June 12th - 16th

 Hi EES Families,

It has been a fun week in Room 3. We have continued learning about butterflies and bees this week. During our inquiry learning, students learned how to complete the lifecycle of a butterfly. We also talked about the word metamorphosis which means a BIG change is happening. We discussed how bees live in hives and collect nectar to make honey. We are also learning about pollination and how butterflies and bees are pollen spreaders!  

This week during Task Table time, we have been working on different fine motor, pre-writing, number recognition, and number fluency tasks. One task everyone enjoys doing is putting the quills into the porcupine. This task works on our hand-eye coordination and our pincer grasp which is the ability to hold an object between a thumb and index finger. This skill is essential for learning how to write and draw. It also helps with sorting, picking up small objects or food, and doing up zippers or buttons. 

During our Literacy time, we have been reading One Little Butterfly by Lesley Sims, which follows one butterfly through its life cycle while also teaching us cool facts about butterflies! We have also been playing Alphabet Monster. We all take turns picking a letter to sing a song about, then we feed the Alphabet Monster the letter. After listening to the song and feeding the monster, we think about different words that start with that letter and try to write silly sentences using as many words with that letter. This activity not only works on letter recognition but also helps us practice our turn-taking skills, fine motor skills, and our writing skills. 

Next week, our theme for inquiry is camping. Students will be learning about different trees, safety (staying with the group) as well as different songs they could potentially sing this summer! 

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Ms. Desiree

June 5th - June 8th

 Hi EES Families,

This week we enjoyed learning about butterflies! We had fun writing our own version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and drawing the illustrations to go with it. Each student had an opportunity to communicate in their own way which food they would like our caterpillar to eat. It was so much fun hearing the different ideas they had. I especially liked how we adapted the book to make it our own. We also explored the steps of a butterflies life cycle and focused on learning some essential vocabulary like pupa, caterpillar, and chrysalis. Next week, we will be learning about bees, their importance, and why we need to protect them.

We enjoyed spending time outside in the beautiful weather this week. We brought story time and regulation time outside a couple times this week. We really enjoyed the fresh air and found this so calming. With that in mind, this is a friendly reminder to pack a hat as it is getting quite toasty out on the playground! Perhaps this week we will be able to find some butterfly and bee friends to observe!

Looking forward to another exciting week in EES! 

Hope you all have wonderful weekends. See you all on Monday!

Ms. Desiree

May 30th - June 2nd

 Hello lovely EES Families!

It has been a busy week in Room 3 this week as we continued our inquiry about farms. In numeracy, we learned about two ways to sort items - by colour and by size. We sorted animals by colour and by size as well as vegetables and fruit. We really enjoyed sorting the fruit and vegetables! It was hard for some of us to wait for our turn! For literacy, we read Little Blue Truck Spring Time and What do you say, Little Blue Truck? Each day we focused on a different aspect of the books - answering the questions, figuring out the sounds the animals made or counting the different animals within the book. 

Next week we will be learning about Butterflies and Bees. We will look into the life cycles of butterflies, what each bug does for us and their importance for the environment. In numeracy, we will continue discovering more about the different ways we can sort items.  In literacy, we will be reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and The Honey Bee by Kirsten Hall. 

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Ms. Desiree

April 17 - May 26

 Hi EES Families,

Sorry for the long pause in the blogs. We have been busy learning about Spring! Over the last few weeks we explored Spring using our senses. Students enjoyed looking for animals, bugs, flowers and other changes that occur during Spring, as well as listening to different things we can hear during Spring like bees, rain, wind and leaves blowing in the wind. We also enjoyed exploring our sense of taste, and things we can smell like dirt, trees, flowers and mulch. We spent some time learning about plants and seeds. We explored how to grow plants and the 5 needs of a plant survival. 

We are now learning about Farms and using our senses on the Farm as well as learning about what farmers do for us! 

Students have been enjoying reading "What do you say, Little Blue Truck?" and taking turns matching the sounds of each animal. We will continue our learning about Farms and begin to talk about the lifecycle of different animals as well as the names of baby farm animals. 

I hope you all have a wonderful long weekend and look forward to seeing your children back in class on Tuesday.

Thanks for stopping by,

Ms. Desiree

April 3 -14th

 Welcome back EES Room 3!

It has been a great couple weeks back since Spring Break and the students in EES are loving the warmer weather we have been getting lately. We have been learning about Spring and using our five senses to think about and experience everything we can see, hear, touch, taste and smell in the Spring. 

After learning about our five senses and categorizing items into the different ways we experience them, we listened to a book about all the things we see in the Spring. We will be diving more into this in the coming week where we will write sentences about Spring and create a Spring mural in the classroom with all the things we see, feel, smell and hear in this season. We will also be going on scavenger hunts to look for all the changes we can see happening outside during the Spring. 

We are also looking forward to celebrating Earth Day on April 21st!

Hope you all enjoy the warm weather this week!

Ms. Desiree

March 6 - March 17th

 Over the last two weeks, Room 3 has been exploring different sensory regulation tools. We have moved some furniture around the classroom to help make the room meet our regulation needs. We are also working on creating a sensory wall with different textured items so we can explore our different senses while in the calming corner. Many of the students were exploring the wall this week. I am excited to keep on adding different textures and items to expand the wall even further! 

We are hoping that each child will find something within the classroom that helps regulate their bodies while working in the class, whether it be a break in the cubby, time exploring the sensory wall, squeezing a ball or playdough or time in the rocking chair. We will also be introducing new visuals into the classroom to help students communicate their feelings and needs. This will be so crucial in helping each student grow, learn and succeed as we continue to get to know one another! 

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the beautiful weather!

Ms. Desiree

February 27th - March 3, 2023

Hello EES Families,

Welcome to our EES Room 3 Blog. It has been a pleasure getting to know your child over the last few weeks. I am so excited to learn, play and engage with your children over the next four months!  

This week our focus was getting to know each other. As this change has been huge for many if not all the children, I really wanted to spend time building relationships and learning more about each child's different needs, likes and dislikes.  We recently celebrated Pink Shirt Day, so the focus of many of the tasks, activities and stories focused on being kind, being you or developing social skills. During table work the kids worked on targeted tasks around number recognition, pattern matching, fine motor skills and reading comprehension. Our tasks were "heart" themed to tie into our theme of being kind, and being you. 

We also highlighted two stories over the last few weeks. I wanted to read stories about being our authentic selves and a book that focused on our feelings. I read "I Am Me - A Book of Authenticity" by Susan Verde and "The Color Monster" by Anna Llenas. I chose "I Am Me - A Book of Authenticity" as my goal was really getting to know and celebrate each child's differences in the classroom. I also wanted to discuss our feelings and "The Color Monster" story really highlights the emotions we all feel and how they make our bodies feel while we are feeling them. The class was feeling many different emotions as they are all adjusting to me and my teaching style, and I am sure they are all missing Mrs. Rachel as well. I know this change has also been an adjustment for you, so I would like to thank you all for having so much patience for me and your child as well get used to one another! I am hoping the more we talk about emotions and feelings, we will all begin to see that it is okay to feel upset, scared, frustrated, sad, etc. We will continue to work on what we do with these feelings after we recognize what each feeling is. 

Next week, we have School Conferences! I am so excited to meet you in person and hopefully get to know more about your child and tell you what I have learned so far. It has been a joy getting to be in this wonderful classroom.