The GIANT Voyageur Post

What a week it's been in kindergarten!  We celebrated the Voyageur culture all week and we had a blast.

Voyageur Songs and Vocabulary

Playing 'Les Voyageurs'

We set up our chairs to make a giant canoe and we paddled down the river.  We sang voyageur songs and paddled until our arms were tired.  Suddenly, we hit some rapids and lost a few little voyageurs who fell overboard!  The next time we came to some rapids, we portaged by carrying our canoe over our heads.  It was a long and hard trek.  Next, we spent a night sleeping under our canoe (tables) for shelter, and we rose to face the river again.  Oh, the life of a voyageur!

Making Bannock

We measured and mixed ingredients, listened to and followed directions, took turns and worked together to make real bannock.  We thought it was very cool that we were eating like real voyageurs.  The kids especially loved kneading  the dough, and eating the bread with raspberry jelly.

Our 100th Day of School

Here are some pictures of us celebrating our 100th day of kindergarten.  It was a day filled with white glue and Fruit Loops.  Here we are in action:

Mixing Up our Trail Mix

Counting Fruit Loops for our Necklaces

Stringing our Necklaces

Building a Structure with 100 Cups

Decorating our 100 Glasses

Reading 100 Books and Snacking on Trail Mix

Bingo Dabbing 100 Dots

Class Photographer

Jack's prize for good behaviour was 'class photographer'.  Here are some of his best shots:

Process of Design

Yesterday we spent our day doing Valentine science.  Part of our science curriculum asks students to use 'THE PROCESS OF DESIGN' to enrich their learning of a concept.  One of our science units is about paper and trees, so we used the process of design to build our own Valentine's Day envelopes.  We looked at how a pocket works to hold things.  The kids had to figure out how to turn a piece of paper into a pocket.  We experimented with folding, gluing, taping, stapling and tearing.  We figured out that three sides had to be closed and the kids got to decide how they wanted to close them.

Next, we put valentines into the pockets to test them.  

Finally, we decorated them.  Next, we will complete self-evaluations and fill up our envelopes at our party on Friday.  For some students, it will be their first time giving and getting valentines.  How exciting!

Finishing Up With Penguins

I thought we were finished with our polar animal unit last week, but we've been having so much fun with penguins that I had to add one last day.  We sorted out the penguin life cycle and then pretended we were little daddy penguins who had to carry our eggs on our feet to keep our babies warm.  The kids carried their 'eggs' to me, where I rewarded them with some krill (le krill).  I had some of them fooled that they'd really be eating seafood!  Instead it was just a peach gummy candy.

 

After that we learned about how penguins keep warm by huddling close together to shelter each other from the wind.  Here is our (super cute) penguin huddle.

TGIF!!

We made good use of our time today at kindergarten as we finished up a few winter and polar animal activities so that we will be ready to jump right in to 100th Day and Valentine's Day next week.  Festival du Voyageur will follow, so it was now or never!!  We started with a penguin sort.  We learned about the 'manchot jugulaire' (Chinstrap penguin), the 'gorfou sauteur' (Rockhopper penguin), the 'manchot empereur' (Emperor penguin), and the 'manchot adélie' (Adelie penguin).  Here we are trying to find our penguin family.  Nineteen kindergartners waddling in all directions is pretty adorable.

Next we sorted our penguins. 

We also did a penguin directed drawing activity.  What a bunch of little artists!

As if that wasn't enough excitement, we started our Borax crystal science experiment.  We folded up pipe cleaners to make snowflakes.

Next, we submerged them in boiling water and Borax.  The kids helped with the measuring and mixing.  Hopefully they will be covered in beautiful crystals when we come back to school on Monday.