4th Week of April

Monday:

We celebrated Earth Day today by learning about ways to help care for our earth. We have been learning a song called “Own Two Hands” that we will be performing for our moms at the Mother’s Day celebration.

Students used old magazines to cut and paste flowers, trees, or planets. We talked about the importance of reusing materials when we can.

During quiet time we watched the 20 minute animated version of The Lorax.

Tuesday:

We continued to learn about ways that we can help protect the earth. We read a story called “I can save the Earth” and brainstormed simple ways that we can help. Each student chose something they wanted to focus on and wrote it on the bottom of their art work from yesterday.

Wednesday:

Thank you for attending the student-led conferences. The kids loved sharing some of what we do with you. We spent most of the day preparing for your arrival with a Spring Cleaning of the classroom. 

Thursday:

We had an exciting Thursday with a surprise visit from the local fire department. The Surrey Firefighters sent a crew over to teach kids about some of the equipment that firefighters use. We spent the rest of the day learning about fire safety and other ways that firefighters help in the community. We also played a game to practice how to STOP, DROP, and ROLL.

You can find the link to a quick fire safety video that they students watched in class. It is good to talk to the kids about an escape plan and where to meet if there were to ever be a fire in your home.

https://youtu.be/aUdxOmHgeZ4

Friday:

With all the beautiful weather, we took advantage of being outside. We started our day with a toy meet and greet. We practiced our prediction skills by reading, “The Cow That Laid an Egg”, and then completed an egg themed math activity practicing our addition skills up to 12.

In the afternoon, we joined our buddies outside to draw and design games on the playground using sidewalk chalk.

Important upcoming dates:

Friday, May 4^th- Pro-D Day (No school)

Thursday, May 10^th- Mother’s Day Tea Party  

3rd Week of April

Monday

We had a very interesting afternoon with a visit from the Earth Rangers. The students were super excited to get up close to some fascinating creatures.

We met a Harris Hawk named Linus, a Caiman Lizard named Draco, a skunk named Hugo, and a Kookaburra named Kikadoo.

I’m sure you all heard stories about how Kikadoo pooped and Linus flew right over the kids’ heads, these are both TRUE!

 Earth Rangers Website

Tuesday:

The students were particularly interested in learning more about birds of prey after meeting Linus, so I brought in an Eagle costumes, gathered some books from the library and set up an area for students to explore more.

We read a book about different kinds of bridges and the building materials they are made from. We then had a STEM challenge: the students worked individually and in groups to design and build bridges out of different materials. 

Wednesday:

Today we took advantage of the beautiful weather to get outside and use our senses to search for some signs of Spring. As we walked we took time to focus on each of our 4 senses (NOT TASTE) and recorded what we were noticing. 

In the afternoon, we designed and made our rain sticks. Thank you to everyone for contributing cardboard rolls. 

Thursday:

We had a guest teacher Ms. L with us. I have to let you all know that I received a wonderful note from her saying how much she enjoyed working in our classroom. She commended the students for their great behaviour and enthusiasm for learning. WAY TO GO!  

The students worked on their numeracy skills by using dots on ladybugs to explore addition. They read a book about mindfulness called “I am Peace” and practiced balance and mindful movement.

https://youtu.be/hXA3837uv3w

Friday:

I read the students my favourite book today, A cute story about a cat who tried to acquire eggs for an omelet and got more than he bargained for.

https://youtu.be/AHOE6g8LQf0

After we continued with the egg theme and we learned a new math game. It’s a great way to practice the skills needed for addition and subtraction.

In the afternoon, we read books with our buddies.  

A few reminders:

April 25^th – Early Dismissal at 1:25pm

Please join us anytime between 1:30 and 4:30. The student led conferences will be run as an open house. The students will each receive a checklist of things to share and talk about.

1:30-4:30. This is a chance for the kids to share their work with you and to talk about their goals for the third term.

Friday, May 4^th- Pro-D Day (No school)

Thursday, May 10^th- Mother’s Day Tea Party

Invitations will be sent out on Monday.

The tea party will start at 8:30 and go until about 9:30.

2nd Week of April

Monday:

During library, the students had a visitor from the SPCA come in to teach them about bite safety.

We tacked our first Wonder Wall questions about rainbows.

We watched a short video and then used prisms and CDs to demonstrate how white light is actually made up of all the colours of the rainbow.

After we had some rainbow fun with some colour experiments.

Here is a link to a great one to try at home, all you need is milk, food colouring and dish soap.

https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/milk-color-explosion/

And here is one that the parents enjoy just as much as the kids… make your own lava lamp:

https://sciencebob.com/blobs-in-a-bottle-2/

Tuesday:

We continued to talk about rainbows. We started a rainy day art project, experimenting with mixed media and process art.

Students continued to explore light, colour and rainbows, coming up with even more questions.

We read a weather theme book called “Worm Weather” by Jean Taft.

As a class, we wondered why there are so many worms after rain. We drew a diagram and discussed possibilities.

Finally the students decided that it was because their homes filled up with water. The students also wanted to know more about worms so we researched together and found some interesting facts:

Worms have no eyes.

Worms have 5 hearts.

Worms help turn old food, dead bugs, and other organic material into new soil.

Wednesday:

We read “I Love the Rain” and the students completed the second step of their rainy-day art by drawing a silhouette holding an umbrella.

We read a non-fiction book about the Water Cycle and danced along to a water cycle rap.

In the afternoon, we completed some experiments that demonstrate how clouds hold liquid until they are too full, a simulation of the water cycle using popcorn kernels and Alka-Seltzer, as well as practiced estimating to see how many “raindrops” it takes to fill a space.

Thursday:

We started our day by drawing a portrait of our student of the week.

We read a book called “Rain” that is written with only dialogue, so students needed to use inferencing skills to understand what was happening in the story. We then practiced writing dialogue and created our own comics using various templates.

We also finished our Rainy Day Art project using a pipette to create streams of “rain” down our paper with blue paint.

Friday:

We started the day by reading one of my favourite stories, “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” (The Original) by Judi and Ron Barrett.



Click here to hear the story at home!

The students brainstormed what they would have called the book if they were the author and created their own covers. We combined these into a book for our classroom library.

The rainy weather had us stuck inside all day so we were happy to burn some energy in the gym.

We had buddies in the afternoon, unfortunately we did not get a chance to make our rain-sticks today, but will complete that activity on Monday.

Toy Policy:

This week a few students have brought toys to school. I am totally okay with this, as often the students are motivated to write about and read to their toys, they can be a little extra motivation. We had a class meeting to create a policy and decided that we will have 1 day week that toys are allowed to come. Toys will be allowed to come to school on Fridays, but have a few rules:

Rule #1: The toy cannot go outside at recess and lunch, as I don’t want them to get dirty or lost.

Rule #2: Toys must be appropriate, ie. no weapons

Rule #3: If the toy distracts you or others from what we are doing, the toy goes to “Toy Jail” and stays there until an appropriate time.

Rule #4: If there are any disagreements over toys, the toy goes to “Toy Jail” until the end of the day.

* We will work as a class to construct the "Toy Jail" next week. 

If you have any questions or comments please let me know.  

A few important dates to mark on your calendar:

April 25^th – Early Dismissal at 1:25pm for student led conferences. You can come with your child anytime between 1:30-4:30. This is a chance for the kids to share their work with you and to talk about their goals for the third term.

Friday, May 4^th- Pro-D Day (No school)

Thursday, May 10^th- Mother’s Day Tea Party in classroom in the morning. More information to follow.

Have a wonderful weekend!  

Welcome to Our Classroom Blog

Hello Families,

I did not want to inundate you with emails so thought that a blog would be a great way to keep you informed about what is happening in the classroom. I will be posting information about what we are learning, interesting and fun links, books that we have read in class, and ideas for activities and experiments you may want to try at home. The photos will not contain any faces or names to protect the identity and privacy of the students. I will only use the students initials so that you can identify your child's work. 

I feel that a blog is a great way for you to see inside the classroom and a good opportunity to start teaching the kids about internet safety. Please feel free to share questions and comments on the blog or to my email. And again, you are welcome to pop into the classroom anytime and check out what we are doing.

Recap of this week:

Tuesday: Students taught me the rules and routines in the classroom and various math games. We read "Zoo Zen" by Kristen Fischer and had fun playing some yoga games with the help of some finger puppets. 

Wednesday: We started our classroom Wonder Wall. The kids had lots of interesting questions as well as some funny ones. We will start tackling them next week with an inquiry into weather. T.W. & T.T. "I wonder where rain comes from?", K.B. "I wonder how rainbows are made?", D.H. "I wonder why rainbow have different colours?" J.X. "When will the sun come out?" and we decided to add one of M.M.'s fun questions, "Why do snowmen dress-up?"

A lot of the students were making paper airplanes during centre time so we took the opportunity to try out some different designs as a class and we made airplane kites. 

   

Thursday: We read a fun book called "Let's Make Faces", we then used found objects to create different faces around the room.  We continued with the interest in flight with an airplane themed yoga class, creating different poses and practicing breathing techniques by creating the sounds of different flying vehicles. After the students made paper helicopters and discussed what was making the paper twirl.

Friday: We started the day with the story "Too Tall Houses" by Gianna Marino and a STEM challenge to work together in groups to build houses out of various materials. As this was a story of friendship and cooperation we added a little fun that if there were any arguments a stormy wind "Ms. Q" would come and blow the house down. The kids all worked fabulously together. 

In the afternoon we had buddies and created collages out of magazines and flyers of things that we like and love. 

Have a great weekend!