The Northern Lights and Polar Bear Walks

We started our day dancing as the Karate Residency was happening again in the gym.   Kids have been doing an awesome job moving to the music and trying out lots of great moves.  One student, announced that the moves in the song "Blue" spoke to his body!  Awesome! In this cold weather, looking up Just Dance Kids on the internet is a great way to get some exercise and have fun.  We will be making our own dance routines next week when we are back in the gym. 

We read a beautiful book called Painted Skies  by Carolyn Mallory to inspire our art today on the northern lights.  We used string to apply tempera paint to create the swirling, colourful patterns the northern lights create.  We put a polar bear as our subject to celebrate our hard work, doing our Polar Bear Walk this afternoon.  The students did some good thinking and talking about times they could drive less or use less energy.

We hope to see many of you out at our Celebration of Learning tonight.  Check the post from a few days ago for the Karate times.  Also, look in your child's folder for their migration watercolour art and for any notices.  We are waiting for a few Glenbow field trip notices.  Please get them in soon!  The trip is on Tuesday!

Scholastic Book Fair

SCHOLASTIC’S BOOK FAIR

IS COMING TO OUR SCHOOL!

The Scholastic Book Fair will be at our school Tuesday February 26^h to Wednesday February 27^th.  Students will be visiting the fair during class time; they will be allowed to purchase books during that time, but we also encourage you to look over the highlights flyer and the wish list they will bring home.  Parents are welcome to visit anytime; remember to sign in at the office and pick up a visitor’s badge.

Please have your child fill out the ballot on the highlights flyer for a chance to win free books!

Did you know: 80% of the sales from this fair come back to the school in the library and home reading materials?  Last year, our Scholastic book fairs brought in over $8500 worth of books for the library, home reading program, and English as a Learned Language support.

You may send cash or a cheque with your child to purchase their books.  Cheques should be made out to CJP.  Visa, Mastercard, and debit are also accepted when you visit the fair.

THE FAIR WILL BE OPEN THE FOLLOWING HOURS:

Tuesday February 26^th                                 9:10am-4:50pm (opened after school)

Wednesday February 27^th                            9:10am-4:50pm (opened after school)

6:30pm-8:00pm (running along the Math Celebration of learning event)

CLOSED DURING RECESS AND LUNCH ALL DAYS

We still need volunteers, help us run a successful event! No experience needed, kids are welcome to come and help after school with their parent volunteers. A valid police clearance is needed for school hours volunteering.

Please sign up at : http://signup.com/go/sTqTnUU  

Best in Show!

   

Today we displayed our collection in our classroom museum. Students laid out there 5 items and shared with their peers which one wins the best in show award. Each student then got a ribbon and added it to their learning journal.
We talked about how, as writers, it is important that we talk about our ideas. So today in writer's workshop there was actually no writing to be done - just orally sharing our opinion. From here we will expand on our ideas and continue to write about which one of the items in our collection in the best!

  

Celebration of Learning and Karate Demonstration

CAPTAIN JOHN PALLISER CELEBRATION OF LEARNING

Date: Wednesday, February 27th, 2019 Time: 6:15pm - 7:45pm

All our homeroom classrooms will be open to showcase student learning.
All students are encouraged to participate in their grade level karate demonstration.
Kindergarteners, please head to the gym at 6:15pm, demonstration will begin at 6:20pm.
All other grades will be meeting in the music room at their designated times, all demonstrations will be in the gymnasium.

Grade 1s at 6:20pm, demonstration at 6:30pm. Grade 3s at 6:30pm, demonstration at 6:40pm. Grade 5s at 6:40pm, demonstration at 6:50pm.

Grade 2s at 6:50pm, demonstration at 7:00pm. Grade 4s at 7:00pm, demonstration at 7:10pm. Grade 6s at 7:10pm, demonstration at 7:20pm.

Parent Association: Cafe will be located on the stage, Scholastic Book Fair will be open in Room 22!

Polar Bear walk - next week

Polar Bear Walk

Walk to Protect Arctic Wildlife with the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF)

Every year, polar bears in Hudson Bay walk up to 5,000 kilometres across Arctic sea ice in search for food to raise their cubs. But the sea ice on which they depend is changing, and in some cases disappearing altogether. (WWF - 2019)

Fundraising to Adopt a Polar Bear

Students will reduce greenhouse gasses by walking more. You can support your child in their efforts to be positive citizens of the environment by helping them raise money to donate to ‘Adopt a Polar Bear’ through the WWF.

Grade 1 and 2 students at CJP are concerned for the animals of the arctic. On February 27, National Polar Bear Day, students will symbolically walk with the polar bears.

Suggested Ways to Donate Money Donate a small amount of money (For example, .25 cents) each time your child offers to drive less. Tally the total amount and send in your donation to your child’s teacher by Thursday, March 21.

Encourage them to: ● walk/bike instead of drive  ● park a block or two from your destination and walk the rest of the way

For more information please visit: http://polarbearwalk.wwf.ca

Making Healthy Food Choices

Did you know that Canada's Food Guide has changed? Here is the link for the new Food Guide: https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/

Today we discussed the importance of making healthy food choices and what that really means. We started by looking at food labels and comparing two similar products. We looked at the fat content (talked about "good fat" vs. "bad fat"), sodium, sugars, and protein. From there students made decisions about the healthier option. This is something that should be continued at home. Discussions about what is a healthy food choice vs an unhealthy food choice is how we develop healthy eating habits. Work together to look at food labels and compare things in your own cupboard.
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Sometimes at this age, it's hard to really comprehend what the food labels mean and how to interpret them. After this brief activity, students sorted foods into 3 groups - Always Foods, Sometimes Foods, and Special Occasion Foods. They debated some of the decisions and agreed upon many.

It was really interesting listening to the discussions and they even spilled over into snack time. Students began sorting their own lunch bags into these categories. They continued the discussion about what makes it an always food or why they have a special occasion food in their lunch bag. Food choice is always parents choice and ultimately your decision. At school, it is our job to ensure students are enlightened about the options. Please, for the health of your child, keep having these discussions at home and at the grocery store. Make meals as a family and talk to your child about the importance of healthy food choices.

Big Buddies from Simon Fraser School

Today we were super excited to have big buddies from grades 5-9 join our class for work period.  We had 11 helpers so we had an awesome 2:1 ratio.  Our big buddies helped us play math games,  learn a new literacy game and to guide us ripping tape for our watercolour tree art.

(Removing the tape from a tree to reveal the white branches underneath)

This was our second chance to try our wet on wet technique on watercolour paper this year.  We thought about what worked well last time and what we would want to do differently.  Instead of taping down our paper we tried wetting both sides of our paper and working right on our desktops. Last time we used oil pastel resist techniques, so this time we used tape.  Using tape allowed us to leave the area of tree white, so it will look like a pretty frost covered tree.  We also experimented with putting epsom salts on our wet paint.  This produced a cool effect!

Forming Opinions

In the next couple of weeks we will be introducing the students to opinion writing and we are using personal collections as an introduction activity. Please look around your home and have the children bring in a collection of 5 items. Please ensure this is a collection - 5 items that have something in common - like my collection, above. They are all shoes and they are all Christmas ornaments.

These items will need to stay at school for a couple of weeks so when choosing items, please choose items that are not valuable, eatable or breakable. Please have your child choose one item that is their favorite and discuss with your child why the one they picked is their favorite. Maybe they like the color or design best or maybe it works better than another item? This is how we will begin our opinion writing unit so it will be helpful to talk about the collection before sending it to school.