Check your backpacks!

   
Today book order went home. Please remember that I will not be accepting any money into the class - please ensure you input your order online. All orders MUST be placed by Friday, December 7.

Also, students will be going curling as part of our physical education curriculum. Please sign and return all forms.

Please ensure you are checking the communication folders EVERY night and removing all notices each day - especially the word work words that are coming home weekly!

December is a busy month, please ensure you check the right hand side of this blog so you are aware of all the dates!

Winter Migrations!

We are studying how animals survive during the harsh months of winter.  Animals need to avoid two problems:  STARVING and FREEZING.  Today we watched a video about some animals which migrate to warmer climates to better find food, to stay warm or to have babies.

 During the fall, we often see flocks of Canadian geese traveling in a V shape.  The geese take turns breaking the wind in the front while the ones behind save energy by drafting. 

We made water colour pictures of this journey.  Since the days are getting shorter, so we put a sunset in the background.  The children used a white pastel to create a water resist technique, to separate the sky from the snow.  Some also used it to create clouds. First, the students used big brushes and a "wet on wet" technique to make their background.  The students first applied water, then introduced wet paint onto the paper without "painting." (The water on the paper blends the colours on its own.)  We added only a hint of purple to our white snow to indicate shadows.  

Once our painting were dry, the children went back and used "wet on dry technique" and tiny brushes to create the geese silhouettes in the sky.  

Our buddies came this afternoon, to help us practice EXTENDING patterns.  Our big buddies started a pattern and the grade one/twos extended them.  Look in your child's communication folder to see what they did.  

We also sent home our suncatchers.  Find a window in your home that receives direct sun and enjoy the rainbows the crystal makes.  We discussed how, when placed in a window,  these decorations can  protect birds from flying into the glass.  Notice the beads show the pattern of the rainbow ROY GBIV!

Please keep toys at home!

Please remember that students should keep toys at home.  If your child has a toy for before and after school, remind them to keep it in their backpack during the school day. 

Thanks!

Animals in winter and Rocks and Rings!

Today in Science, we talked a lot about how animals survive in the winter.  They have to avoid freezing and starving to death.  We learned that they have three main strategies to survive: 

-Migration

-Hibernation 

-Adaptation

Today we focused on Adaptation.  Look the animals above and have your child tell you what some of these animals do to help them stay around in wintery locations and survive.  

Some of their strategies:

-Gathering and storing food for winter

-Eating lots during summer/fall and storing energy as blubber/fat for winter

-Having warm fur, feathers or wool to insulate their bodies

-Having extra feathers/fur on feet to help walk on snow

-Having big feet to walk on the snow (like snowshoes)

-Changing their colour white in winter to blend in with the snow to avoid predators (or to sneak up on prey)

-Huddle with other creatures to share body heat

-Create a burrow or home to hide in and warm up in

 Two student nurses visited us as part of the Apple A Day program on nutrition.  Through games, pictures and questions students talked about the food groups and sometimes foods.  Look at your dinner tonight and discuss which food groups are represented.  The most interesting thing was seeing how much sugar is in a can of coke (definitely a sometimes food!)

We started our curling residency this afternoon.  We started by playing some games to learn some curling terminology.

Rock- object you slide

House- rings you try to get the rock into

Button- the circle in the middle of the house (target)

Broom

Hurry

The children learned to score and played three ends.  Look at the picture of the house above.  Have your child tell you who won and what the score was.   We also focussed on how to show sportsmanship.  We can't wait to curl again next week!

Crazy Hair Day Tomorrow!!!

Tomorrow is CRAZY HAIR DAY! 

Have fun doing something creative with your hair.
Can't think of what to do?  There are lots of ideas on-line. Google, ideas for Crazy Hair Day.  Make a list of materials you could use or things you could do.
Have fun!

Second Great Lesson and Patterns

We started our morning off with some Cosmic Kids Yoga as our gym is being used for Rocks and Rings.  We are excited to start that program tomorrow! 

This morning we explored the Second Great Lesson: Life Comes to Earth.  The children were guided through the sequence of life appearing on Earth starting with the first microscopic bacterias including blue-green algae all the way to mammals and us humans!   This story touches on big concepts of adaptation, extinction, fossil records, continent movement and the classification of plants and animals.  After the lesson, the children explored some of the demonstrations in more depth in small groups.  They:   

-used playdough to create fossils from small models of animals

- explored our large, floor model Montessori Timelines of Life

- used photos from our powerpoint and worked on sequencing the groups in the order they appeared on Earth 

-Examined natural specimens like exoskeletons from invertebrates (like crab and lobsters) and bones and vertebrae from skeletons of vertebrates (like cows and elk).

This afternoon we continued to explore patterns.  In small groups, children worked on TRANSLATING patterns:  Making the same pattern with different attributes.  In the example above children made the same "type' of pattern with different manipulatives.  Some groups even translated their pattern into cool dance moves.  Nathaniel's group did a cool "Dab" dance to a ABAC pattern.  

We have continued to look at patterns in our world.  Today we read the Napping House by Audrey Wood.  We noticed there was a increasing pattern in it.  We discovered patterns help authors build to a climax in a story.  In this story, when the pattern finally changed, it helped the students predict that something BIG was going to happen.  

Where do you see patterns at home?

Firefighter visit

Today we were lucky to have another community helper visit our classrooms - a firefighter. It was a short visit but we got to see some of his tools and Ms. Howard even dressed in his gear - pants, boots, jacket, air tank, and helmet. We learned that all these plus his ax and power tools could equal 70lbs of weight, that's more than most of us weigh!