Horses Love Reading, too!

The children have learned many lessons and new skills this year, but perhaps the learning they take the most pride in is reading. They began the year able to identify sounds and read just a few short words. Now they are able to read stories, magazines, websites, comics, and so much more! What a tremendous accomplishment!

After practicing our reading daily since September, the children were ready and we were off! We spent a morning celebrating and sharing our reading talents with none other than a few gentle Arabian horses. 

The students moved through different centers, reading to the horses after completing the activities at each centre. The activities were fun and included labeling the parts of a horse with sticky labels, grooming the horses (and their hooves!), running silly relay races dressed as cow boys and cow girls, writing special messages on posters to the horses, trying out the feel of a saddle (complete with parent-generated bumps) and making paint-stamped bandanas. 

Reading was easily the highlight! There were so many magical moments as the horses leaned in to see the pictures and hear the students read. The children read with confidence and tremendous pride, and the morning is one we will fondly remember. 

Keep reading, boys and girls!

Thank you, Mr. Millar for motivating 
us to read all year long!

Happy Arbor Day!

"He who plants a tree plants a hope." 

(Lucy Larcom)

Arbor Day was terrific! We attended a special event put on by Strathcona County for many Grade One classes, which complimented our Science curriculum perfectly. Our morning was bright and busy! 

Sometimes we plant a seed and sometimes we plant a tree! We had front row seats to see a giant tree being lowered into the ground:

Our hearts were pumping at the "Nature-cize" obstacle course:

We planted our very own seedling in biodegradable cups, so that the cup can be planted along with the tree. Remember to give your seedling lots of sun, water, nutrients, and of course, LOVE!

We spun the wheel to win prizes, but first Mrs. Beliveau was asked a skill-testing question: 
If you see a forest fire, what number do you call? 

Phone 310-FIRE (but 911 will also work). 

We all won bird feeders! Hooray!

We headed towards a treed area to build "fairy houses" with dead material (e.g. sticks on the ground, fallen pine cones). The students loved this activity!

All of this fun had us hungry, 

so a quick tree cookie hit the spot!

We were in awe of the arborists! We learned that they are "tree doctors". We saw several of their special tools, including the chain saws! We met two amazing arborists, Spiderman and Cat Woman, who raced each other up the trees! What was even more amazing how how they came down ... 
UPSIDE DOWN! 

We learned how the rings on a tree help us count how old the tree is. We even got to practice on our own little "tree cookie":

We each received fantastic lunch bags filled with juice boxes and bananas and we settled in for an interactive performance by environmental activist and Juno-award winning Canadian artist
 Peter Puffin!

Thank you to the moms, dads, several enthusiastic younger-siblings and even our former student-teacher, Ms. Gallinger, for joining us for the morning! Strathcona County put on another fabulous Arbor Day for us and we had so much fun learning about trees!