Snowy Owls: Zoo Project Week 7

Snowy Owls. So. So. So. Beautiful. 

This week we embraced the snowy owl, and for a funny reason, also spent time learning more about the great horned owl, too!

The book The Little White Owl was a beautiful tale about an owl who shares his gift of storytelling. The children reflected and shared a gift that God has given them, too. 

I am good at ...
tying my shoe
swimming

Subitizing is a numeracy skill we have begun focusing on in math. Essentially, when you look at a set of items, you know know how many are there ... without having to count! We subitize when we roll a dice. This week we made reading buddies each day with owl themed subitizing cards!

And then ... POOF ... smoke ... 

Our SMARTboard bulb went kaput. 

Suddenly our amazing "google" format of researching animals went out the window. 

Never fear! When it came time to our weekly sketching and labeling time, we borrowed a beautiful Great Horned Owl from the science lab and got to work! This opportunity to sketch an ACTUAL animal was unique. Up until now, we have been sketching from pictures on the SMARTboard. How cool was it to have a REAL animal?

Oh zoo school, why are you so far away?

Little Leaders

Today the students in our 1/2 class led our school prayer assembly! Our theme was love, and our prayer assembly centered around a well-known reading from first Corinthians:

Graphic courtesy of here

The boys and girls in our class, many of whom are emerging readers, worked very hard to read their parts confidently. 

Those who did not get a speaking role this time led the actions to our song. Have a listen, it's catchy!

In class, the children reflected on what love looks like and how we can be loving every day. They were excited to share their work at assembly!

We gathered, we sang, we danced, we prayed. 

We were all so proud of the beautiful prayer assembly we led today. Leaders come in many sizes, and today our leaders were little!

Meerkats! Zoo Project Week 6!

Can you guess our zoo school animal focus this week?

How about now?!?

The meerkats at the Edmonton Valley Zoo are AMAZING! Playful? Check. Curious? Check. Super cute? Check!!!

We had a ball this week!

We enjoyed the fiction book Millicent and Meer, a story about a girl who has a package arrive ... and she thinks the animal inside the box is a cat named Meer! Super silly! We had lots of fun writing "at" words, which rhyme with both "cat" and "meerkat"!

We read the most perfect math/meerkat book. So. Gosh. Darn. Stinkin'. Perfect. Books like this make a grade 1 teacher smile!

We skip count when we have a large number to count! Today, we practiced skip counting a "mob" of meerkats by 2's! By the end of Grade 1, we will skip count by 2's to 20. 

We continue to build confidence sketching ...

 ... look at their claws, whiskers, darkened eyes and ears!

Our Zoo School teacher, Miss Courtney, sent some amazing meerkat info our way. She sent an x-ray of their mama meerkat, pregnant with 4 babies ... 

And sent a picture of the babies the day after they were born ... 

We loved this picture of the meerkats just chillin' ...

How can we possibly wait for Zoo School until April?!?! Families, if you wish to join us at the zoo, please contact me with the day you are able to volunteer and we will make plans. We attend the first week of April. 

How can school be so engaging, informative, and fun?!?

Government and University! Aren't we grown up?

Big things are happening at Holy Redeemer!

On Friday our Student Government gathered for their first meeting! We sent our two class representatives to take part. Can't wait to hear the ideas of the students and see what they have planned for Holy Redeemer!

Our class representatives with
Coach Caroline and Mr. Dumont

Our Grade 1 through 4 students were involved in Junior University! Essentially, in university students CHOOSE their courses, so we are giving our students an opportunity to choose their course each Friday!

We signed up for the course that interested us most. Sign up will always happen Wednesday mornings. 

Popping kids into the sign-up spread sheet!

Then, off to our sessions!

Marble Track (Mr. Dumont) 

Students built a marble race track using cardboard and other materials.

Augmented Reality Art (Mrs. Beliveau)

Students coloured and, using a free app called Quiver, made their drawings come alive! Check out this 1 minute clip describing the activity https://youtu.be/EGMjsYHD7Ak


We were dazzled! We made volcanoes erupt, cars drive, penguins skate, and birds eat worms!

Craft Stick Catapults (Mrs. Haston)

Students created a catapult and then send soft objects into the air. 3-2-1-blast off!!!

Halloween Ghost Craft (Ms. Akhtar)

Students created a flying ghost....BOO!

Drum and Go (Coach Caroline)

Students used drumsticks to create their own sounds while moving with music.

Yarn Pumpkin (Miss.Hamaliuk)

Students made a pumpkin ornament using yarn and pipe cleaners. They will pop the balloon and add the details early next week!

Between Student Government and Junior University, the students are so engaged and excited! So many wonderful opportunities for our little learners at Holy Redeemer!

Foxes! Zoo Project Week 5

This week felt as though we had two animals to learn about! The Edmonton Valley Zoo has two types of foxes, the Fennec Fox and the Arctic Fox! Can you guess which one lives in a hot climate and which one lives in a cold climate?

Fennec Fox photo courtesy of here

Arctic Fox photo courtesy of here

Mrs. Beliveau's tongue went numb trying to read Dr. Seuss' Fox in Socks book, and then we continued our focus on rhyming by matching words that rhyme.

Our math challenge this week was graphing who wore silly socks and who did not. We were able to count with accuracy and compare sets of items, using words such as more and less. 

Children were able to sketch the fox of their choice. Aren't our sketches detailed?

Look at the view of our playground! We felt like little arctic foxes today! 

Have a warm weekend!

Porcupines! Zoo Project Week 4

Tackling our learning outcomes through our zoo project is proving to be very engaging!

Porcupines! Turns out many of our classmates have had some experience with one, likely because we live in a rural area! We laid out our questions for the week: How do they "shoot their spikes"? Can their "spikes" grow back? Do they eat meat or plants?

We quickly learned the "spikes" are actually called quills. Baby porcupines, called "porcupettes" (awwww!), are born with soft quills that harden after 2 days. Quills aren't thrown, but are loosened by shaking and detach when the porcupine rubs up against a perceived predator. Cool!

After reading How Do You Hug a Porcupine, we played with beginning sounds to make different words in the "ug" word family! 

Our Math focus has shifted from patterning to number sense. Our task this week helped us to better understand "conservation of number", which means the number of items remains the same even when the items are rearranged. To better understand this, students each made a porcupine with 15 quills. 

Look at how different 15 can look!

No matter how the 15 quills are arranged, there are always 15 there. 

Sketching tends to be a very calming task for our students. They focus intently on larger shapes and then add details and labels. 

So ... care to guess how you should hug a porcupine? 


Porcupine math task inspired by Cara Carroll. 
"UG" word family task from My Teaching Station. 

Geckos! Zoo Project Week 3

Geckos are fascinating! Most don't have eyelids, they smell with their tongue, and in an emergency, they can shed their tail as a distraction! We LOVED sharing lots of non-fiction books and websites!


We read a fiction story called Give Up, Gecko! When the animals find themselves thirsty and without water they decide to dig. The large animals try, but give up. The medium animals try, and give up too. Even small animals try, but quit. Then an itty bitty little gecko tries and tries, and eventually finds water! He sure didn't give up!

This story promotes a "growth mindset", which is what we celebrate and encourage in our school. We value hard work, persistence, and grit! Have a look!




After reading Give Up Gecko, we focused on something tricky we wanted to learn that we promised not to give up on! 

Writing prompt courtesy of Deanna Jump

We also translated gecko patterns in math. Translating means we show the same pattern in a different way!

We rounded out our gecko adventure this week with some sketching in our journals. 

Boy, will we be prepared for Zoo School come April! The Edmonton Valley Zoo has a Leachie Gecko we will meet in a few months! Who's excited?