Gardening update

As the weather turned bad we missed our outdoor gardening sessions...However Ms. Cova showed us posters of what all one can find under the soil. A whole world of creatures that live underground. Here are some of our drawings depicting snails, slugs and bugs...

We have often seen these creatures when we worked in garden..earthworms that make the soil so good and are our friends

When we dig we find roots of plants, stones and burrows in which insects live and whole lot of things....

Here is what we did outdoors...

We planted more bulbs in baskets and old boxes..

We are sure all the hard work will bear results in Spring...

Thank you Ms. Cova for helping us make our garden so beautiful.

Where do hedgehogs live?

Have you seen the hedgehogs in central space?
We have read many stories about the hedgehogs.
Some of us have seen a hedgehog shuffling leaves and looking for food.

Hedgehogs make a nest of leaves and can be seen in gardens..
Here is a funny story about a hedgehog who got an apple stuck to his back..

All his friends advised him how to get rid of it by rolling on ground, wading in pond but it was not helpful.



Finally the goat managed to eat the apple, pear and chestnuts stuck to his back and the tired hedgehog managed to go back to his cozy nest of leaves and restfully sleep off for winter months..

We used coloured paper and sticks to make our hedgehogs....

What animals hibernate in winter?

How many hedgehogs walking by?

Here is a funny hedgehog..

Our Day

You might wonder how we spend our day. Well there is lots to do. We enjoy counting and sorting games.

The colourful fruits and shapes counters can be used to make patterns

We decided to make an Alphabet train. We already have the three A,B,C coaches in which we put words and objects that start with same letter.
As we go along we will add more words . Our train will go chugging along and we sing many songs too.....
A a is for an apple a big red apple,
A is for an apple I eat each day,

Bb is for a ball, a big round ball,
B is for a ball I bounce all day,

We are learning the Alphabet names and sounds..

There are lots of charts and flash cards for us to play matching games..

There is always time to draw and paint

There is quiet reading time after we have finished our snack...

There are many puzzles and board games for us to choose from.

There are all kinds of books in our class library .









We change the day,date and post the weather report on our calendar.
We put up our name tag on the lady bug as soon as we come to school.

We use all different kinds of materials to practice and count ..

It is always fun to work in a group..

Counting dolls, bears and toys

There are so many opportunities to practice and apply what we have learned...

Hopping on number line is fun....

We have fun with numbers....

Diwali Celebrations

We were so happy to have Aditya, Anirudh, Harsha, Maithili and Pranav's Mums come and talk to us about Diwali
Deepawali is the Sanskrit word which means row of lamps. As the story goes it is joyous celebration of victory of King Rama over the demon king Ravana who was very wicked and arrogant. People celebrate this victory by lighting lamps and decorating their homes with flowers and make rangoli( floral and animal patterns made with coloured rice ) to decorate the floor. They share sweets and gifts with family and friends.
Aditya's Mum showed us a nice video clip of Diwali celebration.
Aditya recited a verse in Sanskrit and
Pranav recited the story in Hindi.
Then we had beautiful Bharatnayam dance performance by Harsha's Mum.

Mums came dressed in beautiful costumes decorated our class and made rangoli with flowers and lighted candles and insence . We tasted some lovely home made snacks too.
We were so happy to celebrate this festival with our friends from Ms. Leitner's class.

We would like to thank all the Mums for bringing in the festivities and the tasty snacks !!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwali

Our excursion to Chateau de Penthes

You can see the glimpses of our trip to Chateau de Penthes. Ms. Rose showed us how to rub crayons to make pattern of the bark on paper..

There were many signs posted....and we guessed this one said keep a dog on leash

We walked on grass and felt the squeezy mud..



There is a swinging tree with branches so low that we could sit and gently swing along..


We crossed a wooden bridge and then walked over dry autumn leaves...crunch..crunch.

On the other side of the park was the lake...and we could even hear the trains passing by

We hugged this huge tree with beautiful golden and yellow leaves.....

It was fun to walk with our friends

We could not go near the pond as it was too muddy...There were water lilies and of course the frogs that we could not see...



We saw the beautiful Chateau...We wondered who lived in it...

A thick carpet of dried leaves..We even saw a burrow perhaps a hedgehog had been here before we came...
We wondered how many people used this park. How is the park different from our school playground? We saw many birds and people walking their dogs.

We walked through the forest and saw the broken tree. We were told that a lightening struck this tree and it fell down. Now all you see a broken trunk!!

In the following slideshow you can see the broken tree and the spot at which we had picnic...

It was indeed a fun trip!!

Pruning the bushes

There is always so much to do in the garden..It is fun to see the trees changing colours and explore and discover little insects and snails and smell mint and herbs..

We had our share of leeks from the garden..

Giving a close cut or pruning the bush....

Now we are getting better at following instructions and can use tools to dig and place a bulb and cover it with soil.

We cut out the dried stems of the lavendar bush almost like giving a hair cut. Now it looks so neat...

Planting the bulbs....

Cutting out the dried stems requires a lot of concentration, skill and care...

Bad weeds have to be removed....Many hands are required to maintain our garden
















We are always happy to work in the garden...such a great learning experience for all of us.

Fisherman and Conker games

Before the break Hannah's Dad showed us some fun games that he used to play when he was in school.
We were so happy to the play the Fisherman game in the gym. The fisherman coves his eye with a scarf and counts. Then he suddenly looks back and people( fishes) moving forward are caught.
The last person not caught is the next fisherman.

The other game called conker is played with chestnuts. A hole is drilled through the chestnuts and then a shoe lace is put through it. Each person takes a turn to hit other person's chestnut with theirs.The conker which breaks first loses.
There are some special tricks to make your conker harder( including soaking it in vinegar and then drying for two days).
At this time of the year most playgrounds in England have people playing Conkers.

However we did not play this game and could only win a conker as a prize!! I am sure you guessed why we could not play this game.

Our special thanks to Hannah's Dad for teaching us such fun games.

Singing with Ms. Lindy

On Wednesdays we have singing with Ms. Lindy.
Here are a few songs we sing..



Hope you would enjoy listening to them ...

French song

We have learned many French songs with Annick

This is our favourite song about fingers

We can sing it for you...

Les doigts de ma main font cinq



Les doigts de ma main font cinq
C’est le pouce le plus malin,
C’est l’index le plus coquin.
Le majeur le plus heureux, car il est au milieu.
L’annulaire est le plus fier, car il sait à quoi il sert.
C’est le plus petit, le plus joli,
On l’appelle l’auriculaire,
mais on dit aussi le petit, le petit riquiqui,
le petit riquiqui.

Planting bulbs in boots

As always our gardening lessons are fun. On cold and windy Tuesday we were undeterred and ready to plant different bulbs in boots despite the chilly wind...bise!!

Thanks to all the parents for sending in daffodil and tulip bulbs

Here we filled the boots with soil and placed two bulbs in each boot and covered it with soil.

This is a bulb which has to be placed with head up and roots down and not the other way round

Here are the boots with bulbs .The bulbs will sleep through the cold winter months...We will await the surprise when all the boots will sprout with colourful flowers..There is still a long way to go...But there is never a dull moment...
Thank you Ms. Cova what a great idea !!