Today we went back out to Whispering Woods to see what challenge the woods had for us.  We had to gather 34 pine cones and then divide them into two equal groups.  Our squirrel friends,  Lord Squirrel gets very jealous if Lady Squirrel has more pine cones than he does.  We had to record a picture and number showing the two equal groups.  We had to finish it this afternoon since the gathering and counting took longer than we expected.

In gym we started badminton skills. We practiced bouncing the bird off of our racquet and also how to hold the bird and hit it trying to aim it towards the wall.

Tomorrow is treat day.  Our helper category is Animals.  We talked about some ideas for what to bring for that category. We could bring an animal stuffy, animal research, pictures and pet pictures.  We came up with all kinds of ideas. Our helper tomorrow is Diego.

Today we went to Nose Hill to look for the food and places that the animal we are researching, would eat or use for homes.  Jajohn's group found scat that had fur in it. The animal who made that scat must have eaten something furry.  Ava's group found deer tracks.  We took pictures of the evidence we found today.  Erik's group fond dirt piles that weasels could live in and some berries to eat.  We found lots of piled up logs and places that a small red fox could live in to have its babies.  Carissa's group saw a mouse running around by the dogwood branches.  Freya's group found a hole that could be used for a vole's home.

This morning we went to see the secret in the Whispering Woods.  Our challenge was that we had to walk all the way around the perimeter and count how many steps. Some of our counts were 800, 637, 650, 743, 700.  We discussed why the numbers were not all the same.

During our animal research today we had a fire drill.  It only took us one minute to clear the whole school out.  Mrs. Polski was very impressed.  We had two great stories today.  The Elf's Hat was like the Mitten Story but we talked about the differences between the two stories. The We Are Wolves Story taught us how wolves hunt and what they do to take care of their pack.

Tomorrow we will be going to Nose Hill to further our animal research work for FreshAir Friday.

This morning something really exciting happened in Whispering Woods!  We went outside to do some bird watching and then we found a letter hanging in the tree!  The letter said, that if we could meet all the challenges that it would share its secrets with us.  It also said
"whispering woods, whispering woods, what are your secrets tell them to me?
It also came where there was a feather on the ground.  The letter told us to come back to woods tomorrow to find out what the first challenge will.
I wonder what our first challenge will be?

This afternoon we did some animal research.  Here are some things that we found out.  White tail deer like to live close to rivers, lakes and sometimes end up close to cities and forests.  Striped skunks like to live close to mountain areas, rocky slopes and woods.  Little brown bats like to live on the prairies.  They like to eat plants and insects.
Haotian is our helper tomorrow.

Tomorrow is anti-bullying and wear pink day.
We are still looking for two volunteers to help us with our field trip to Nosehill on Friday.

Our letter from the woods.

This morning we wrote in our journals.  We practiced trying to elaborate on our ideas to give our audience more information and make our writing more interesting to the reader.  In math we shared our Number Walk game with four other friends.  When our friends played the game that we had made they needed to get the right number at the end or they would have to try again.  We are bringing them home for you to try at home.

This afternoon we have added the category, where I live, to our information collecting.  We are excited to see so many kids are going home and researching various animals at home and then bringing the information to share with the class.  In gym we began racquet sport skills and games.
Even though gymnastics is over and there is no longer equipment in the gym, the grade one and two classes will continue to eat lunch in their own classrooms as this seems to be more successful in getting them to eat most of their lunch as well as have a calmer lunch experience.

Fun lunch orders are due this Wednesday.  Our helper tomorrow is Ava.

Today was Fresh Air Friday.  We did orienteering.  We used a map of the schoolyard and went to find hidden treasures.  We had to find 15 treasures that were marked on a map!  It was really fun because all the treasures were different and in
places all over  the schoolyard.  Sometimes it was challenging to read the map and record record the treasure.  Some of the treasures were really hidden.

We also noticed some bugs beginning to appear.  Maybe some signs of spring...

Today we had a special music teacher, Mr. Ogilvie!  We read a story called the Animal Band and we had to draw a response to the story.  We hope Mrs. Lim is feeling better soon.  We did our animal research to try and finish what our animal eats.  We now know that the Red backed vole has a diet that changes with the seasons.  The Lynx eats deer, rodents and hares.  It is a carnivore.  A white tailed deer eats grasses, bark, willow, bugs and berries and apples if available they also drink water.

Tomorrow is our Fresh Air Friday and we will be learning how to do some orienteering.

Also a fun lunch form will be coming home today.

Today we worked on our Number Walk Games.  We had to decide on the order of our cards and choose a two digit number to start at. We had to add and subtract numbers that our cards told us to do. We tried our game to see if it would work.  Tomorrow a buddy will get to try our game and see if they end up at the same number we did today.  In our animal research today we found out what our animal eats and wrote lists.  In our Jungle safari we added guards to watch and make sure that we didn't make any mistakes.

We couldn't go to library because the judges were in the learning commons judging the grade 5/6 science fair.  We got to go and see the projects this morning.  We saw some interesting research about crystals, bubblegum, electricity, teeth and stains from pop, coffee or tea, the solar system, knees and joints, and worms.  We learned that coca cola really stains your teeth. We also saw one about how well wi- fi works through different sources. They found out that it works best through drywall from what they tested. There was one to show how well laundry soap cleans socks.  The one that seemed to work the best was the Tide Pods.

Tomorrow our helper is Sanuka.

We are planning to go to Nosehill for our Fresh Air Friday, not this Friday but the following Friday, February 26th.  If you are able to join us please let me know.

Today it seemed like Monday.  Many of our friends shared about their exciting weekends and we also got to tell about our long weekend in our journals today.  We will have some time again tomorrow to work on our journals.  Today in Math we played a Number Walk game using the hundreds chart.  We had to add and subtract certain numbers from cards and at the end we had to see where we would end up.  We had to choose our number cards carefully so that we could stay on the hundreds chart.

This afternoon we started to research what our animals eat.  We learned that some animals are omnivores, carnivores and herbivores and also insectivores.  If you aren't sure what that is please ask your resident Zoolagist.

Today in gym we started a jungle safari.  Tomorrow we will have jungle guards that might send us back to base camp if we make a mistake.   Today we got to practice without guards.
In Music we played a new game called The Old Gray Cat.  We have been writing music and today was our last day to finish.  Mrs. Lim will be marking our compositions.

Tomorrow is games club with Mr. Pedenko.  If your child went to games club last week they were asked to bring a game from home this week to share with a friend or friends tomorrow in games club at lunch time.

Our helper tomorrow will be Dahlia.

Today we got to practice our storytelling.  We made a list of all the stories from Mrs. Gummo and we got to choose the story that we wanted to tell.  We got together in our group and then we made pictures to tell the events of the story.  In math today we continued to work on our 100 Counting Challenge.
This afternoon we worked on our animal research and tried to finish the appearance diagram and labels.   We also went to gymnastics and music.

Tomorrow afternoon we will have our friendship party.  Please remember to bring your cards for friends if you have any to hand out.  Our helper will be Vanessa.

Today we introduced some new friendship/valentine centers.  Some of the centers are:
 -making Valentines
-Valentine heartimals
-making a mail box
-making a coupon book
-make or learn a valentine poem
-complete a word search
We also had some time to try them out before recess.  We  worked on our journals this morning and a little this afternoon.  We started a 100 counting Challenge in math today.

This afternoon we started to work on a diagram with labels for our animal research.  In gym we had three new stations.  We added a climber station, box horse station and a ramp station.

Thank you to Jordan Ding's family for sending in some Treats in Lucky Money Envelopes.

Today we worked with Mrs. Gummo.  We went outside and we played some story games with her. We had to act our one of the stories she told us and everyone had to try and guess what story we were acting out.  We also heard a new story called Mr. Foxes Sack.  He sang a song called Nobody knows.

"Nobody knows but me, 
Nobody knows but me  
Nobody knows what's in that sack.  
Nobody knows but me"

Today was our last day working with Mrs. Gummo.  We have learned so many stories from Mrs. Gummo.  Some of them were:

Magpie Feathers her Nest
The Bear who Stole the Chinook
Whispering Woods
Prairie Princess
Mr. Fox's Sack
The Great Enormous Pumpkin

Have a great weekend!

Today we practiced our first lock down this year.  We know that when we have a lock down we need to go and sit very quietly in a special space in the classroom and pretend that no one is in the room. The police officer came to make sure that we were all in the right spot and that we knew what we had to do.  In math, we played a fun game called Odd and Even Action game.  Some of us had to do a lot of exercises playing that game!

This afternoon we chose our Nosehill animal that we would like to research and became experts about.  We printed off the picture so that our research could begin.  We had gymnastics and music too.

You will receive a book order today.  If you are interested in ordering any books please return the form and money by Wednesday next week.  A piece of art is coming home today made from corn syrup and food color.  Please make sure that it doesn't have anything set on top of it.  It will be sticky!

Today we had a visitor from little green thumbs. She presented some information about food from the category of foods named Pulse.  Do you know what that is? We practiced our story telling with our animal headbands.  Maybe if we get good enough we can tell our stories to our Big Buddies.

 This afternoon we went on our winter walk.  Schools all around Canada went for Winter walks today.  When we went for our walk we also got to look for treasures.   We feel healthier and happier when we can get outside n the winter.  Today all the grade threes, fours, fives and sixes went to the philharmonic.    In gymnastics we had new equipment stations.  We did some cool movements and rolls.

Today we wrote in our journals even though it was Tuesday.  We had treat day today sponsored by room 5.  After recess we played a game with numbers up to 100.  It was called "I Have, Who Has?"  It is a game that helps us learn how to read numbers.  After lunch we had a storytelling time with Mrs. Gummo.  Today she told us a story about a pumpkin.  She felt inspired to tell this story when she saw our indoor garden and how well everything is growing.  We acted out the story and practiced telling it in small groups.  We also had music today.  It was nice to have Mrs. Lim back again this week.

Tomorrow the helper is Neelayan.  We had some kids from our class away today.  We hope that they are feeling better soon.