Today for Fresh Air Friday we had a photo hunt.  We read the story "Zoom",  then we saw some zoomed in pictures that Mrs. Hamby and Miss Boyer had taken on the school grounds.  We had to go and find all those spots outside on the school grounds.  Once we found all those places we went inside and then we were introduced to the next step of the project.  We had to glue on the small thumb- nail pictures of all the spots onto our school yard map.  We only had the school and portable marked on the map.  Once we had all our pictures glued on in the right spots we had to fill in and create the rest of the school ground spaces on our maps with little pictures of landmarks like the big pine tree, picnic tables, suncircle, playgound equipment and other special spots.

Our helper on Monday is Julia.  Have a great weekend.

This morning we made flower panels for the volunteer tea.  We used layers of tissue at different angles and then we wrapped pipe cleaner at the bottom.  Then we fluffed out the petals and we added a center to our flowers. We used the whole morning time until recess to make our flower project.

We welcomed a new grade one boy to our class and his name is Danish.

In math the grade ones did some finishing up work and we also learned a new game called "Clockonimos".  Grade two students worked with Mrs. Wolf in math and they worked on subtraction today using some strategies they had worked on this week.

Today was our last photography day with our resident photographer Miss "C",  and we got to go outside to take pictures of flowers and other signs of spring.  We also worked on editing our photos.

There will be two notices coming home today.  One notice is for the final fun lunch day.  The other notice is for our upcoming swim program.  Please sign all the forms and return them as soon as possible.

Tomorrow will be Fresh Air Friday.

Today we had the Bricks For Kids program come to our classroom.  Our teacher's name was Mr. T.  We had to build a plane and a sail boat. Then at the end we connected it to a small motor to see what it would do.  The motor made our gears move just like a real plane and sail boat would.  We had Bricks for Kids for most of the afternoon.

Today in math the grade one students played the game we played yesterday but we did it in a new way.  We had to record our number sentences either on the Even Steven side or the Odd Todd side.  Grade two students practiced adding double digit numbers  by thinking about the strategy of adding the two tens numbers together and then adding a zero.  So if it was 20 Plus 50 you would think two plus five and then add the zero.  It would be 70.

Today some of us starting writing our stories. We talked about how authors make stories exciting by carefully choosing how they are going to put the ideas and pictures on each page to create suspense.

Everyone was excited to be back at school again today.  The classroom was humming with conversations to reconnect with friends since the four day break.  This morning we worked on invitations to bring home for the Volunteer Tea.  Please look for this in your child's backpack today.  After recess we worked in our journals and we also had math.  The grade one group learned a new game called Even Steven and Odd Todd.  We played with a partner and had to add up the numbers on the domino and then decide which side of the game board it went on.  One partner was even Steven and the other was Odd Todd.

After lunch we worked to add to our dioramas and some students that had finished began to work on some "Did You Knows.."  about the animal that they had researched.  In gym we learned a new game called "Flying Dutchmen"  and we also had music today.

A book order will be coming home today.  If you would like to order books please return the order by the end of next week.  Our Donation Bin for the Family Dance is slowly filling up.  So far we have about six items.  Thank you if you have already made a donation.  If you still plan to make a donation please send them as soon as possible.

We look forward to sharing our work with you at Face to Face conferences Thursday or Friday.  We will also be sharing our goals and some of our learning reflections with you.  Tomorrow will be a busy day because we have to get ready for conferences and we also have photography tomorrow afternoon.

Today we practiced our story telling.  Some of us got to go on to photo booth and record ourselves telling the story so that we could watch how we did.  We continued working on our animal dioramas today and we continued to add things from our research.  We are hoping to share what we have so far at our face to face conferences this week.

In music we practiced our songs for the volunteer tea.  We also sang the songs from the Bremen Musicians and we played a singing game called "How Many Fingers".  In gym we went outside and played a tagging game called "Hill Dill".

 In math today the grade ones played a domino addition game and the grade two students used place value blocks and we had to build numbers that Miss Boyer wrote on the white board.  We even got to use one hundred blocks to build our numbers.

We even had a practice fire drill today.  At lunchtime Mrs. Polski brought some plastic kid golf clubs out to the playground for kids to try.

We did a tomato draw from our garden we had over 30 tomatoes.  Tomorrow running cub starts for grades 3-6.

This morning we went on Iris and entered our goals and strategies that we had shared in our learning reflections last week.  Some of us worked in journals while some of us went to type in our goals.

This afternoon in gym we went outside and we played with the foam fliers with a buddy.  We practiced catching and throwing it so that our buddy could catch it.  When we worked on our dioramas the people that had finished their animals began to add homes and predators.  We also worked on an expectations target to know what we needed to do to meet the middle of the target for the diorama.


We were excited for Dahlia and Inga because they lost a tooth.  Tomorrow our helper is tomorrow is Neelayan.

Today was Fresh Air Friday.  We did mapping around our neighbourhood.  We each had a map pf neighbourhood and we went for a walk to find landmarks.  Then we added the landmarks to our maps.  Some of our landmrks were: the green space, Mrs. Mitchell's house, the "mitten" tree {it is a round tree that looks like a mitten}, the path to the green space, the pathway to the alley, David's house, Aiden's house, Dominic's house, Barrett Park, Teia's aunt's house and Dr. Coffin School.

We learned that if you add landmarks to your map you can use it to figure out where you are and find your way if you are lost.  We discovered that following a map and keeping track of where you are can be kind of tricky and takes practice.

After we finished our walk we came inside and used our pencil crayons to add the color to our maps.  We had a really nice time walking around our neighbourhood.  We even broke out in song as we were walking up Barrett Drive!

 We were pretty excited today because we had fun lunch.  Thank you to all the parent volunteers that joined us today for fun lunch.  Some parents came into the classroom to help us with a surprise for our teachers.
In gym today we had three stations.  One was the ring toss.  Another station was throwing a beanbag at a target on the ground.  For each row of targets you could earn higher points.  The last station was throwing a frisbee at a cone to try and hit the cone.  We got to collect points by moving from one station to another.
Today in music we got to play the game Wax Museum using black lights.  We also practiced our"Red Robin" and the song "Tomorrow".
Today we practiced telling our stories and we will begin to write our stories next week. We worked on our plasticine animals and some people started adding food and predators.  We got to choose from three games to play in math today.  They were concentration, Race to 100 and I Can Top That.

Tomorrow is Fresh Air Friday.  The helper will be Saoirse on Monday.

This morning we practiced telling our stories to three different people.  Once we told our story our buddy was supposed to give us some constructive feedback.  We talked about some things to share. We also tried to add some sound effects words to our stories today.

We played a new math game to help us practice reading numbers and using the place value charts. We had to draw a card and we could either put the number on the tens' side or the ones' side.  Then our buddy did the same.  Next we drew our second card and placed it on the side that was left.  Once our buddy did the same we checked to see who had the bigger number.  We kept playing until all our cards were gone.  By the end we were getting the hang of making sure that our bigger numbers went to the tens' side.

We started creating our plasticine animals for our dioramas today.  We needed to make sure that we were finished with the expectations for shrubs, trees and plants before we were allowed to begin.

This afternoon we found out that most of the toilets seemed to be plugged up.  We had to use the toilet in the nurses room.  We had to call the plumber to come and see what the problem was.  We went outside for gym today.  We tried not to run around too much because we couldn't use the washrooms or the sinks to get water. We were hoping that being outside would be a good distraction.

Tomorrow is fun lunch.  Taiki is the helper tomorrow.

Today we watched a video to see how Barbara Reid creates animals out of plasticine.  We watched that video because we are getting ready to begin making our research animals out of plasticine for our dioramas.  Today the grade two students went with their big buddies so that they could help us take a picture of the work we are most proud of, and get it posted onto Iris with some comments.  We will be sharing these at conference time.  In gym today we played King's Gold.  When it is warmer we will play it outside too.  In music we sang the Red Robin song and learned actions to go with the song.  We will be singing this song at the Volunteer Thank you Tea.  Today Ava brought her pet rabbit, Oliver to the classroom and told us about it.  She also brought some photos.  We practiced telling our stories with our puppets so that next week we can begin to write our stories.
Please see the Family Dance notice in your child's backpack today.

Tomorrow the helper is Alana.

Today we began a learning reflection that we will be sharing with our parents at the parent teacher conferences coming up soon.   We had to reflect on work that we feel we have worked very hard on, what we wanted to improve upon, a time that we had worked well in a group and how we contributed and also about making responsible choices as a learner.  After recess the grade ones had to take a photo of what we had worked the hardest on and we had to put our picture into Iris and we had to make comments on it.  We had help from some big buddies.  Grade twos had solo book time while the grade ones's finished up with their big buddies.  In math we played our place value concentration game that we made on Thursday.  We got to play with a buddy but you can also play by yourself.

This afternoon we played a tag and listening game called Cookies and ice cream.  Mrs. Wilkens took our class to gym today. We tried to finish our plants, trees and shrubs for our dioramas.  We needed to have 3 varieties with at least a total of 5 for each category.

Tomorrow our helper is Vanessa

Today we went to Nosehill to look for crocuses.  First we walked to Noshhill and stopped for a snack break.  Once we had our snack we started looking for crocus plants.   When we found a plant we really liked we stopped to sketch it.  We were trying to include all the beautiful details in the leaves, petals as we could.  The leaves were really fuzzy land inside they had lines on them.  The petals were pointy and purple.  Some of them were skinny and some of them were fat.  They were also fuzzy.  It was interesting to see that some of the crocuses were purple and some of them were white.  Some of the crocuses grew in groups and some grew alone.

Next, we did a crocus tally.  We were trying to get an idea of how many might be just on that part of the hill.  There were so many that we couldn't count them all.  Here were a few results from our tallying: 141, 71, 405, 212.  We had a great day! Thank you to our parent volunteers that were able to join us.

Our helper on Monday is Teia.

We have decided that we will be going to Nose Hill tomorrow for Fresh Air Friday.  We hear that the crocus flower is in bloom on the hill and since its blooming time is so short we would like to go on a crocus hunt.  Tomorrow is supposed to be a beautiful day so please send a small snack, water bottle, hat and sunscreen.  They will be taking their sketching journals so please make sure they have their regular backpack so that they are able to carry all these things.  We would like one or two parents to join us if possible.  Sorry for the short notice.  If you are able to come please let Mrs. Hamby or Mrs. Boyer know.

Tomorrow room one will work with our photographer in residence for the first hour of the afternoon.  We are excited to see what we will be doing.  Please see your child's backpack for two new notices going home today.  Today was our last day of craft club.

This afternoon we tried to finish up adding to our trees and plants in our dioramas. We worked hard and were very focused.  The plants we were adding were goldenrod, wild blue flax, purple and white aster, cone flowers, crocus and buffalo beans.  This morning room one went to the library to work on our garden update while room two had their time with the photographer.  We noticed that we have 13 peppers, many small cucumbers and one bigger one.  We also have lots of Tiny Tim Tomatoes growing and have already taken off some of the ripened ones. We had library and Mrs. Kidd reminded us that we need to make sure we are returning our books.  We had outside gym time today and Mrs. Hamby was watching for us to be getting along, including other people and getting exercise. We could play on the creative playground, use equipment or play a tag game or a running game with our friends.  We ended our day with some small group journal sharing and doing our blog together.

Our helper tomorrow is Freya.

Today we worked on our story writing.  We have been making the characters to practice telling our story and now some of us have started practicing to tell our story and adding all the ideas that we used in our story plans.  In math today we played Race to 100 with a buddy.  This afternoon we worked on adding plants from Nose Hill to our dioramas as well as working to add some more trees.  Next week we will begin to work on adding our animal research ideas using plasticine.  In gym today we played Kings Gold.  It was fun!  Eric brought a birds nest to school and it had a small left over egg in it from last year.  Please see the green notice coming home today in your child's backpack.
Our helper tomorrow is Alyssa.

Tomorrow is treat day please remember to send a quarter along with your child if you would like them to buy a treat.

Today in math we played Race to 100 using cubes and tens sticks. We rolled the dice and had to put that many blocks into our ones row on our game board. when our ones row had ten cubes we had to trade it for a tens stick and then move it to the tens spot.  In gym today we had stations we were racing the clock to see how many times we could do the activities.  We learned about some of our new literacy centers.  Some of the choices were adding and subtracting practice, spelling practice with a buddy, garden update in our gardening journal and sign of spring page in our visual journal.  We continued to work on adding shrubs and trees to our dioramas.

Our helper tomorrow is Dahlia.

Today we went looking for signs of spring.  We talked about how Calgarians have to be able to use signs in nature to tell if spring is here because spring can arrive at different times depending on the year.  Sometimes it arrives in March and sometimes it seems spring doesn't come until more like April and May, even though the calendar says spring starts on March 21.

On our hunt for signs of spring we found:
-daffodils
- an active anthill
-pussy willows
-ladybugs
- a woodpecker
-dandelions
- a cocoon
-new green shoots of grass
-prairie crocuses
-very dark shadows
-Siberian Squill (a tiny blue flower)
-buds on the trees and bushes
-fluffy seed pods on the aspen trees
-male and female sparrow
-chickadees
-wet sap
- a wasp
- a robin
-a bee
-tulips
-berries.

Happy hunting for signs of spring!