Field Trip: Toronto Botanical Gardens

 The children and I had an amazing time at the Toronto Botanical Gardens. Thank you to our parent volunteers for making this experience possible. Here are some highlights from our trip: 

The apartment building of some red wiggler worms

One level of the apartment: the kitchen equipped with compost

We had a chance to hold our new worm friends

The morning class planted parsnip seeds

The afternoon class planted carrot seeds

You are welcome to visit the gardens and watch our vegetables grow. All of the vegetables planted will be harvested and donated to a local food bank

We know that plants need soil, sun and water to grow

We used treasure finders to open our eyes to all of the natural treasures around us. At Home: Create your own treasure finder using a container lid or piece of cardboard and discover your own natural treasures in your neighbourhood.

We went on a scavenger hunt to look for signs of spring.

We looked through the gardens to find "pieces of the rainbow" in nature.
At Home: This is an easy activity to do with your child. Use paint chips or coloured paper and search your neighbourhood to find your own pieces of the rainbow in nature.

Wondering About Worms

 After our Backyard Bugs workshop, the children have been interested in finding out more about the creepy crawlies around them. Digging for worms in our own backyard has become an activity the children look forward to. 

        

 After gathering the worms, we brought them into the classroom for a closer look.






Examining worms helps us think about questions we want to research. 

Board Games

The children have been enjoying developing their number sense by playing Snakes and Ladders.


At Home: Board games involving rolling a die and moving from one end of the board to another is a fun and easy way to engage your child while furthering their understanding of number. Skills that are being honed include: number recognition, recognizing quantities without counting, principles of counting, understanding of quantity (numbers get bigger as you move forward and decrease as you move back). 

Grocery Store Dramatic Play

 We decided to turn the drama centre into a grocery store. We discussed the roles of the grocer and cashier.

Using a cash register filled with play money helps us extend and create a context for our investigation of Canadian coins.  
















We created signs to label our healthy grocery store food. 




Of course, no grocery store is complete without a shopping cart!

At home: Invite your child to help create a grocery list with you. On a trip to the grocery store, you and your child can search for the items. Encourage your child to identify familiar signs for products and their costs and think about how the food has been sorted in the store.

Canada in my Pocket: A song about Canadian coins

This week, we talked about Canadian coins. The children enjoyed listening to this song as a way of further exploring Canadian symbols.

Song of the Week: Jenny Jenkins