December
13
December
10
Reporting Live From…
Our students have recently traveled as reporters to various habitats around the world! Some traveled to very humid destinations and some even traveled to the bitterly cold Arctic!
They researched, prepared, and presented to tell you a little bit about the Desert, Arctic, Rainforest, Forest, Mountain, Ocean, and Grassland habitats.
Check it out!
November
12
Digital Art–Remembrance Day
As we remember our fallen heroes and honour those who have sacrificed so much for our freedom, we must understand what peace is. It is easy to get caught up in the negativity that we may see in social media, on the news, and around us. But, we must celebrate the good, and remind ourselves how we can be peacemakers in our world, in our school, in our families.
We read a beautiful book called What is Peace by Wallace Edwards and had some terrific discussion around the thought-provoking pictures in the book and the great questions posed on each page.
Next, we designed our own peace posters with the theme of remembrance and peace. We recorded ourselves against a green screen sharing what we think peace is. Our posters are proudly hanging in our school.
Have a look at a few examples!
What is peace to YOU?
November
1
Green Screen Fun
Today, we only just scratched the surface of our latest addition to our classroom…a green screen! Check out some neat things we tried out today.
Today, this student experienced snow for the first time!
Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead) is Nov. 2nd.
The Wicked Witch of the West came to visit
Caught in the spider web
Day of the Dead masks
Here are our carved pumpkins
June
20
Buzzing About Bees!
Turkey Jay, Mrs. Sullivan’s husband, is a bee-keeper ‘on the side’. He just loves bees and enjoys sharing his knowledge with others. There’s always so much to learn about bees. They truly are an incredible insect and are not to be feared.
He couldn’t visit with us today, so he sent me with some of his bee-keeping tools and gadgets to share with my students.
We watched some cool videos, learning a little bit about bees, including their waggle dance!
Students loved painting their designs on the bee boxes and Turkey Jay can’t wait to use these homes for the bees this summer! The bees will be happy and are thankful for beautifying their homes!
Here are 10 Fun Facts about Bees that
maybe you didn’t know:
1. There are 3 categories of honey bees: the males (drones), the females are the worker bees, and the queen
2. The only purpose of the male bees is to mate with the queen
3. In the Fall, the female bees kick out the drones from the hive because they are not needed over the winter time.
4. Drone bees do not have stinger
5. The queen bee has a bigger abdomen than the other bees
6. The queen lays 1500 eggs each day. It takes 21 days for the eggs to hatch.
7. When the queen lays an egg, she chooses to fertilize it or not. A non-fertilized egg turns into a drone (male bee). A fertilized egg turns into a worker bee (female).
8. The honey bee is the only insect in the world that makes food that we eat
9. Honey bees produce many things including propolys which is like a glue that bees use to seal cracks and secures things. If a mouse dies in the hive, the bees cannot drag it out, so they entomb the mouse in propolys so the dead body does not contaminate the hive. Smart!
10. Bees don’t sleep. Ever! They are not dormant in the winter. Their wings beat together and they produce heat this way.
June
6
Sharing our Talents with Others
Our published stories were so great that they must be shared with others! We invited Mr. K’s class to come and let us read to them. The Grade 1s enjoyed listening to the stories read aloud. Great job everyone!
Our puppet shows were a hit with our Kindergarten buddies on Tuesday. They were such a great audience and the Grade 3s performed so well. It was so fun to watch all the hard work. Our students not only created their puppets from scratch, they also wrote their own scripts. Wow! Some of the topics they presented about included protecting the earth, treating others the way you want to be treated, and respect.
Do you own a puppet?
May
16
In a World of Robots
Recently, as a culminating activity to our 3D Geometry unit, students designed their own robots and presented them to several other classrooms. Using an assortment of recycled materials, students loved making their projects and were proud to show off their hard work. They were asked to give their robot a name and write a paragraph explaining the features of their robot and the 3D shapes they used.
April
4
Northern Lights Art
Inspired by the Northern Lights, also called Aurora Borealis, students created some beautiful artwork that showcases the dancing colours of the night sky (see video below).
Fun Facts about the Northern Lights:
- Earth isn’t the only planet to have auroras — scientists have found them on Neptune, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus.
- The northern lights don’t just produce beautiful colours, they also make sounds like claps, crackles and static. But these are hard to hear with all the other noise around us.
- The most common colours of the northern lights are green, pink, purple, red, yellow and blue.
- The northern lights appear 200 to 300 kilometers above the earth and are bright enough to be seen from space.
Click here to learn how the Northern Lights are formed and other neat information about them.
Did you know…
The name “aurora borealis” comes from the French astronomer and scientist Pierre Gassendi. He called it aurora for the Roman goddess of the dawn, and boreas, which is the Greek word for the north wind.
April
1
Spring Has Arrived!
After March Break, time always seems to fly. We are in the season of Lent, moving closer to Easter. The students in our class have been working incredibly hard on their school work. We have been diligently studying and practicing our times tables. Mrs. Sullivan has been impressed!
As a class, we’ve been pushing ourselves to strengthen our Word Study test scores overall and the results have been outstanding!
Several students have been challenging themselves to achieve silver certificates in Mathletics. Wow! Who will earn the first gold?
We continue to move along nicely in our newest writing unit called Realistic Fiction where we are gathering ideas.
Take a look at some of the activity in our room as of late:
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- Lenten scavenger hunt using the Bible
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- Teamwork!
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- learning how to find readings in the Bible
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- 2 heads are better than 1
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- problem solving with cookies
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- making groups of…
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- sharing our fiction ideas
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- Northern Lights artwork
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- She’s proud of her work!
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- Smudging the chalk pastels
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- Creating the foreground
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- It’s coming together nicely
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- Science Experiment designing
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- Testing out ideas
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- Investigating balloons
What do you like the best about Spring?
February
24
Learning with Puppets
I don’t think anyone can argue that puppets are so much fun. They stimulate children’s imaginations and allow children to engage in creative play. They are a great way to motivate children and to explore ideas and topics in fun and exciting ways.
I’ve collected puppets for many years and have always had a fondness for them. When living in Thailand, I was treated a couple of times to the Joe Louis Puppet Theatre. Check out the video below to get an idea of how puppets are used on stage:
There are so many different types of puppetry including:
- shadow puppets
- finger puppets
- stick puppets
- paper bag puppets
- sock puppets
- marionette
- whole body puppet
We are beginning to explore puppetry in our own classroom. We have started with these simple googly eye puppets that sit on our finger. We are experimenting with different hand positions, movements, and even voices.
We watched Oobi and Uma and gathered some ideas about how to hold our hands and move our arm and wrist. Check it out!
Finally, we raided Mrs. Sullivan’s puppet box and tried out various types of puppets with our classmates.
Do you like puppets? What kind of puppet do you like?