We began the morning outside and excited about our first Winter Sports Day.  Unfortunately as the morning went on the weather became colder and we had to go inside.  We still got our hot chocolate so all was well!  Thank you to all the parents that came to help today.  It was still fun despite the weather!  I hope everyone has a wonderful, restful break and festive Christmas season.  Take the time to create wonderful memories together with family and friends!

Today room one and room two practiced our Dr. Coffin Twelve Days of Christmas song and we will sing it tomorrow at Carol singing.  If you can't join us please ask your child to sing it to you tonight.  Tomorrow afternoon we will watch a special show and if you have a special treat that you want to send for just your child that would be fine.  Today we tried to finish our own Twelve Days of Christmas book and our Color Poster in our visual journals.  If you would like to join us or help on Friday for our Outdoor Sports Day then please let me know.
We are sad to hear that Juman will be leaving our classroom and going to a new school after the holidays.  We will miss her but we know that she will make lots of new friends at her new school.

Today was our first day of carol singing.  We also went on the computers and did Raz Kids.  The login and account info is glued into the agenda.  We also worked on our visual journal and we added to our Twelve Days of Christmas.  In Music we played follow the leader.  We also sang some Christmas carols in music to help us learn the words.  We enjoyed singing Jingle Bell Rock.   In gym we also continued to learn some hockey skills.  If there are any parents that want to volunteer for outdoor sports day on Friday please let me know.

We started some new festive centers in the morning for the last few days before holidays.  Some of them are  making a snowman ornament, holiday cards, homemade decorations and posters to color. and word puzzles.  We started practising hockey skills in gym.  We shot the puck in the net and we practised stick handling.
Tomorrow and Wednesday and Thursday we have carol singing in the learning commons starting at 9:00.

Today we learned about predators and prey. We learned about the food chain that could exist on Nosehill and then played a game outside to see what it would be like to be an animal in the Nosehill food chain.  Before we went outside we did some research to see what our animals would eat to survive and created a chart to help us.

In our game some people were herbivores and had to hunt for food in special food stations. Other people were omnivores and carnivores and had to hunt the herbivores for food. At first there was a lot of running and screaming as the herbivores tried to run away from their predators. As we kept playing the game we noticed that the game started getting quieter. The herbivores like mice, hares, and deer started figuring out that hiding and being really quiet was important for their survival. If they yelled and stayed in the open areas it was easy for the predators like coyotes, cougars, and eagles to catch them.

We also discovered that the game was a lot harder for herbivores that were wearing really bright colours. We talked about how animals have to be able to camouflage so they blend in with their environment. If they don't blend in they will get eaten quickly.

Some of us even saw a real mouse! We noticed that it ran away really quickly and hid inside a hole near a tree. We realized that the mouse through we were a predator and was using its survival strategies to keep itself safe.

Just a reminder that this evening is the Festive Evening at school.  We will be outside tomorrow for Fresh Air Friday so please dress for the weather.

Today we started writing our own version of the Dr. Coffin Twelve Days of Christmas.  We hope to sing our class version at the carol singing next week.  Today we did some color facts.
Did you know...
- that to make a shade you need to add black.
. that primary colors and secondary colors when mixed together make tertiary colors.
- that when you add white to a color it is a tint.
-that when something is see through it is transparent.
-that the cool colors are purple, blue and green.
We have to add some Did you knows to our Color Poster to show our learning.

We are excited for the Festive Evening tomorrow night at school!

Today we started working on showing what we know about colors in our Visual Journal.  We used the Color Wheel and our Tints and Shades project.  In gym we played a real basketball game with two teams.  We had treats at treat day and thank you to friends that brought extra money to share with those of us that forgot.  We created a graph to show our garden votes as a big class graph.  It is hanging on our wall by the garden light.

Tomorrow is treat day hosted by room 4.  Please send 25 cents if you would like your child to have a treat at recess.  Today we learned how to take care of our indoor plants by watering them and making sure they have enough air, water, soil and light.  We read a story called Polar Express.  Diego brought a silver bell to school as well as a ticket from his Polar express experience.  Today we did an art project with corn syrup and food coloring dropped onto paper.  We tilted the paper in different directions and the corn syrup would make a strange and interesting shape.

Our voting results.

Today we voted for the vegetables we wanted to plant in our indoor garden.  We were excited to see the results of our votes.  We had only five pennies to cast and we could choose to put them into any of the bags we wanted.  We could even put more than one penny into a bag if we really wanted a certain vegetable.  The voting results are above.  This afternoon we planted some of the vegetable seeds into small plant pellets and now we wait and watch.  We also learned about our Red Wiggler composting worms and gave them some left over vegetables from our outdoor garden.  

Just a reminder that there is no school tomorrow.

Today in gym we practiced our passing and blocking by playing Pig in the Middle.  Today was our first day of trying our new pattern centers. Each table group gets a center for two days.  Some of the centers are picture centers, music centers, beading centers, shape centers, polka dot painting centers and even more. We finished our magic milk experiment writing.  When we were done we got to go on to the grade one and two folder on the computers. Grade ones had to write one or more I wonder ideas and the grade twos had to write two or more.  We got to share our gardening ideas with a buddy.  Tomorrow we will vote about what we will plant.  Tomorrow afternoon we will plant our indoor garden.

Today we wrote about our magic milk experiment one of our ideas about what we observed was that we saw the colors change and swirl.  We wondered what would happen if we did the experiment in a glass jar so that we could see the colors swirling underneath.  Today was our last day to write about our vegetable garden choices.  We planned our arguments so that we could convince others to plant our choices.  We will share them tomorrow and then vote on Thursday.  Today in math we were introduced to new pattern centers.  We will start these tomorrow.  In the front hall some parents decorated the hallway for our festive activities in December.  School Pictures are in back packs.

Today we worked on creating animal tracks like some of the tracks we saw in Whispering woods on Friday.  We worked with partners.  We are going to create a wall of animal track stories in the hallway outside our room.  Today we played three on three keep away basketball in gym.  We had to keep the ball away from the other team by dribbling or passing.   It was fun.  Today was the last day to bring money for the rafiki bracelets.   See the festive evening notice coming home today.

Today was an exciting day at Dr. Coffin.  We had subway fun lunch and then we went to the gym to watch the big kids shave off their hair for Kids Cancer.  They raised over $5000.00 for the cause.   Today was Crazy hair day.  The craziest was the balloon hair in grade 6. It was fun to see all the hairdos.  For Fresh Air Friday we will spend some time in Whispering Woods.  Warm boots, snow pants, gloves, hat and a warm coat would be great for tomorrows outdoor activities.

Tomorrow is Fun lunch and Crazy hair day.  At 12:30 we will be going to the gym to watch Shave Your Lid For a Kid as 8 students participate in having their hair shaved or cut for a cancer fundraiser.  We did a cool experiment with food color,  homogenized milk and dish soap.  We watched as the colors swirled after we added the dish soap.  It was so exciting!  We called it The Magic Milk Experiment. Mrs Kidd said that we are doing a very good job at bringing back our library books.  Way to go room one!  We worked on our Color pattern a Palooza in Math today.

Today we started getting ready for our indoor garden. We opened the package that had all our seeds and we looked at our nine vegetable choices.  Some were Tiny Tim Tomatoes, Purple Peacock Pole Beans, Paris Market Atlas Carrots to name just a few.  We will be voting later this week to decide on our garden plants.  This afternoon in science we used black to shade the color we had chosen yesterday for our painting experiment.  In gym the grade twelve kids came to teach our gym class.  They planned some fun games like toilet tag, Chicken invasion and a Teddy Bear Relay Race.  They will come again on Thursday. We stayed in the music room today to do our blog, but it was very toasty up there!

Remember Thursday is fun lunch, crazy hair day and at lunch we have some students from the school that are doing "Shave Your Lid for a Kid" in the gym following fun lunch.

Today in math we did a pattern problem.  We had to use only two colors.  We had to come up with at least 9 different patterns with the same two colors for grade twos and grade ones had to come up with six different ones.  In science we learned about tints, shades, and hues.  We painted tints of a color and each time we had to add a little bit more white.  We noticed that each time the hue got a little bit lighter.  Today in gym we started some basketball practice.

This Thursday is crazy and fun lunch.

Today we worked very hard to finish up our poetry project paintings.  We still have one more practice tomorrow morning before our big Bollywood Dance performance after recess.  We hope that everyone can come and watch.  Tomorrow is the last day to send in your fun lunch orders.  We are excited to share with you all the projects that we have been working on during our face to face conferences either Thursday night or Friday morning.

Today our treat day was a big success.  Thank you to all the families that sent in treats this morning. We have been busy this week trying to finish up projects that we hope to share with you this Thursday or Friday when you come for conferences.  If you would still like to order scholastic books please have your order back to school by the end of this week.  All fun lunch orders are due this Thursday.  They will not be taking any late fun lunch orders as there is no school Friday.

Just a reminder that tomorrow is treat day sponsored by room 1.  Please send in your treats first thing in the morning.  Remember that you will need 25 cents to buy a treat.  Today we worked on creating panels to display our multi-media self portraits.  Our design choices were polka dots, stripes or a solid color with frame. We worked with our big buddies to type up some of our poetry. We worked on more poetry to include in our book.  We practiced some new moves to add to our Bollywood dance.

We had a great morning on Nosehill.  We hiked up to the top using the paved pathway over the bridge.  Once we got to the top we sketched our view and enjoyed a snack.  It was shorter than we had hoped as it was very windy up at the top.  All together we hiked 4.5 kilometers.
Tuesday Room 1 is in charge of Treat Day.  Please remember to send in your treats with your child in the morning so that they can be sold at recess.  Each family is asked to donate at least one dozen nut free treats as a fundraiser for the classroom.

We have had a very busy day.  We started to learn Bollywood Dance!  Our teacher's name is Ms. Kody.  It was fun.  It had different music that made us want to move.  Next Thursday we hope you can come for our performance.  We also worked on our poetry.  We added the finishing touches to our self portraits.  We are excited to share them with you next week at our face to face conferences.

Tomorrow we will be walking up to the top of Nosehill on the paved pathway.  From the school, there and return, it is about a five km walk.  Please ensure that your child is dressed for the weather and has proper footwear for walking.  We do have enough volunteers but if you would like to join us we will be leaving shortly after the bell.
Today we are sending home the next fun lunch form.  Please check your child's back pack for this form.

We are hoping to go to Nosehill again this Friday.  We will be using the paved pathway to walk up close to the top so that the students can see the view of the valley, neighborhood and city.  Please let me know if you are able to join us for this walk.  We will need people to meet or ratio required.
 We went to our Remembrance Day assembly by the room 5, 6, and 7.  We wore our poppies and learned about the day.  We made poppies and glued them onto a poster to be included in the assembly. We saw a performance using black light and performed to a Remembrance day song.  They wore white gloves for the performance.  Tomorrow there is no school but we will see everyone on Thursday.

Tomorrow at 10:45 there will be a Remembrance Day Assembly.  The students will receive a poppy for this day.  If you would like to send a coin donation for the poppy it will be collected before the assembly in the morning.  If your child is in Cadets, Cubs, Scouts, Sparks or Brownies they are welcome to wear their uniform tomorrow or for the assembly.  Other students have been invited to wear black, white or red.  If you would like to join us for this assembly you are most welcome.

Today we walked to Nose Hill to discover the habitat at the hill.  We discovered evidence of various animals living there as well as some interesting plant life.  We were excited about taking pictures and recording field notes to document our discoveries.  We had a bag to collect very small artifacts to further investigate back at school.  We were gone for most of the morning.  The fresh air and exercise was good for everybody.  Some kid quotes from the day,

" Whispering Woods is a mini version of Nose Hill."

" These look like frozen rose hips.  They have snow wrinkles."

"Wow what a beautiful view!"

After finding a space where an animal had bedded down, " Hey that animal was really big, maybe a deer"

"Wow, look at that bright red tree!"  (It was a dogwood)

Stay tuned for some photos of the day...

Learning About Colour

We are learning about colour. After doing a few activities and learning about primary and secondary colours we started brainstorming all the questions we have about colours.  Then our teachers sorted our questions into categories so that we could decide what we should try to learn next. Here are the categories we have:

1.   History of colour.

·      How did colours get their names?

·      How did people first make colours?

·      Who discovered colours?

·      Why do colours exist?

·      Could new colours be invented?

·      Who discovered the primary, secondary, and tertiary colours?

·      Why are colours important?

·      Who invented crayons?

2.  Making colours.

·      Can you make dark colours out of light colours?

·      How do you make the primary colours?

·      What type of colour is brown?

·      What comes after tertiary colours?

·      Are there “forthiary” colours?

·      How many colours are there?

3.  Black and white.

·      What makes white?

·      Is white a colour?

·      Can you make colours out of black?

·      How do you make black?

·      Does mixing the primary colours make black?

·      How are different shades made?

4.  Colours in nature.

·      Why are there so many colours?

·      Why can’t flowers be black?

·      Why is food so many colours?

·      How do things get their colour? Eg. Why are leaves green? Why is the sky blue?

·      Is there any place that doesn’t have colour?

·      How do they make coloured plastic?

·      How to rainbows happen?

5.  Seeing colour.

·      How does information about colour get to your brain?

·      Do animals see colour the same way we do?

·      Why is green so bright?

6.  Feelings from colours

·      How would people feel without colours?

·      Why do we use colours?

·      What are cool colours?

·      What are warm colours?

·      Can colours make people feel mad?

·      Can colours make people feel happy?

Today we are sending home permission forms which need your attention and then need to be returned tomorrow.  We have guests in our school tomorrow and they will be interviewing and filming students as they do their work for Fresh Air Friday.

We will be going to Nose Hill tomorrow, leaving almost right after the bell.  Please make sure that your child has proper foot wear, gloves, toques and warm clothing and coats for this trip.  We will be walking and will be on the hill for about an hour and then walking back to the school.

Today we played the xylophones in music.  In Science we did a black dot experiment. We wanted to see what colors made black.  We saw all the colors in the rainbow when we wet our black dot on a coffee filter.

So far we have two volunteers for our Friday morning.  We need four volunteers for each room so if you are still available please email Mrs. Hamby to let her know that you can come as a volunteer.  Book orders are coming home today.  Please return them by next Thursday if you would like to order any books.

Today we started working on patterns in math.  We learned about growing patterns, repeating number patterns, story patterns and we went on a pattern hunt around the school.  we also learned how to use letters to show our patterns.  Today we added hair using yarn and felt or burlap to our self portraits. They are looking really good! We picked a new category for our helper sharing.  It is to bring  something about a trip that we have taken such as a photo or an artifact.   We are going to start a new writing project, some color poetry.  Please continue to send in food items for our food bank donations.  We still need some volunteers for our Fresh Air Friday this week.

This morning we wrote in our journals and shared our stories about our Halloween weekend.  We also worked on becoming better at estimating in math time today.  We had some estimation jars and we were allowed to make one guess.  After that we were given some ore information and then we were allowed to make a second guess.  We are getting better with our estimating skills.

This afternoon we shared things that we already know about colors and then we wrote on sticky notes some things that we wondered about colors.  We are going to do some testing to find the answers to some of those questions.

Today we are sending home the class and individual photos.  Please return your orders by November 9th.  The class photos are for you to keep.  We are also sending home a notice asking for volunteers to go along with rooms one and two on Friday for our Fresh Air Friday this week.  Please let us know by email whether or not you are able to come and help.

We had a great day today and very exciting of course!  Just a reminder that there is no school for students tomorrow.  Wishing everyone an exciting and safe weekend!

This morning in math we learned a game called Race to 100.  The grade ones had to roll the dice and add the numbers until we reached 50 as our total.  We had to keep track with tally marks.  The grade twos had to roll the dice and write the numbers to 100.  Your pencil will get taken away from you if someone else rolls the special number decided by the group. We also continued to add more parts to our self portraits.   In science this afternoon we finished up our color wheel adding secondary and tertiary colors.  Tomorrow we will have a Halloween dress up parade in the afternoon.  The children are invited to dress up for the afternoon only.

Today we learned about the Color Wheel.  We learned that the Primary Colors were red, yellow and blue.  They are called primary because no matter which colors you mix you would never get these colors.  When you mix the primary you get the secondary colors.  We will paint the secondary colors tomorrow.  In music we learned about Vivaldi.  We listened to Winter and The Nutcracker. Mrs Wilkens was our music teacher today because Mrs. Lim went home sick.

Today we had an exciting Fun Lunch.  Thank you to all the helpers that helped in our classroom.  Today we worked on our Self portraits adding our eyes.  We learned that our eyes are right across from the top of our ears.  In math we practiced using our abacus by a dice game and writing number sentences.  In The afternoon we worked on facts for our Goldenrod painting.
Tomorrow is our Fresh Air Friday.  We will be adding more to our T-shirts.

Mr. Ogilvie will be here the next two school days as I am away.

Please enjoy the video of our song from music yesterday.

Today we had treat day.  In the morning we worked on Multimedia self- portraits.  We are building our portraits sort of like a Mr. Potato Head.  I think they'll look better than a Mr. Potato Head though!
For math today we made our own abacus.  We learned that people all over the world have used an abacus and that they have been around for over a million years.  We will be using them to solve number problems.
Tomorrow is our picture day and please send in your preference form if you have not yet done so.

Today we worked on adding more number combinations to our math bracelets.  This morning we worked on our journals to tell about our weekend.  We had guests in our classroom.  They were student teachers from the University.  We learned that the Purple Aster flower was used for medicine by the First Nations. We learned that the roots were used for sore eyes, cavities and toothaches.  It can also be used for a tea.  The nectar is enjoyed by bees and butterflies.  Babies used to chew on the roots when they were teething.
Tomorrow is treat day sponsored by room two.  If you would like your child to buy a treat then please send 25 cents for a treat.  Wednesday is picture day.  Thursday is fun lunch.  If you did not order fun lunch then your child would eat in the classroom with your regular lunch.

We had a very busy Fresh Air Friday.  We worked on two projects today.

1. Weeding
We worked with Tessa from the Calgary Zoo to do some weeding in the Whispering Woods.  We weeded out some Canadian Thistle, Sow Thistle and Dandelions.

2. Temporary Land Art
We went to the Whispering Woods and gathered natural materials such as berries, leaves, twigs, bark and stones.  We used our new Fresh Air Friday backpacks to hold all our stuff!  We looked at an artist's creations.  His name is Andy Goldsworthy.  He inspired us to create our own temporary art pieces.  When we were done we took a picture with the i-pad and then left them there for other people to enjoy on the compound by the sun circle.  We hope they enjoy looking at them as much as we enjoyed creating them.

P.S.  We can hardly wait to drink out of our new travel mugs too!

Today we worked to finish our Cone Flower page and our Wild Blue Flax page in our visual journals.   We used a target to check our work and make sure that we were trying to do our best.  In math this morning we made bracelets using pony beads and pipe cleaners to show all the ways of making a number between 5 and 20.   We picked our own numbers.  We will be making a bigger abacus project to go with this.  Today we took our t-shirts out of the dye bath and we hung them in the tree to dry.  We have one more thing to do before we can wear them.  They look so neat and cool!

Today the students will be bringing home their fun lunch forms.  Please return these by Friday.  If you have not yet returned your photo day form please send those in this week as well.  We hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Celebration with family or enjoyed your long weekend together.  We have some friends in rooms 1 and 2 that are beginning a nine day celebration called Navratri tonight.  Enjoy your celebrations.

Today was Fresh Air Friday. We went on a seed hunt. We tried to find seeds on the plants in the natureground. We noticed that some seeds were very tiny and inside the flowers. We also found seeds inside rosehips. These were seeds that were inside the fruit of the plant.  We noticed that some plants, like wild blue flax, have seed capsules that hold the seeds.

Today we also dyed our t-shirts using vegetable dye that we made using the beets from our natureground and from purple cabbage. We noticed that the pigment came out of the vegetables when we boiled them. We tied up our t-shirts and now we have left them in the dye baths. We are excited to see what the colours look like next week!

We are also bringing home a few surprises today. There are special projects to share in our backpacks and also 2 potatoes and a carrot from our Sun Circle garden!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Oops, forgot to send out fun lunch forms.  Coming home on Tuesday and due on Thursday.  Sorry!

Today we made Potato and corn chowder.  We used the potatoes from our sun circle garden.  We discovered that the food you grow is the healthiest and most delicious!  We also continued to work on our Harvest surprise.

This afternoon we made.dye baths for our Fresh Air Friday tomorrow.  We used beets, blueberries, raspberries, red cabbage.  Please remember to brng a T-shirt for dying.

Today we made carrot cookies with the carrots from our harvest.  They were very delicious.  We have been working on a special Thanksgiving surprise to show some our learning that has happened in our Fresh Air Fridays and harvesting time.  We are excited to bring it home and share it with you this weekend.  Tomorrow we will be making soup, our final recipe of the week leading up to Thanksgiving.

We always write in our journals on Mondays.  We created a target to aim for our best work.  Some of the things in the middle of the target are great detailed ideas, neat printing and our best grade one and grade two spelling.  Grade ones are trying to write 4 or more sentences and grade twos are trying to write eight sentences.  In math time we were trying to finish up our surveys and graphs from last week.  In the afternoon we painted our cone flowers in our visual journals.  We were trying to paint the details in the cone of the flower.  The details came from the seeds in the cone.  In gym today we practiced soccer skills like passing while we were running and using our body to keep the ball away from our partner.

For Friday many of us still need to remember to bring a white cotton t-shirt.

Today was our garden harvest.  The kids were squealing with excitement as they saw the carrots, beets and potatoes coming out of the ground.  We had three groups of kids they were either washers, diggers or composters.  Here is the result of our harvest today.

This morning we created a Terry Fox run graph.  We surveyed our friends yesterday to see how many laps they had run.  This afternoon we added facts and fancy writing to our Wild Blue Flax page in our visual journal.  Today in gym we started some soccer skills.  We practiced dribbling, shooting at a target and passing.

Tomorrow we will be harvesting our garden in the sun circle.  We have already picked the beans and have a great crop.  If there is anyone that would like to join us feel free to bring a gardening shovel and gloves and meet us in the sun circle at about 10:00.  All are welcome!

Today the room one students will be bringing home scholastic book orders.  If you are interested in ordering a book please send in your order and money or cheque by next Friday October the 9th. Thank you.

Today we ran our Terry Fox run.  It was hard but we all ran as much as we could.  Room one ran 108 laps altogether.  Before we went out for our run we had a warm up assembly.  Each lap that we did was 1 km.  Our class ran 108 kilometers.  Today we received tally marks on our Terry Fox stickers to show our laps.

We have a notice that we glued into our agendas about an exciting Fresh Air Friday activity.

Today we ran the Terry Fox course for our practice.  We realized that we would need to bring a water bottle and wear really good running shoes on our feet for our run tomorrow.  We will be running from 10:30 till close to lunch time.

Also please see my agenda for a picture day notice!

We have an exciting week!  On Wednesday we have our Terry Fox run.  We have a collection box in our room for Toonies for Terry.   As part of our training we ran four laps today.  Mrs. Wilkens helped us.  We used watercolor paints to paint our Blue Flax sketches in our visual journals.  In math today we learned how to conduct a survey and came up with our own survey question.  In journal writing today we made a target to see what a great journal entry would be and the grade two kids were given their own Words dictionary to help them with spelling.

Missing Our Fresh Air Friday today.  Something to think about...

Terry Fox run is less than a week away.  We are training and ready!  Remember to bring "toonies for Terry" next week.  You can also make donations online.  The book fair will be open the next two days during conferences.  Today we got our Mathletics passwords and glued into the front of our agendas.  Tomorrow there is no school.  Please make sure that you check your child's backpack and agenda daily for notices or messages.

I need to bring my agenda to school tomorrow because I will be getting my Mathletics Password.  It will be written in the front of the agenda.  Please make sure that you check your child's agenda for the Parent Viewpoint.  This is to be filled out and brought to the Face to Face Conference when you come either Thursday or Friday.  Please also look for the Terry Fox pledge form in your child's agenda.  This Friday we do not have classes because of conferences.

Today we ran three laps for our Terry Fox training.  The run will be next Wednesday morning.  We got to go and look at the books in the Book Fair.  We made a small list of books that we were interested in.  I have my list in my agenda. The book fair opens tomorrow after school. In math we made a smartie graph to record our information from our chart.  In the Natureground we sketched the Purple and White Asters.

Please remember to book a Face to Face Conference if you have not already done so.  I am looking forward to seeing you all at your conference time.
Thank you,
Donna Hamby

Today in math we had to sort our smarties with a small group.  We had to show what we found by using tallies, numbers, pictures and words on a chart. Next came the fun part.  We got to eat them too!  We are learning some new tag games in gym this week.  We became experts on the Wild Blue Flax flower today.  We sketched and we learned some facts.  We learned that you can make an eye medicine and also that it helps to keep bees alive.  Each bloom only blooms for one day.  We also learned that it helps to improve your hair.  We are learning to be botanists.

Today was Fresh Air Friday!

We had 3 stations that we got to try today.
Fresh Air Friday
We worked at three stations today.
Station #1: Planting Bulbs
Before we started planting we loosened the soil and pulled out the grasses, roots, and weeds. Then we learned how to dig a hole that was 15cm deep. We used rulers to measure the holes. Then we got to plant 5 bulbs in each hole. We found worms, ants, and some other insects while we were digging.
A great big thank you to Jung, Kelli, Jennifer, and Xun for coming to help us out and a big thank you to Claire's family for donating the bulbs!

Station #2: Natureground Sketching
We discovered some hare fur while we were sketching in the Natureground. We noticed that insects were attracted to the Goldenrod. There are still some wasps in the Natureground but we were careful to avoid them. We saw grasshoppers and other insects that are living in the Natureground.  We have a lot of plants that are still growing and quite a few flowers still in bloom.

Station #3: Whispering Signs Hunt
We searched all over the Whispering Woods and found lots of signs. The big Whispering Woods sign was the hardest to find because it was so far away. We also had trouble finding the "Z" sign because it was hiding in the amphitheatre! While we were hunting for signs we found a Pocket Gopher burrow. While Julia and Haotian were looking at the burrow the gopher peeked out to see them!

Tomorrow we will have our school barbecue.  We hope you will be able to come!  We have started training for the Terry Fox run.  We learned how to sew and started a sewing project with our Flower Power pictures.  We played another line game called Hill Dill.  We think this school is so much fun.  we wished that everyone could come here!

Tonight is our School Council Meeting.  Today we Introduced the Classroom Helper.
When it is your turn to be the helper you get to be the teacher assistant.  You get to bring something from home to share and show to the class. We have categories.  Our first sharing category is Our Favorite Book.  Our first helper is Jordan.  We learned a new line game in gym today.  It was exhausting!

This week is our kick off barbecue at school.  Please return the green slip to indicate your choices.  Today we had indoor gym .  We also did our first graph about class birthdays.  We found out that September had the most birthdays with 6 birthdays.  February had the fewest with only one birthday.  We are also working on an All About Me Poster.  It was a fun day!

To start our day today we went on a native plant hunt in the Natureground. We noticed that bees are attracted to some plants more than others. They seemed to really love goldenrod. We learned to identify purple aster and white aster, wild blue flax, bergamot, yarrow, goldenrod, and cone flower.

We used Flower Power today to make some art. We used white fabric and we smashed flowers and other plants and the colours came out on our fabric. We discovered that when you pound the juice out of the flowers they dye the fabric. We didn't know that flowers had natural dye in them!

Tomorrow is our Fresh Air Friday and we will be in Whispering woods and the Natureground.  Please remember to bring a ziploc bag of flowers and leaves and plant bits.  Yesterday  was our first library day.  We will go each Wednesday.  Please return books weekly.

Please see pocket for a notice today.  We had our first music class today.  We played some fun games and we learned a song about Ham and Eggs.  We enjoyed the warmer weather outside for our gym time.  We talked about "Good Ideas" for our classroom and one of them is to respect each other's space.

Today we went outside and learned about finding explorer spots.  Explorer spots are places where we stay very still and try to notice what is around us.  We went to the Whispering Woods today.  We did a rainbow chip walk to explore colors and then we did some painting inside.

Tomorrow is our fresh air Friday.  We will be learning outside.  Please make sure that you dress for weather to be learning outside.  See pocket for two notices in my agenda.  Ask me about our assembly today

Please see all the forms in your child's backpack.
Today we painted an exciting picture about our summer.  We wrote about it too!  We had outside gym until the wind storm came! Yikes...
We had a very fun day!

Monday, August 31

Welcome!  I hope that everyone has had an amazing summer creating memories with family and friends.  We look forward to another year of exciting learning in rooms one and two.  Please check this blog daily as there may be updates or information from room one.
Donna Hamby