Stories and traditions about ourselves and our families reflect who we are and where we are from.

We have been talking about how families differ and are the same;  including physical characteristics (e.g., hair, skin colour, eyes), cultural characteristics (e.g., language, family origins, food and dress), and other characteristics (e.g., preferred activities, favourite books and movies, pets).

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We also talked about our personal and family history and traditions, such as;

• important events in life (e.g., starting school, losing a tooth, getting a new pet or moving)
• family stories (e.g., immigration to Canada, First Peoples oral histories, notable ancestors, memories from older relatives)
• traditions and celebrations (e.g., Christmas, other winter festivals around the world), special cultural holidays (e.g., Lunar New Year, First Peoples celebrations, birthdays, and associated foods, clothing, art)

Have a wonderful Family Day!

As scientists the children have been;

• observing objects and events in familiar contexts
• asking simple questions about familiar objects and events

They observed that the snow melted when we brought it inside our classroom.  They were surprised that there was so little water left in the container.  Why?  They learned about the life cycle of snow and about the water states of matter (gas, liquid, solid).

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The children were looking at pictures of snowflakes and this is what they they noticed; 

• Snowflakes have 6 sixes
• Snowflakes have a hexagonal shape
• Every snowflake is different
• All snowflakes are symmetrical (the same on both sides)

Here are the snowflakes that they made;

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On February 2, a groundhog is said to forecast the weather by looking for his shadow. If it’s sunny out, and he sees his shadow, we’re in for six more weeks of winter. On the other hand, a cloudy Groundhog Day is supposed to mean that we will have an early spring.  We celebrated Groundhog Day by learning all kinds of amazing groundhog facts – including what they eat, where they live, and how they make it through tough winters!

We also went outside to see if we could see our shadows, and we did not. . . so we predict that we will have an early spring!

This made us curious about shadows, so we learned how to make shadow puppets with our hands.

You can try this at home!