Happy Hello from Mrs. Beliveau 😊

Hello, friends!

My name is Mrs. Beliveau and I am THRILLED to be your Grade One teacher this year! It is going to be a spectacular year full of lots of learning and new adventures!

I cannot wait to learn all about you, but until we see each other on the first day of school, I'll tell you a few things about me. 

Did you learn a little about me? I can hardly wait to see you on the first day so I can find out what makes YOU so special!

On the first day of school, I'll help you find your own hallway hooks for your backpack. Our first activity is top secret, but I'll give you a hint ... we get to use play-dough! Together, we'll unpack your school supplies, read a hilarious story, and learn a goofy rhyme with actions! 

Have a safe summer and I'll see your smiles very soon!

Love, 
Mrs. Beliveau

Summer Blessings!

Dear kiddos, 

What an incredible journey we shared this year! You were brave. You did hard things. You made kind, loving choices. You learned and grew and came so far! I want you to know how incredibly proud I am of each and every one of you. 

Remember how special you are. God has made you unique and in his image, blessing you with countless gifts. Use these gifts to make the lives of others brighter. Please know that I believe in you and I know that you will make this world a kinder place. 

I am praying for health, sunshine, and JOY for you and your families this summer!

Love and blessings,

Mrs. Beliveau

Books, Balloons, and Bright Smiles!

As we step into the last beautiful days of Grade 1, one thing is certain ... we need to squeeze in all of the joy we possibly can! 

BOOKS

Our book tournament is in full swing! 

Each day we read two books and vote on our favourite. The winning book advances to the playoffs! Here are a few of the book pairings we've recently enjoyed!

BALLOONS

POP! Each morning until the last day of school, we pop one balloon to find a fun activity inside! 

On Monday we were surprised with a gum day!

On Tuesday, we set our pencils aside and wrote with ink pens!

On Wednesday, we challenged our hand eye coordination and learned to cup stack!

On Thursday, we got creative outdoors and sidewalk chalked!

On Friday, we got silly with shaving cream! 

5 more balloons to look forward to and several more books will compete in our tournament! The last 5 days are sure to bring more bright smiles and joy!

Green Thumbs in Grade One

We wanted to determine what a plant needs to grow, so we carried out several experiments! When conducting an experiment, we learned to keep everything the same, and just change ONE thing. Here are our results!

One plant was placed in light, and one stayed in a dark cupboard. Plants sure need sunshine!

Before

After

Do plants really need water? We had two identical plants and put them both in the light. One was watered and the other one was wasn't. Seems to us that water is very important!

Before

After

We all thought the plants that didn't get water or light ended up looking like purple Minions ... right?

Do plants need dirt to grow? We planted grass seed in various things, including sand, dirt, gravel, and rice. We found that although the grass grew in the soil and sand both very well, the grass in the sandy cup eventually died. Surprisingly, we noticed a few hardy sprouts in the rice, but we tossed it once it got too stinky. Verdict? Soil is best!

We explored how plants transport water, and did an experiment with water. Celery was placed in coloured water and the leaves quickly turned red or blue (within a few hours!).

We also enjoyed growing bean seeds. We planted seeds in plastic cups by tucking the seed against the side of the cup using wet paper towels. This allowed us to watch the plant as it grew, kind of like a little window. Daily watering was key!

We have learned oodles about plants and what they need to grow! Unfortunately, Mrs. Beliveau still seems to be more of a hospice for plants until they go home to meet Jesus. 

The Rainbow Will Come

Our move online this past week was many things; challenging, rewarding, exciting, boring, tricky, interesting, creative, silly, lonely, hilarious, and so much more! 

Understanding our situation, especially as a 6 and 7 year old, is pretty challenging. Our students have been incredibly flexible and adaptable, but have felt the stresses in different capacities. 

At our last Google meet of the week, we enjoyed a beautiful book, Share Your Rainbow. After a storm, a rainbow often appears. Life right now can feel a little stormy, but rainbows are out there, you just have to look. A rainbow is a symbol of hope.

This beautiful picture book features colourful rainbow illustrations from 18 artists and offeres a hopeful perspective. These challenging times will end and we will have family gatherings, birthday celebrations, and time together with friends and family soon. 

After reading the book, to finish off our week of at-home learning, students were invited to paint, draw, and colour rainbows! 

This "storm" will end. Hope is out there, you just have to look for it. Until this "storm" ends, we'll be making our own rainbows and choosing joy whenever we can!

Joyful Noise & Quiet Surprises

Joyful Noise

This week our room was filled with joyful noise! We welcomed several fresh baby chicks into the world!

The kids were absolutely in awe. We had waited and waited for 21 days, carefully monitoring the temperature and humidity in our incubator. Our eggs had actually become new life! What began as an egg has grown into new life! Isn't God AMAZING?

While some students spent time taking in the new life inside our incubator and brooder box, 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!

We made a visual to represent the lifecycle of a chick! But we're stumped ... what came first, the chicken or the egg?

What was extra special to see were the differences between the chicks! Some were yellow, others black, others brown with beautiful blond stripes. God made them all special and unique, just like He made us!

It has been an AMAZING few weeks 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! Thank you, God, for blessing us with this experience! We are in truly in awe of your amazing work and beautiful creations!

Quiet Surprises

The children have spent the past two weeks preparing a few very special surprises for Mother's Day! We have many wonderful people caring for us, but we are especially blessed to have our moms in our lives. Spoiler alert: If you haven't opened your child's gift yet, be sure to do that first!

We each took a beautiful photo and then painted a fancy frame!

Aren't these spectacular?!?

We put together very special cards for our lovely ladies, 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. 

May God bless you and your families this Mother's Day weekend!

Seeds & Spring Chickens

Seeds

Today we had a visit from a quirky character. You see, Mrs. Beliveau didn't return to class after recess. Rumor has it she was spotted at Starbucks. Rather, Dr. Discovery arrived in her place, challenging the students to join her in "seed surgery"!

As part of our Needs of Living Things Unit in Science, the students have recently begun exploring plants. This week's "seed surgery" helped us understand that not all seeds look the same! We were surprised that different fruits and vegetables have different amounts of seeds, too, and that many seeds are eaten. 

So many more hands on investigations are to come as we learn how to care for plants!

Spring Chickens

Our chicks continue to grow! We are well over halfway through the 21 day incubation process. We monitor temperature and humidity daily and are eagerly awaiting the chicks' arrival early next week!

Today we "candled" several eggs from our incubator by placing them up to a bright light. This allows us to see inside of the egg and check on development. Can you see the blood vessels? Can you see the shadow, on the right, where the baby chick is growing? God is so good!

We are having so much fun with our learning!