bin of wheat kernels, egg cups and spoons. The children are estimating how many scoops it takes to fill an egg cup, and then scooping the kernels into the cup. There are kernels everywhere! Hopefully they are not bringing them home in their bags. In the days to come, they will be dramatizing the Little Red Hen with lovely costumes made by Anne, as well as using a felt board to tell the story during free play. It has been a fun time in Ash Class.

Parent Teacher Interviews

Thank you everyone for taking the time to come and meet me for Parent Teacher Interviews. It was lovely to meet you all and discuss your child's progress.

Coming up

We will be reading the story the Little Red Hen, orally telling it and dramatizing it. Thanks Anne, for making us some lovely costumes! As we head into the winter months, we will be doing the story The Gingerbread Boy, as well as another version or two, and some Jan Brett stories, such as The Mitten and The Hat. We will start to use our felt board to tell the stories as well. The children did such a wonderful job on their diya pots and it was fun to learn about the Diwali festival of light. Another festival of light, Chanukah is also fast approaching  at the end of November and we will be looking at some books and symbols for this holiday.

What's in a name?

We are doing a lot of activities in class around the children's names. One activity that we are doing is looking at someone's name that has been cut up and mixed up and trying to put it in the right order! The children really enjoy doing this. I will be sending home your child's cut up name in an envelope for them to practise mixing it up and putting it back in the right order. If you are able, please guide them in doing this. You can extend this by also looking at other people's names in your family, and doing the same thing. This can lead to observations about letters and literacy in a fun and meaningful way. You can discuss how many letters or claps each name has, what their name start or ends with, or what shapes they see in their letters. I cannot tell you exactly when your child will get their name, but look out for it in their backpack within the next couple of months.

Oral Stories

I will be sending home  a hard copy of the oral stories I have done so far with Ash class. A copy of Stone Soup is not included as I only have the actual book. If you want to read the story, the public library usually has copies or you can purchase one at a book store. I repeat these stories to the children, as they love them and ask for them again and again. My hope is that they will start to tell them themselves! Please check your child's backpack for these stories, and if you are able, read them, and help your child tell them! You will see, they will probably chime in very quickly!

Lantern Walk

Our lantern walk is fast approaching! We will be making our lanterns this week to be ready for our walk on Thursday. We hope everyone can join us at Crocodile Island at 5:30. We will start our walk from there, an we will sing our lantern songs as we walk around the neighbourhood. We will be having hot chocolate and baked goods after we get back. If you are able, please being a small amount of finger foods/baked goods - savory or sweet - for everyone to enjoy.  We are looking forward to it!

Homes and Habitats

Thank you to Scientist Lindy and our parent volunteers, Lina, Marcelo and Lisa, for coming in to Ash Class for a wonderful session on Homes and Habitats. The children had a lot of fun and learned a lot about the habitats of different animals. It was a wonderful way to ignite curiosity about animals and their surroundings, which I am sure will fuel more learning to come.

The children have been watching our worms in their habitat and are asking a lot of questions about them, such as, "do they need water, or do they have enough food!?" They made predictions about what would happen to the leaves, and now they are making some conclusions as they observe them daily in our classroom.

High Park Nature Centre

Ash class will be visiting the High Park Nature Centre on Thursday Nov. 28 to study seasonal changes, particulary "Fall into Winter". This is a wonderful program, with a lot of time spent outdoors and enriching activities.  We will be leaving the school at 8:45 sharp in order to get there for a 9:30 a.m. start time. It will end at 11:30 and we will stay there to eat our lunch. We will be taking the street car. On Friday, I will be sending home the forms to sign. Please return them by Nov. 22. We will also be visiting the centre 2 more times this year - so the cost of $21 covers all three trips plus the cost of TTC for the children for this trip only. When it comes time to go on the next trips, I will collect money for TTC only. We are looking for volunteers to come on the trip with us, and especially help with the commute to the park. The volunteers will have to pay for their own bus fare. Please let me know if you are interested in volunteering. We are lucky that this program is offered so close to us and we look forward to our trips there!

Decomposing pumpkin and Earth Creatures

The children were curious about our rotting pumpkin that was still hanging out in our class! We looked at it in our circle today and talked about our observations of the pumpkin and were trying to figure out what was happening to it! Our conversation led to wondering what would happen to other fruits or vegetables left for long time, so I will be bringing in a few different ones so we can observe the results! I was thinking I would just put them in different bowls and label them. However, as I was talking to Theo's mom Lisa about this, she was telling me about 'Change Jars" that she had in her Grade 3/4 class - where they watched things, such as vegetables and fruits, change. I thought that was a great idea for our class! If you have any extra Mason Jars with lids that you can send in that would be great - that way, we can observe the transformations under a closed lid!

Today we also looked at worms and set up our worm jar on the science table! We looked at the tunnels the worms made in the soil and watched the worms wiggle. Another day, the children can try and hold one if they wish. We fed the worms apple and carrot and talked about the types of food we can feed the worms. We added dead leaves from our sensory table into the jar and made predictions about what would happen to the leaves on the top of the soil. We are also encouraging the children to draw what they see!

Parent teacher interviews

I am sending home a letter regarding Parent/Teacher Interviews next week - from Nov. 11-15. Please check your child's backpack for the letter and send it back to me as soon as possible, so I can confirm a time with you. Reports only go out to SK students this term, but I will meet with both JK and SK students. If you find that you need a different time than the choices I have given, please let me know and we will try to arrange something that works.

the sniffles and snuffles

As the cold weather fast approaches, the sniffles are beginning. If everyone could donate one box of kleenex to Ash class, that would be very helpful!  I am also looking for a few large mason jars with lids. At the moment, we are set for other beautiful junk donations. We have quite a bit. As our stash gets lower, I will let you know.

Scientists in the Schools

Just as a reminder, Scientists in the Schools will be coming to Ash Class on Thursday Nov. 14! It is a wonderful hands on program that covers various science topics. We will be covering the topic of Habitats and Homes. Please remember to send in $11 by Nov. 8, to cover the cost of the program. I am still looking for one more volunteer. Please email me if you are interested.

Diwali

This week we will learn about Diwali and how it is celebrated.  We will make our own Diwali pots out of salt dough that the children will help make, as well as create pictures using chalk! Thank you Gita, Sahana's mom  for bringing in a book on Diwali as well as a little pot for us to enjoy!

More Halloween fun!

Some more fun Halloween poems and songs that we learned in Ash class:

Orange Pumpkin (tune of I'm a little Teapot)

I'm an orange pumpkin, fat and round
Growing in a cornfield, on the ground
I'll be a Jack-O-Lantern, with two big eyes
Or maybe I'll be baked in two fat pies!

Did you ever see a pumpkin? (tune of Did You Ever See a Lassie?)

Did you ever see a a pumpkin, a pumpkin, a pumpkin,
Did you ever see a pumpkin with no face at all?
With no eyes, and no nose, and no mouth, and no teeth
Did you ever see a pumpkin with no face at all?

So I made a Jack-O-Lantern, a Jack-O-Lantern, a Jack-O-Lantern
So I made a Jack-O-Lantern with a big, funny face.
With big eyes and big nose and big mouth and big teeth
So I made a Jack-O-Lantern with a big funny face.

We had a fun Halloween celebration in class. We read a fun book called The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything, with lots of actions! The children loved to join in! We decorated some pumpkins and spiders, drew the outside and inside of a pumpkin and played a modified version "Headbands" but with Halloween symbols. It was a lot of fun, and the children learned how to give good clues to their friends.
We hope you had a fun Halloween night - with a moderate amount of chocolate!

Halloween

We are looking forward to our Halloween celebration at school. Hopefully the weather is nice and we will be able to do our parade around the neighbourhood at 1:30. We will be playing some games, telling stories and making decorations. We carved our pumpkin today and they all had a chance to feel it, both inside and out. They drew both the inside and out of the pumpkin and came up with some very colourful words to describe it!
Here are some Halloween rhymes/songs we have been chanting:

5 Little Pumpkins
5 little pumpkins sitting on a gate
The first one said, "oh my it's getting late".
The second one said, "There's witches in the air".
The third one said, "But we don't care".
The fourth one said, "Let's run and run and run".
The fifth one said, "Let's have some fun."

Ooh ooh went the wind
And out went the light,
And 5 little pumpkins
rolled out of sight.

Hippety Hop
Hippety Hop to the candy Store
to buy a stick of candy
One for you
And one for me
And one for sister Mandy

Candy here
Candy there
Candy Candy Everywhere

Candy Soft
Candy Loud
Candy lying all around!

Lantern Songs

da Vinci Lantern Songs 2013

Fire’s Burning

Fire’s burning, fire’s burning (hands over head, fingers wiggling like flames)

Draw nearer, draw nearer (open arms and invite people to come closer)

In the gloaming*, in the gloaming (hands in arc over head and slowly sway lower, like sun setting)

Come sing and be merry (hand gesture up through throat, like singing, and out - with a smile!)

This will be sung as a 3-part round. Second group starts after the first “Fire’s burning” so there is some overlap during the verses. Cedar class will be divided up to lead the other classes in the rounds.

*Gloaming is the time of day between daylight and darkness.

Rise Up Oh Flame

Rise up oh flame       (raise finger-flames in front of face and up)

By thy light glowing     (rippling arms back down)

Bring to us beauty    (bring hands down and hold over heart)

Vision and joy        (eye goggles, then open palms)

This will be sung as a 3-part round. Second group starts after first group finishes “Rise up oh flame”. Cedar class will be divided up to lead the other classes in the rounds.

 

Steer to the Light

Steer to the light, let this beacon bring us home    

Steer through the night to the day

Tossed on these waves, rest our hopes upon this deck

Hold fast the wheel, hold and stay

Steer to the light, quiet harbours hear our pleas

Trees firm and tall wave our way

Eyes to the light, never ceasing, shining bright

Steer through the night to the day

This song will be sung in unison.

Hope you can join us for our lantern walk on november 21st at 5:30. Here are the songs we are learning for it.

Stone Soup

Thank you everyone for a great morning on Friday! The stone soup was a huge success thanks to all of the children and parents. All of the vegetables you brought in were just perfect and it was so nice to have Ash class hustling and bustling with so many choppers and chefs. The smell of the soup cooking in our room was a delight to the senses. Everyone has enjoyed telling and listening to our harvest stories and we hope that your children will tell them to you at home. "Soup from a stone, Fancy that!!"

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving. I am looking forward to making our Stone Soup on Friday and showing our gratitude for our abundance. Please remember to let me know what vegetable you will be bringing. Please bring your own bowls and spoons to reduce waste and costs. Also, if possible, bring an extra cutting board!