Drips, Drops, Stripes and Spots

Things we have plenty of in our classroom: 

• friends
• smiles
• silly jokes
• germs
• CREATIVITY!

We put our oodles of creativity to work this week and tackled an art project! 

We've all read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle, but have you ever really examined the illustrations?

Mr. Carle not only wrote The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but he illustrated it, too! He has a unique method for making designed, textured paper and then cutting it into the pieces for his pictures. 

We followed Mr. Carle's paper-making technique. 

First, we painted our paper. We added drips, drops, stripes and spots in every colour!

See? No shortage of creativity in our class! Beautiful designs, boys and girls!

Mrs. Beliveau's mug even got some "creativity" on it too... 

Occupational hazard

We set our papers aside to dry overnight, and then tackled our next project ... clean up!

Thankfully, the boys and girls in our class are always willing to help out. Surprisingly, the art room was nearly sparkling in no time at all!

Could you come clean Mrs. Beliveau's house, please? Can anyone vacuum?

Once our paper had dried, we used tracers to cut out the shapes to make a butterfly. 

A little glue, and ta da! Colourful, Carle-inspired butterflies!

And just when we thought we had wrapped up with chicks ...

Welcome, little guy!

Eric Carle painting project inspired by Deep Space Sparkle. 

It's hard to say goodbye ...

Today was our last day with our sweet fluffy babies. Our egg angel came to gather the chicks today, and the incubator tomorrow. Sniff ... sniff, sniff. We snuck in every opportunity we could today to love them up, cuddling and holding during every spare minute!

We have learned so much in a week! Before the chicks arrived, we made a list of things we wanted to learn. Look, our chart is filled with so many answers!

As the children discovered answers to our questions,
they added their answer on a post it

We spent time recording our learning on little posters! We included a labeled diagram and three facts. We are working so hard at writing complete sentences with a capital letter, period, and all word wall words spelled correctly. 

We will use this same template when we research animals of our own choosing!

Brother Joe dropped in today, and we always love his visits! His humor and wisdom brightened our morning, and he always finds a way to challenge our thinking. Brother Joe spent time with us reflecting on the meaning of Easter. He asked us, "Why do we get chocolate eggs at Easter?"

Brother Joe reminded us what just hatched from our eggs ... new life! The chocolate eggs we get in our baskets represent new life, which reminds us of Jesus' resurrection and how we are reborn each Easter!

Not only have we learned scientific facts about chicks, but we have learned greater life lessons; respecting all things living, treasuring the precious gift of the resurrection, and finding joy in God's creations. 

The chicks are gone ... but as Mrs. Beliveau shut down her computer and headed out of the classroom for the day, from the incubator she heard "cheep, cheep, cheep!". Seriously!

Reading to our Chicks

This weekend was FILLED with chick drama! The Beliveau family was in several times monitoring the chicks and eggs. So far, we've hatched 11 chicks, and our egg angel has taken 9 of them home to her free-range farm. Two remain in our room, happily enjoying lots of company in their warm, cozy box. 

Chicks are a captive audience, and we jumped at the chance to read them our self-illustrated booklet "5 Little Chicks"! 

These booklets are beautifully illustrated, using torn paper to make cute little chicks! Look for this booklet in your child's Kanga today, and enjoy hearing your child read it!

Below is a recording of the students reading:

listen to ‘5 little chicks bk’ on audioBoom

They're so fluffy!

THEY'RE SO FLUFFY!!! 




And so Friday began, with a classroom full of little Agneses, thrilled to see our fluffy little chicks! (thankfully minus the extra tight "Agnes squeeze")

We wasted zero time and decided these little fluff balls needed some gentle cuddles! The boys and girls learned they needed to sit while holding a chick, and to keep a hand under their feet as well as lightly on their back. 

It was such a lovely day to snuggle with our new little miracles. Here are some warm memories we shared:

In between cuddles, we welcomed in countless visitors! Mr. Marshall came to read us one of his favourite stories, Too Many Chickens! It's about a class who is hatching chicks, but the farmer forgets to come pick up the chicks once they have arrived! We had lots of good laughs as he read! Thank you, Mr. Marshall!  We also welcomed in our "egg angel" herself, who is the wonderful lady providing us with eggs from her free-range farm. She is incredibly knowledgeable and passionate, and we loved picking her brain with our crazy questions.  We learned about the variety of breeds our "egg angel" has, some that are quite rare and even endangered. One fact that was of particular interest was that we had a very special little chick in our incubator. There is a special breed called the Partridge Chantecler, which is on the endangered list. By God's grace, her PC rooster and PC hen mated, and we were lucky enough to have a purebred Partridge Chantecler chick! Keeping the endangered breed alive! It has been an AMAZING week filled with loads of valuable science and language arts lessons. More importantly, however, are the lessons we have learned about new life, respect, patience, and compassion. God's work is truly amazing! While the five fluffy chicks went home to their new free-range farm, the incubator remains busy! Mrs. Beliveau and her brood are keeping careful watch over the new little chicks who are hatching over the weekend!  Please keep praying for us as we welcome more beautiful chicks into the world! Monday is sure to be exciting! Thank you, God, for blessing us with this experience! We are in truly in awe of your amazing work and beautiful creations!

Good News Travels FAST!

The first few minutes of the morning were absolutely priceless! Genuine awe, amazement and excitement was written all over the faces of each and every student! As boys and girls entered, Mrs. Beliveau sat back, beamed, and captured the energy:

Here is why the students were so amazed:

Throughout the day, the three little ones napped while drying off in the incubators. We prepared a cozy box with wood shavings and a heat bulb, and ensured there was healthy food and water. 

After lunch, we noticed one little black chick was fluffy and ready to experience the world! A brave and very gentle student was chosen to make the move. 

Lifting with two hands, one on top and one under, ...

she carefully lifted the little one up ....

... and into it's new home! Ta da!

Turns out this chick isn't a "chick magnet", but rather a "kid magnet"! Somehow, it ended up hearing a story from an eager and very thoughtful reader:

This makes Mrs. Beliveau's heart smile!

It was a wonderful, memorable day and the students were so welcoming of all of the company that made their way into our classroom. They were very protective of the fragile new life, and were so keen to share their knowledge and answer questions. We definitely learned the meaning of "good news travels fast"!

The Beliveau family went in after supper and transferred the two other chicks, who had fluffed up sufficiently, into the cozy box. By an incredible stroke of luck, we arrived just in time to see our fourth chick hatch! God's work is amazing!

Tomorrow is sure to be special. Many thanks for your prayers as our journey continues!

"Egg-citement" abounds!

When the doors to our boot room opened this morning, and the students rushed in, the energy was blasting through the roof! 

Was it Earth Day that had the kids oozing with excitement? Nope! Today was "Egg Day", and our eggs were due to arrive!

We had lots to do to prepare, as the eggs were scheduled to arrive at lunchtime!

First, we thought about what we already knew about chicks:

Then, we wondered together about what we wanted to find out:

We took a minute to record our ideas!

We jumped right into learning about the life cycle of a chicken! We read several non-fiction books and enjoyed watching a chick hatch:

We also made a visual of the life cycle of a chicken: 

Do chicks really have eyelashes? 

Then, before we knew it, our "egg angel" arrived! We have a wonderful neighbor who has a farm with free range chickens, and she has generously offered her latest batch of eggs for us to hatch! She arrived with an incubator full of eggs. They are due to hatch over the next few days and early into next week. 

We had prepared our classroom incubator, monitoring the temperature and humidity, so we gently moved a few eggs into our own incubator. The two eggs we moved already had little peck holes in them. And we were thrilled to hear cheeping ... from a chick inside its egg! 

We spent lots of time observing the incubators:

And, as real scientists do, we recorded our observations for Day 1:

Today was certainly a four exclamation
mark kind of day!!!!

Please keep us in your prayers as we continue to experience the miracle of new life!

The Lifecycle of a Chicken craftivity was inspired by I Heart Crafty Things.

We LOVE our Earth!

Happy Earth Day!

Turns out the boys and girls DO care a WHOLE AWFUL LOT!

Mr. Marshall read us Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, and then, wearing our yellow mustaches, we channeled our inner Lorax and brainstormed ways to care for the Earth! 

Here is a close up of some of our little Loraxes:

"I can be nice to the worms. "

"I can ride my bike."

"I would plant trees."

"I can recycle plastic."

Well done, kids! 

Below is a little Earth Day treat to enjoy together at home. The story, The Earth Book, is read by the author himself Todd Parr, and he has loads of great ways we can love our Earth!

Worms, Word Clouds, and ... Cookie Monster?

We've wrapped up our Seasonal Changes in Spring mini-unit! Check out our word clouds! We included words that describe Spring, including what people do, how plants and trees change, what animals do, and the weather in Spring!

Here is a close up of a few of our fantastic Spring word clouds:

Thanks a million to Miss Smith and our patient, amazing Grade 5 buddies for helping us out! You rock!

This week we dug into our Needs of Living Things unit, and began by comparing living and non-living. We listed our ideas of what makes something living. Then, thinking about things we knew to be living (like a puppy and a plant), we crossed off ideas that didn't fit. 

Just to make sure we didn't miss any ideas on our list, we looked at a few more examples of living things from Kathryn Warner. We discovered we needed to add "It reproduces" and "It needs food and water". 

While we ALL agree Mrs. Beliveau is the bee's knees when it comes to effective teachers, there are some lessons best left for Cookie Monster to teach:

Then we double-checked our list to ensure what makes things living was accurate:

Today, to really compare living and non-living, we examined an earthworm and a gummy worm! The boys and girls were ecstatic! 

Comparing a gummy worm with an earthworm gave us a hands-on, real-life example of what makes something living!

We are ready to hatch chicks next week! The students are thrilled to prepare for the arrival of eggs on Wednesday! Please keep us in your prayers as we explore the miracle of God's creation. Watch the blog for daily updates, and please feel free to drop in to learn alongside us!

They're everywhere!!!!!!

3D solids are here and there, 

3D solids are everywhere!

We have begun our Geometry Unit! This week we have learned that 3D solids are FAT, not flat! 

This song has been stuck in our heads all week:

Students were sent out around the school to find real-life examples of 3D solids. Teams hunted for examples of cones, cubes, cylinders, and spheres, and they certainly didn't come away empty handed!

Look at all of the 3D solids we discovered in our school!

Super searching, boys and girls!

Solid Shape slides in the video are gratefully borrowed from Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten's Geometry Freebie post. 

Join Our Spring Photo Hunt

I think it's finally safe to say that Spring has arrived, and she is here to stay!

Our Science mini-unit on Seasonal Changes in Spring has kept us busy the last few days. We've been reading books, examining YouTube clips, and taking our learning outdoors to explore nature! 

Look at the data we have collected so far:

There are so many signs of Spring all around us! Let's share them together! 

Here is how our photo hunt project works:

We have a "virtual wall" where we can all contribute our signs of Spring.

First, give your child a camera (it's as easy as handing over your phone!). Have your child take a picture showing a sign of Spring!

Then, to share your photo and/or comment on our wall:

(a) Double-click on the "Signs of Spring" wall below. 

(b) A box will appear with a place for a comment and even a picture! Type in a comment. Upload a picture. Ta da!

(c) Be dazzled with all of the signs of Spring our students have found!

Created with Padlet

Thank you for not mentioning first or last names on our blog, as well as any other identifying / sensitive information. 

Signs of Spring are all around! What can you and your child find?