We truly live in a beautiful part of the world, so let’s find new ways to care for our environment in 2020! We wish all our families, friends and followers a wonderful new year! We hope you enjoyed the holidays and found plenty of time to explore a nearby woodlot, park, or even your backyard. Winter is a beautiful season!
We had an incredible December here at Discovery Child Care. The month was filled with both fun and education, as we learned about taking care of our teeth, how animals survive in the winter, gave back to the local community and snowshoe through the ton of snow that came down on us. Here are just some of December’s highlights:
Learning how to take care of our teeth!
Wednesday morning the Kinders had some special visitors to the classroom! Our friends at Georgian Mall Family Dental came to teach us about oral health and how to keep our teeth and mouths healthy and clean.
We had the opportunity to practice brushing the different areas of our teeth on a monkey with some very large teeth! We used large circles with a toothbrush to make sure all of the food got brushed away.
We also practiced flossing the monkey which was new for some of us and took a little extra practice. We were introduced to how a dental hygienist may look when we visit the dentist as they may look different while they are working on our teeth. They put on their lab coats, their masks to prevent spreading germs, gloves and even glasses to protect us from the bright lights at the dentist’s office.
We had a lot of fun playing a game about foods that are healthy for our teeth and foods that are not. We surprised the hygienists with how much we know about this as well keeping our mouth and teeth clean and healthy! We even received goodie bags to take home to our families.
We would like to extend a huge thank you to our friends at Georgian Mall Family Dental and to remind our friends and families to brush twice a day (including your tongue) and to floss regularly!
Making the most of Ontario’s beautiful snow with snowshoes
One beautiful wintry morning we decided to get the snowshoes out for the first time this year. We bundled up nice and warm and headed out with snowshoes in hand. The children were so excited to get started! Some of our friends have gone snowshoeing before and for some, it was their first time.
F.G. said, “I’ve never snowshoed before, well, maybe when I was a baby.” He stood up and walked through the deep snow with such ease! L.B. and D.D. played follow the leader taking turns being the leader. L.B. said, “this is fun!”
Lisa took some friends for a walk behind the skating rink box. The children lead the way, noticing how beautiful the snow looked as it was falling. It was so quiet and peaceful. Some friends pretended to be animals making tracks in the snow. J.A. said, “I’m making bear tracks.” It was the most perfect way to start our day!
The season of giving
It is the season of giving and the kinders couldn’t be more excited about it! Earlier in December, we kicked off our annual food drive for the Barrie Food Bank and the Barrie Native Friendship Centre as well as our Toy Drive in support of CTV’s Toy Mountain Toy Drive. We have been talking about the importance of helping others who are less fortunate and why it is so important. During our circle time, the children shared their ideas about these initiatives:
RC: “Some kids don’t have toys so this helps them to have some toys.”
DD: “It’s to help people who don’t have enough food or don’t have toys. We will take them to the news station for them to have.”
HGC: “Some people don’t have food or money or toys. We are giving them food and toys.”
FG: “People don’t have toys. They will feel sad.”
The kinders and the school-agers were excited to have a visit from CTV News while they worked together to decorate collection boxes for any items that will be donated at Discovery.
We loved helping those in our community to have a Happy Holiday season. Thank you for helping us help others!
How do animals survive in the winter months?
A.M.’s mom noticed the work we have been doing in the classroom with regards to how animals survive the cold winter months. She mentioned a library book they had at home and asked if we would like to share it with the class.
When A.M. arrived the following Forest Day, he was very excited to share the book “Winter Dance” by Marion Dane Bauer with his friends. The story introduced various animals of the forest and the many ways they survive winter.
The children were proud to point out the habitats of the animals and to label each of them as “hibernation”, “adaptation”, and “migration”. They enjoyed the book so much, that we decided to create a story time table using the book.
The children have shown great interest in story time tables in the past but quickly realized that we did not have all of the animals in the story among our various types of animal toys. They were fast to solve this dilemma by choosing to create the animals themselves by drawing them on paper at the art table. Once the characters were all accounted for, the children enjoyed bringing the book to life, page by page.
They shared the story on their own as they flipped through the book while they used the toys and handcrafted characters to act out the story. They enjoyed this experience so much that A.M. and his family allowed us to share the book for the rest of the week!
More snow!
A fresh snowfall on the PA day provided the school-agers with the perfect conditions for capturing photos of single snowflakes! They were excited to point out perfectly visible ice crystals and we got some great pics!
We were able to see the intricate designs and were amazed to see evidence that indeed, each flake was different. We could distinguish six sides on most of the flakes, and the school-agers remembered that the wind helped to create different shapes and angles on each crystal.
The children discovered that the temperature was perfect for creating snow structures! We talked about how warmer weather, just below the freezing mark, produced snow that was a little bit wet upon accumulation. This made perfect “packing snow” for making snowballs, as well as for making a really cool roller coaster.
We are excited to begin tracking temperatures on an outdoor thermometer and charting snowfall and types of snow, to see if we can find any correlations. Stay tuned! We still look forward to families sharing what type of activities they like to do in the snow and adding them to our board in our classroom!
If you want to keep up with our adventures this year, head over to our Facebook and follow us for the latest updates, or to learn more about what we do please contact us today.