It's Raining Fun!

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!  

Ducklings & Butterflies

Ducklings

THEY'RE SO FLUFFY!

And so our week began, with a classroom full of little "Agneses", thrilled to meet our fluffy little ducklings! (thankfully minus the extra tight "Agnes squeeze"). 

We are participating in a duckling-raising program through Glenwood Memorial Gardens! We're in charge of naming and caring for our ducklings for 2 weeks. It has been lovely meeting and snuggling with our new little miracles. 

We even gave them a little swim this afternoon!

Butterflies

We've all read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle, but have you ever really examined the illustrations? Mr. Carle 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 to make butterflies! First we painted our paper. We added drips and drops in every colour!

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!

Tree Huggers!

Arbor Day was terrific! Our morning was bright and busy! 

We learned about the importance of fire safety. We were very, very strongly cautioned that fires are incredibly dangerous and are never, ever to be played with. We were, however, surprised to learn that forest fires are a natural part of the forest ecosystem and can play a role in maintaining a healthy forest. 

Trees have birthdays too! We learned to count the rings on a tree "cookie" and learned how drought and the seasons affect the rings. Trees need TLC! 

Today we met some very brave and bendy arborists who were caring for trees! As we nibbled a cookie, we watched in awe as they trimmed branches high in the tree. 

Our hearts were pumping at the "Nature-cise" 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! Trees will come home next week.

Our saplings are white spruce,
pictured fully grown top right.

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

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

Peter Puffin!

One of our own was chosen to
participate as a Bull Trout!

Strathcona County put on another fabulous Arbor Day for us and we had so much fun learning about trees!

After lunch, we got busy on a top-secret project for Mother's Day. Shhhhhh..... here is a little sneak peek!

We are all going to sleep well tonight! What a fabulous day of learning!

Making a Joyful Noise!

Today our room was filled with joyful noise!

We arrived to 9 sweet little babies who had hatched in our incubator!

Our kind-hearted parent helper, Mrs. Junck, who is guiding us on our hatching journey, popped in to share in our joy and excitement! We had a "chick party" and we played several games together!

Then Mrs. Junck helped us prepare a box of shavings, food, water, and a heat bulb for when the chicks are dry. Two fluffy little ones moved in this morning!

While some students spent time taking in the new life, others tackled the illustrations for a rhyming booklet called "5 Little Chicks". The chicks in our illustrations are made from torn construction paper. The creative juices were flowing and our budding readers are so engaged!

Tomorrow will certainly be filled with many soft fluffy cuddles!

It's Alive!

We are tackling our Needs of Plants and Animals Unit! This week we are focussing on what it means for something to be living. 

We brainstormed ideas about what makes something living. Then we thought about something we knew for sure was living, such as a dog, and crossed off ideas on our list that didn't fit with what we knew about dogs. We also did this for other things we knew for sure were living, including a plant!

To reinforce what makes something living, we enjoyed a clip from our pal on Sesame Street:

Then we studied a few examples using our criteria for what makes something alive:

Partnered with our grade 5 buddies, the boys and girls began working on a digital presentation to share their learning! Using Google Slides, the students shared examples of living and non-living. 

To conclude our week examining living and non-living, students tackled an an up-close, hands-on observation! Thrilled beyond measure, our scientists compared gummy worms and earthworms. We were able to see many examples that demonstrated that the earthworms are indeed living and gummy worms are non-living:

Now let's hunt for examples of living and non-living things with a photo hunt at home!

First, give your child a camera (your phone would be perfect!). Have him or her take some pictures of things that are living and non-living.

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

(a) Double click on our Living and Non-Living wall below

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

(c) Marvel at our learning!

(or just email me your photos/captions and I'll make it happen)

Thank you for not mentioning names as well as any other identifying information. 

We will check this wall daily next week to see the pictures that we all post!

The Cross is 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.

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

Using pastels, we created beautiful crosses, reminding us of our risen Lord. 

We loved getting our fingers dirty as we smudged the pastels!

Then we tackled a special, yet challenging activity with some very helpful junior high students. 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 counted out matches, glued, and checked and re-checked the intricate pattern. This took lots of patience and collaboration!

The symbol of the cross reminds us of Jesus' everlasting, infinite love for us!

Bananas for Books!

Our Primary Book Tournament has us going bananas for books! 

We have a 16-book tournament draw ahead of us. Each day we read two books and vote on a winner to advance. 

We invited the grade 2 and 3 students to share in the fun, and today we read our first two books of the tournament! 

Mrs. Beliveau read You're Finally Here by Melanie Watt ...

... and Mrs. Haston read Chester, also by Melanie Watt!

Overwhelmingly, the winner was CHESTER!

Can't wait to see which book is our final winner! Reading is such a blast!