Today we released our butterflies in the back of our school. We found an area where there were a few milkweeds that were not cut down. One flew away and three others landed on the weeds. The children also wrote letters about how sad they were to see the field beside our school cut and many of the milkweeds gone. We are hoping these will grow back. We also worked on planting some flowers and plants in the front flower bed in hopes of attracting butterflies in the future.

Friends from Scanlon came to our school and read us “The Lorax” story by Dr. Seuss. It is a light-hearted but cautionary tale with an important message. If we do not take responsibility for the environment,then our own world will soon be like the one that the Lorax left behind. So while the Once-ler did eventually see the error of his greedy ways, it was already close to too late for his world. We learned how we can protect the butterfly habitat at our school: let the milkweeds grow for butterfyy eggs and caterpillars and don’t litter on the ground and in our streams. We also need to plant flowers for the butterflies. We played a game trying to get the butterfly (us wearing butterfly wings) to Mexico without dying. If we stepped on a square with a letter “X”, we did not make the long flight to Mexico. We planted some wildflower seeds in a small cup that we took home to take care of and can plant in the ground once they grow. Our Painted Lady Caterpillars also arrived and are in 2 small cups with caterpillar food. Every few days we must clean the caterpillar poop out so they can reach the food. Once they all form their chrysalis we can move them to our large net. We are so excited to see this life cycle happen in our classroom.

Today, the weather was beautiful as we walked to our local library here in Bradford. Librarians Andrea and Michelle read us many stories and took us on a library tour. We saw board books, picture books, easy read books,chapter books and books with facts. We saw the book sorting machine in action as it sorted books into piles for the librarians to re-shelf. We heard many funny stories: “Baa Baa Smart Sheep” and “I Love Lemonade” were a few of our favourites.

We rode a bus to the Tiffin Centre and created outdoor art using many things we found in the woods (pine cones, sticks, leaves, stones, etc.). Some of our ideas were a firepit, the word “love”, a pool, nests, etc. We also got to dip nets in a pond and found many frog and toad tadpoles as well as other pond life. Thank you to our many parent volunteers for helping make this outdoor adventure such great fun!

We have been working at making our outdoor garden ready. We have planted some annuals that were donated and have been watering our new plants. We tried to plant some marigolds inside the classroom but these did not grow. We had some sunflower seeds from our large sunflower we had in our garden in the fall and tried planting these in some soil. We used some of our worm casings and we now see some sprouts. We can’t wait to see these grow and to add them to our kindergarten garden.

We have been exploring the outside with our New Wonder Wagon created by Mrs. Switzer. This is a ready to go outdoor classroom vehicle for the promotion of active exploration of the outdoors. It is a vehicle to carry our materials to explore the world around us. We have used the magnifying glasses to look more closely at trees, leaves, grass, rocks and our new plants in our garden. We used the binoculars to look at things far away. Thank you Mrs. Switzer for helping us to take the outside in and the inside out!

We had our Jump Rope Kick-Off Assembly with Laura Malone from the Heart and Stroke Foundation. We learned how we can keep our hearts healthy: drinking lots of water, getting a good nights sleep, eat healthy, exercise, no smoking and a positive attitude. Our Falcons collected money from family and friends to help raise funds to support this great cause. We had our Jump Rope For Heart event where we skipped and jumped outside circulating through 10 stations run by our older students. Did we reach our school goal of $4000? If we do, we get to “mummy wrap” Mrs. Walke, Ms. Booth and Mr. Dunkley on the last day of school and we will have a “junk in the trunk teacher vs. student contest. Go Falcons Go!

We were thrilled to have the X Movement team at our school. Our kindergarten students participated in an interactive dance experience and also celebrated diversity and inclusion. Our families were also invited back for an evening to discover dance in an energizing and inspiring way. We all have unique characteristics and remember “you are Xtra awesome!”

Our school wore their jerseys to school to show support for the Humboldt Broncos team, families and community. We also placed a hockey stick and candle outside our classroom door. We are thinking of you Humboldt!

April 11th marked the International Day of Pink. It is a day where communities across the country and across the world, can unite in celebrating diversity and to raise awareness to stop all forms of bullying. We all wore pink to symbolize standing against bullying. We read the story “Don’t Be a Bully, Billy” and wrote about a time where we were bullied or stood up to a bully. We talked about how we felt when we were bullied (lonely, sad or scared)and how we felt when we stood up to a bully (happy, strong, good).