Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Pen Pals



Our learning journey around the Earth has us excited about different countries and what we will see when we travel!

Some new friends and our pen pals, Courtney and Jason have been on a trip around the world and started writing letters to our class at the beginning of April!  They wrote to us from many different countries and even sent pictures!  

Jason and Courtney's first stop was to Mexico.  They sent us pictures of the beach they stayed on. The sand was so white, and the water was so blue! Next was South Africa, where we saw beautiful animals like lions and elephants!  Then we were off to Egypt, we were fascinated by the pyramids.  From Egypt, we went to Bangladesh and then Australia!  We loved the beautiful rain-forests and the Great Barrier Reef! Each time Courtney and Jason went to a new country, we got to do an entry in our Passports!  We loved drawing and writing about what different places around the world looked like.

Our class LOVES the beach! (Australia and Mexico were some of the students favourite places!)  Lately, we have been discussing animals that live in the water, sandcastles and hot weather!  Here is a question that stemmed from our discussions:  

I wonder... why it is summer all the time in Mexico? 

I think... 
A.L. - All the countries are always facing the sun. 
Z.L. - Because it never snows. 
E.R.(jk) - It rains.  I think the sun hits the top of it. 
D.M. - Because Mexico is a different country. 
M.O. 0 On those countries there will never be winter. 
L.H. - I think because the sun always shines there. 
J.L. - Becasue Mexico is in the middle of the Earth. 

After reading the book On Earth by G. Brian Karas, we learned about the Equator and that our Earth is actually on a tilt!  Now, we understand ..... 

It is summer all the time because Mexico is in the middle of the Earth.  The Sun is strong at the middle. 

In Australia it is summer when Canada has winter. Z.L. 
When it is summer in Canada it is winter in Australia.  P.Z. 
In Canada it is day time. In Nigeria it is night time.  T.C. 
Mexico is at the Equator.  J.Y.  
The equator is in the middle. S.B.
I think because its in the Equator and the sun always shines on the Equator. A.K. (jk)
Cuba is also in the middle.  E.B. 
India is close to the Equator.  A.K.(sk)

L.H. moves Jason and Courtney's plane from South Africa, to Egypt to Bangladesh! 




Our Canadian Passports!
JMX works on a rainforest in Bangladesh.


A world map displays where each students heritage is from. We are lucky to have such a beautiful, diverse class! 
S.Z. looks at an atlas to find China.
K.H. sees all of the continents in an atlas.
A.M. does a journal entry of the Earth at the wonder window.
U.Q. find a globe in a book at our reading corner. 




What is your favourite place that Jason and Courtney went?!

Z.L. - Mexico because I like looking for shells, hotel and hammock. 
J.Lnds - Mexico because I like the water and you can build the tallest sandcastle. 
J.L. - Australia because theres lots of coral reefs. 
A.M. - Mexico because I like swimming. 
D.M. - Bangladesh because I like the rainforest and rainbows.  
M.O. - Bangladesh because it has rainforests and waterfalls and I like water. 
E.R. (SK) - Mexico because you get to have fun outside, always. 
L.S. - Rainforest because there were creatures in there. A lizard. 
S.S. - Mexico because its near the equator and it never gets cold. 
V.T. - Australia because it is close to another country so you can kayak/row a boat to New Zealand.  And it has sharks, I like sharks. 
D.V. - Mexico because you get to build sandcastles. 
J.M.X. - Great Barrier Reef because of the coral trees. 
S.Z. - Mexico because its nice and hot and you can do anything there. 
A.L. - Mexico because its so hot and you can live on the beach. 
G.A. - Australia because its hot. 
S.B. - Australia because it has a cool flag. 
E.B. - Mexico because it is so hot and you can go to the beach. 
A.D. - Egypt because I like the flag. 
H.H. - Mexico because I like the swimming pool. 
L.H. - Mexico because its warm. 
K.H. - Mexico because I like the beach. 
A.K.(jk) - Egypt because the Great Pyramid has a half lion and half human. 
I.L. - Mexico because I like the beach. 
S.M. - Mexico because I get to swim. 
U.Q. - Mexico because they have a big mountain. 
E.R. (jk) - Disneyworld. 
E.Z. - Egypt because of the mountains (pyramids) 


Sunday, April 6, 2014

Kindergarten World Famous Food


Our socio-dramatic area is a large component of our exploration and investigation time.  Miss Campbell and I strive to make the drama learning area a student led activity.


The children chose and voted on a theme first, we came up with many ideas such as a restaurant, grocery store and school.  Once we decided on a restaurant, we thought of different kinds of food we could serve!  Here is a tally of what our students wanted to enjoy.

 

We also brainstormed different names to call the restaurant.  Here is a screen shot of our names and voting process!  We noticed two of our favourite names had the words "World Famous."
The winner was "Kindergarten World Famous Food."  We thought of different kinds of foods we could serve from around the world including, sushi from Japan, tacos from Mexico, borsch from Russia and Greek salad from Greece.  The students have been practising taking turns and sharing different roles/jobs to play in the restaurant such as, the chef, server, customer and hostess. Our new restaurant fits in perfectly with our inquiry about the world, countries and our heritage.
H.H. is pouring a cup of tea

K.H. is cleaning the kitchen

L.S. is a chef

D.V is giving V.T. his order


A.K.jk and S.S. are showing off the menus

- - - - - - - 

In math we have been learning about money!  We went on a coin hunt to find pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, loonies and toonies!  As we found a coin, we checked it off on our list!  
We love singing this song: "I've Got Canada in My Pocket" and playing the Coin Spot game on our SmartBoard.






This week, our student teacher Miss Walton helped us put dollar amounts next to each item on our menu!  Now customers pay for what they would like to order and servers put the money into our restaurant cash register!  We are having so much fun at Kindergarten World Famous Food!