Rain, Rain!

Rain, rain, 

Won't go away, 

So we'll stay in, 

And paint today!

The grey, stormy weather didn't dampen our creative spirits today! Inspired by the rain, we created beautiful splatter painted umbrella portraits!

Look at our beautiful little pieces of art! TOTALLY worth the mess!

Stay dry and cozy! 

Make 10!

We are having a blast working on addition and subtraction to 20, and our favourite game lately is Make 10!

Mrs. Beliveau modified the rules from the original game posted here. 

Today a game board was sent home with each student, but more can be printed here. Have a deck of cards? Then you can play at home!

Take out the face cards. This game uses Ace through 10. We treat the Ace as a 1. 

Using the game board, put out four cards on the spaces 1, 2, 3, and 4. Turn the rest of the deck over on the space marked "deck". 

Here is the challenge! Can you make ten using up to 4 cards?

Look, she made 10 with all four cards! Set the group of 10 aside, and put out more cards from the deck. 

Replenish the empty spaces with cards from the deck. 

There are lots of ways she made 10!

Can't make 10?

Choose one card to put back on the bottom of the deck, and take the top card. 

The kids have played several times and should be able to explain the rules and play independently at home. Happy counting!

We Heart Moms!

We all have many wonderful people caring for us, but we are especially blessed to have our moms in our lives! The children have spent the past two weeks preparing a few very special surprises for Mother's Day!

Using the iPad and a fancy background, we took special photos! Then we painted frames and popped in photos of our smiling faces. 

Painting away!

Our beautiful masterpieces!

(a) you tuck me in at bedtime   (b) you make the best pancakes
(c) you give me cheeseburgers   (d) you helped me make Easter eggs

We put together very special cards for our moms, too. We worked for DAYS to get our ideas just right. Several pages of sweet and funny thoughts and pictures fill these little treasure books. Here are a few creative gems from the pages of the students' cards:



Moms, you are kind. You are patient. You are selfless. You are imperfectly perfect. Thank you for everything you do to support your family. Being a mom is constantly challenging, yet profoundly rewarding. You are doing an amazing job!


Here is a little gem for you to enjoy! Happy Mother's Day!

Can you keep up with us?

This has been a spectacular week! As always, no two days are ever alike and never is a day boring! Check out our week ... can you keep up with us?

Our week began with another awesome visit from the Bookmobile for our Book Buzz program! A team of ladies from the Strathcona County Library have been coming to share stories and songs, and then help us fill our backpacks with books! 

This week is Para-Sport week! The students had a wonderful opportunity to be exposed to various para-sports, as well as different disability awareness activities. First up? Meeting the Edmonton Steel Wheel rugby team! These amazing individuals shared their personal journeys, demonstrated how they play, and wowed us with their incredible strength!

We had a rare opportunity to try out some wheelchairs. We discovered that they are a challenge and require lots of strength and stamina. We even attempted going in and out the front doors! Many realized that it is no small feat to make it over the metal bump and out the door by the time the automatic doors close! We certainly deepened our respect for those who use wheelchairs. 

We are in the Easter season and have been exploring the mystery of the Trinity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. While they are three, we believe in one true God. We compared the complexity of the Trinity to an apple:

We have returned to addition and subtraction, this time up to 20! We are practising our "doubles" and have enjoyed playing hands-on games with each other! 

A knock at our door brought in a special reader from Robin Hood!  We had a ball listening to some silly stories, all the while deepening our respect and understanding of individuals with disabilities.

Inspired by our week at Zoo School, each child has been challenged to learn more about an animal of their choosing! Using San Diego Zoo Kids, students are researching their own animals. 

Students share a Chromebook with a classmate,
allowing partners to troubleshoot, decode challenging text,
and collaborate! 

Students have been working hard drawing and labelling their animal as well as writing three facts. 

We had a blast working with words! We squirted a generous dollop of shaving cream on the desks and got spelling in the cream ... awesome!

We love words and reading, and decided to do a hunt for our word wall words in some ads and flyers! Great challenge!

We ended the week with our Arbor Day event! We learned to count tree rings to find out a tree's age. 

We worked together to build fairy houses in the woods out of natural materials, like leaves and twigs.

Turns out not all forest fires are bad! We learned how fire can help a forest and how we can be fire safe!

We were astounded by the acrobatic arborists, who demonstrated how they trim and care for trees!

We got sweaty at "nature-cize"!

Each student received a lodge-pole pine sapling, Alberta's provincial tree! They will be delivered to the school on Monday. 

Our trip finished off with a toe tappin' song along with Peter Puffin!

This week rocked, we're exhausted, and we can't wait to see what Monday brings!

Spring Has Sprung! Photo Challenge

Spring has sprung!

Our Science mini-unit on Seasonal Changes in Spring has kept us hopping, and we have been keeping our eyes "peeled" for these signs of spring!

We've been looking for what people do, how animals change, and what plants and trees are up to come this warmer season!

Let's share the signs of Spring we've found!

Here is how our photo hunt works. 

First, give your child a camera (your phone would be excellent!) and have him or her take a picture showing a sign of Spring!

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

(1) Double-click on our Signs of Spring wall below. 

(2) A box will appear. Type in a comment. Upload a picture. Ta da!

(3) Marvel at all of the signs of Spring our students have found!

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

What signs of Spring can you and your child find?

The Cross: A Symbol of Love

"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, 

and of the Holy Spirit, Amen."

We are learning about the Easter Story, and have focused on a very important symbol in our faith; the cross. Jesus suffered and died on the cross for each one of us. The cross is a powerful symbol that reminds us how much God loves us.

Brother Joe visited us this week, action bible in hand, to share the story of Jesus' death on the cross and His resurrection. 

Then we tackled a special, yet challenging activity. We created beautiful burned matchstick crosses. Don't worry, the matches we worked with were already lit, cooled and very safe to touch, of course! We patiently helped one another count out matches, glue, and check and re-check the intricate pattern. This took lots of patience and collaboration!

After leaving the crosses overnight to dry, we were able to cut them out. Here are a few of the Lenten Matchstick Crosses!

Be sure to stop by our hallway bulletin board to see all of the finished crosses!

May you have a blessed Easter weekend!

Learning is Exhausting!

Last day and boy, were we thrilled to spend one more day learning together at Zoo School!

First thing on our schedule? As a group we had to fairly agree upon a new animal to observe, sketch, and label, and then compare to our original animal. 

Comparing the seals to the meerkats

Comparing wallabys to snowy owls -
as a bonus, we saw the baby wallaby in mama's pouch!

Comparing the lemurs to the snow leopard

Back in the classroom, we met Aiden, a crested gecko! This funky little reptile has sticky feet for climbing and lacks eyelids ... any guesses on how he keeps his eyeballs moist? (hint - it involves his tongue!)

Then Teacher Courtney surprised us. We got 45 minutes of free time to explore the zoo!!!!!

Then Teacher Courtney tasked us with a very important job ... making animal enrichments! At times, animals can become a bit bored, just like us. An enrichment is something that is novel for the animal!

We decorated two "holey" tubes, adding a bit of sweet smelling extracts to make the tubes more interesting! One was for the meerkats and the other for the squirrel monkeys! 

The meerkats' enrichment was filled with crickets and the squirrel monkeys' filled with meal worms! Both animals LOVED what we made! SO fun to watch! 

Squirrel monkey enrichment

Meerkat enrichment

Today we also met many beautiful animals. 

We met Twilah, the three-banded armadillo! She is a little nocturnal beauty who can curl completely into a ball! Mrs. Beliveau LOVED her!!!

We also met Summer the barn owl! He is an excellent hunter, because of his spectacular eye sight and hearing! One ear is higher and the other lower, allowing Summer to create a 3D map using sound! In fact, barn owls have the best recorded hearing out of any animal in the world!

We ran into a Eurasian Owl as we walked back ... impromptu animal encounters rock at the zoo!

Zoo School was truly amazing, and we came home absolutely exhausted every day! Yes, all of the walking was tiring and we also got a tonne of fresh air, but a huge part of WHY we were so tuckered was because of HOW we learned. 

Each day we asked questions, and then puzzled over the answers! We wondered, we were curious, we thought critically, we predicted, and we hypothesized. Inquiry drove our week! 

As we prepare to return to our classroom, we are so thankful for the opportunity we had to learn at Zoo School!