Our morning began with Carol singing in the Learning commons.  It looks so nice when the lights are off and all the Christmas lights are shining.  Today was dress like an elf day.  We even sang the Mr. Grinch Christmas song.  It was fun! Tomorrow the theme is Polar Express.  We gt to dress in our cozy pajamas.  After singing we get to have hot chocolate just like in the movie.

Today we worked on our special projects.  We worked really hard on them and we are bringing them home today for our family to enjoy over the holidays.  We hope you like them!

Tomorrow is a half day of school for students and then no school on Friday.

Today Yazmine and Avery helped me write the blog.

This morning we worked on our Winter Poems.  We had to add our ideas for I smell, feel, and taste.  We only brainstormed ideas and then we had to think up our own describing words.  We didn't do our journals so that we could finish our poems up instead.  We need them for our "surprise" by Thursday.

In math today the grade ones had to work in teams of three.  Their job was to try and answer questions about a "Going to School" survey.  The graph was already made and they had to look at the information and answer questions.  How many people ride bikes to school?  How many more people ride the bus than walk to school?  How many people in total walk and take a car combined?  We learned the strategy of using blocks to see how many more or less when we had to compare different ways of getting to school.  We will work to finish this tomorrow.

This afternoon we worked on our "secret surprise".  It is a lot of work but we need to have it finished by Thursday.

In gym we used ringette sticks and rings to practice some ringette skills.  We played a game where we had to try and get a ring away from someone that had a ring.  We also had some time to practice shooting at the nets.  We also practiced passing with a partner.


Tomorrow Gavin will be the helper.  We will also begin our Christmas carol singing tomorrow morning at 9:00 in the learning commons.  If you would like to join us you are welcome to come too. Tomorrow is wear a Christmas hat day!

Food Chain

Today we learned about herbivores, omnivores and carnivores. We had a discussion that herbivores are plant eaters, omnivores eat meat and plants and carnivores eat only meat.  Mrs. Hamby drew a picture of how you can tel by the animals teeth what category they fit into.  Some herbivores are deer,mice, hare, porcupine, insects,bats and squirrels.  An omnivore might be a bear, owls, weasels, coyotes.  A carnivore might be a cougar or a wolf.  when we do more research we will find out more.  We also had a discussion about the food chain and looked at a diagram along with a list of animals we had made from Nose Hill.

We went outside to play our animal survival game.  The herbivores had to find their food from small cups scattered around the woods.  Each time they came ago a cup they could only take one piece of food (penny).  A herbivore had to give up a penny if they were tagged by an omnivore or carnivore.  They had to be very sneaky an fast.  If they ran out of coins they had to go to Mother Nature to get another coin (life).  The omnivores could tag either a herbivore or a carnivore and the carnivores could only hunt by tagging and collecting coins.  After we had been playing a while a disease hit the Whispering Woods and all the carnivores had to hand in all their coins to Mother Nature and then start hunting again for food.  We will play the game again, it was so exciting.

Our Amaryllis is growing so fast now!  Each morning the kids rush over to the plant to see what is happening.  We hope that it blooms before the end of next week.  When it blooms it will be a red flower.  The red color is beginning to show up.

This morning in our writing time we added the I hear... part to our poem.
Nicholas wrote, I hear Christmas songs, the Christmas songs are jingle bells.
Anisha wrote, I hear a happy Christmas song.
We already had some great ideas to share as soon as we got to the carpet!  When some of us noticed it on the schedule we began thinking about ideas for our poem even before we met at the carpet.  Today we used adjectives, nouns and verbs to make our ideas more interesting.

In math today Mrs. Polski came to see the grade ones for our "meeting".  The teams each took turns sharing the information that they had to share with her.  She was very impressed with our survey topics and what we had found out.  Mrs. Polski had some questions for us too.  She asked us who we surveyed and then she asked us some questions to get more information.  One question was, "Why do you like eating in the classroom more than in the gym?".  We got to share some of our ideas to give her more feedback.  She took our information and she said that she would think about how she can take our ideas and use them when she is planning with the school.  She said that she would also have a meeting with the lunchroom supervisors to share what we had found out.

The grade twos are working on writing a letter to the person who they think should see their survey information and results.

Tomorrow we will be staying at the school for our Fresh Air Friday.  We will be playing an animal game that has a predator and prey.  Here is something you will need to know for the game.
What is a herbivore?
What is a carnivore?
What is an omnivore?
What is the food chain?
If you feel like doing a little bit of homework together this will be part of the game tomorrow.

I am including a better view of the supply list for the sock campaign.  Tomorrow is the final day to send items in and thank you if you already have sent in items.  Our box was overflowing this morning and picked up right away by the fives and sixes.

Secret Surprise!

This morning and this afternoon we started working on a "secret surprise".  We will be working on this "surprise" for the next week and then we will be bringing it home.  The surprise involves poetry and art.  We have to be creative with our poetry because we have to come up with some juicy describing words to use in our poems.  That's all we can say for now.

In math today the grade ones had to prepare for their meeting with Mrs. Polski tomorrow.  They had to work in their teams getting their information ready and then they had to practice what they were going to present to her.  Each team had a recording sheet with sentence starters.
The sentence starters were:
Dear Mrs Polski,
Our survey was about...
We found out that...
We think that you should...
From,

After we finished recording our presentation we practiced how we would read it to her.  Tomorrow our meeting with her is at 11:15.  Grade twos worked on entering their information into google sheets to create their graph and they began choosing a target audience to share their survey information with.

This afternoon we worked on the art part of our surprise.
In finishing up time we had to complete our black dot experiment writing.

We are hoping that we can still go to Nose Hill on Friday.  If you are able to volunteer please let me know.

Our helper tomorrow is Anisha.

Enjoy your evening!

Rainbow Papers Day Two, Survey Results

Here is what we have in our Fill a Sock Campaign so far.  Please continue to send in items that were on the list. The list was posted on Thursday's blog if you are not sure what to send in.  We have till this Friday to send in supplies for the campaign.

This morning in math the grade ones all met with Mrs. Hamby.  We composed a  letter to send to Mrs. Polski telling her that we have some survey results that she may be interested in and we would like to share them with her.  Ahmad and Liam took the letter to Mrs. Poski inviting her to accept our invitation with two appointment time choices.  She chose to come this Thursday at 11:15 for our meeting.  After that we composed a list of all the survey results that involved the whole school, and then we put teams of 2 or three together to practice the presentation.  Each team will present a different result to Mr. Polski on Thursday.  Tomorrow each team will compile the information that they would like to share with her and then practice.  We are very excited about our meeting on Thursday and know that we will have to work hard to get ready tomorrow.  Some of the topics include:
Library arrangement
Favorite units for gym
Fun lunch choices
Locations for eating lunch
Spirit Day choices
Club choices
We will keep you posted about our meeting after Thursday.

The grade twos are working with google sheets to create a graph of their results so that they are able to share what they found out in their surveys.

This afternoon we added to our rainbow paper collection.  Enjoy the pictures to see the process.  We will be using the papers for an upcoming project
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Mika is our helper tomorrow.  Tomorrow we will be selling treats again at recess so if you would like to buy another treat remember to bring 25 cents.

Rainbow Papers and Amaryllis Plant

We were very excited this morning to come in and see that our amaryllis plant had grown 10 cm. over the weekend!  It is growing so fast now we are noticing changes every day.  It is 25 cm. tall.

Another highlight of our day was that we made rainbow papers this afternoon in science.  It was similar to the black dot experiment but we got to use al colors of smelly markers and then add drops of water to it.  The colors blended and mixed and made these beautiful papers.  We will be using these special papers for a project that we will find out about tomorrow.

Tomorrow the helper is Ahmad.  It is also treat day tomorrow hosted by the portable grade one and two class.

We have a home reading spot open for this Wednesday if anyone is available and would like to volunteer.

We are looking for volunteers to go to Nose Hill this Friday  since the weather is supposed to be so nice this week.  If you are able to volunteer please send me an email to let me know so that we can plan for the morning up on Nose Hill.  We will be investigating signs and evidence of animals that live on Nose Hill.

The Black Dot Experiment

This afternoon we did a science experiment called the Black Dot.
The question we were trying to find the answer to was:
What makes black?
Procedure:
First we had to put a black dot on the coffee filter with smelly marker.
Next we had to use a dropper to put three drops of water on the dot.
We had to watch and see what happened.
The black started to change to blue and black then pink and orange some people even had green.

Finally we had to add a few more drops to any black that was still on the filter.

We noticed that all kinds of colors came out of the black dot.  We saw pink, green, blue, yellow, orange, red and even some purple.

On Monday we will finish recording our experiment






We hope to see you all at our Festive evening tonight.  The kids have been working hard to prepare a surprise song for you.

We will be starting the Fill a Sock campaign next week.  Below is a list of items that can be sent in for the five days next week.

This morning we started off with our centers and guided reading.  After that Mrs. Hamby read a story called, "The Worm Family".  We worked on adding ideas to our important me bubbles and some of us also started making puppets for our family page in our books.  The puppets will be attached to strings and then tucked inside the books like an interactive book.  We will be making the books out of paper bags.

After recess we had printing and word work.  The grade two worked on practicing the spelling of the months of the year.  The grade ones worked on printing the letter Qq and finishing up the printing from yesterday.

In math today we worked on our opinion survey project and those of us that had finished our projects went to work on Mathletics.  Most of us are working on finishing the graphing part or the refection questions.

This afternoon we worked on our color chip challenge.  It was hard to make some of the colors on the rainbow chips.  It was really hard to make an Amethyst color.  We had to try many times to get that color right. (Iain, Elaina).  The more colors we made the better we got at it.  We had to work together as a group to create our colors.  Today some of us had to make tints or shades by adding either the white to the color or the black.

In finishing up time we worked to finish  our journals or our "What is Important about Me" bubbles.

In gym today we played a pillow polo game.  We ended the day with a practice of our song for tomorrow night.  For those of us that won't be there we will also have a chance to perform it during our carol singing time in a couple weeks.

We picked a new sharing category today.  It is to bring your favorite book.  If it is a shorter book then Mrs. Hamby will read it to the class.  If it is a longer book then we would just tell about the book.
Tomorrow the helper is Loti.

Just a reminder that the festive evening is tomorrow night.

Tuesday, December 5

Here is what our schedule was today:
Guided Reading
Library
What is Important About Me Bubbles
Printing and Word Work
- In Word Work today the grade twos had a spelling test on the days of the week words.  They have been practicing them in a variety of ways with a partner for the past week. 

Math
In math we worked on finishing up our surveys and graphs.  Some of us have started working on the two reflection questions about the information we found out from doing the survey.  We will be talking about what we should be doing with the information that we have gained.  Hopefully the kids will have some great ideas that we can follow up on.

This afternoon we read a story by Peter Reynolds called, "Sky Color".  Mrs Hamby did a demonstration of taking a color chip a trying to replicate the color using only the paint palettes that we had.  In them we had blue, green red, yellow, purple and orange.  We had to try it too.  We only had a short time to test it out since we had to go to music.  We will have more time tomorrow.  Once we recreate the color we put it into our art journal and then write the name underneath.  Some of the names are pretty cool, like Friendly Frog and Springtime Grass, Enchanted Coach Ride and Princess Power.




Music
In music we practiced our song for Thursday's Festive evening. 

Gym
We used Pillow Polo sticks and played a game that was like floor hockey except we used the pillow polo sticks instead of hockey sticks.  We had two separate games, one for the grade ones and one for the grade twos.

We ended the day by doing our jobs, reading a story called, "Little Santa", and then saying goodbye to Mr. Dockerty.

Happy Birthday to Gavin today.
Our helper tomorrow is Payton.
A lunch lady notice is coming home today.

This morning we started the day with journal pictures and guided reading.  Before recess we tried to finish our journal writing.  Our goal for grade twos this morning was to write two hamburger paragraphs and 5 ideas or more for the grade ones.  We can tell we are getting better in our journal writing if we can do more than we usually do and we complete the work before recess.  We can also tell we are getting better when we can use the sentences starters and find some of our own words on the chart or sound them out on our own.  Mrs. Hamby has noticed that more of us can work in our journals with less help from a grown up.

After recess we had word work and printing.  The grade ones only have four letters left.  Today we worked on the letter Bb.  The grade twos practiced their days of the week words one last time before they give each other a little test tomorrow. 

In math today some of us worked on finishing our opinion survey while others began working on their graphs.  We had to tally up the numbers in our choice boxes and they had to add up to 20.  If we had more or less we had to try and figure out a way to solve that problem since we only asked and recorded twenty people for our survey.

We began our afternoon with a story called "Ish" by Peter Reynolds.  Another one of his stories is called "The Dot".  Mr. Dockerty read that one to us a while ago.  We worked on adding black to a color.  It was the same color we used last week for tints.  We learned that when you add black to a color it is called a shade.  We had to add black a little bit at a time for each strip that we painted.  By the end we had the darkest color.

Today in gym we played what seemed like hockey but we used pillow polo sticks and cosom balls instead.  We had to weave in and out of discs that were on the floor.  We knew we were doing a good job if we controlled the ball and didn't hit the discs.  After that we worked with a partner trying to hit the ball to them as they stood across from us in the gym.  We had to try and hit it straight.  If we hit our partners disk that meant we had good aim and we could give ourselves a point.

Our helper tomorrow will be Payton, if she's back from her trip (and reads this blog).

Tomorrow is Mr. Dockerty's last day in our classroom and he will be with us for the whole day.

Signs That Animals Live In Whispering Woods

Today we went into the Whispering Woods as junior zoologists.  Mrs. Hamby showed us some artifacts and tracks that she had found when she was out snowshoeing in the woods.  We talked about being good observers so that we too, could discover things when we are out exploring the woods.

We went to see whether or not we could find signs of animals living in the Whispering Woods.  We were in groups of three.  One person in the group was the cartographer, one was the photographer and the third person was the statistician. We had to tally on a chart the following things that we found: scat, tracks, fur, feathers, bones, homes, tracks and we had a category for other.  When we discovered something we had to take a photo of it, mark it as a tally on the chart and we also had to mark on a map where we found it in the Whispering Woods.  We ended the morning by gathering our findings on a chart and sharing what we discovered.  This was good practice for when we use the same skills on Nose Hill.

Coffin Cares Assembly

We began our day with guided reading followed by working on our important ideas about me project.  We only had a short time for this since this morning we had our first Dr. Coffin Cares Assembly.  We recognized some of the important teams that work behind the scenes at our school such as the Green Team, Destination Conservation and the lLeadership team.  The Green team did a small skit about the use of snack wrappers and where they need to go for recycling.  We are one of the few schools in Calgary that is recycling candy/snack wrappers.  We also sang our school song lead by grade six students.  Mrs. Polski said that the school would be ordering more school t-shirts and possibly hoodies for families to buy.

After recess we practiced our song for the festive evening.  I have included a copy of the words in case you want to practice at home.



In math we worked on our opinion surveys.  Today we carried out the survey and some of us still need to finish that next week
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This afternoon we had music followed by self-portrait painting.  In gym we played the basketball game that we learned yesterday.  Tomorrow is Fresh Air Friday and we will be spending most of the morning outside in the woods.  Please make sure that your child has all the outdoor clothing needed to be comfortable for the morning.

This morning after guided reading we worked on our "what is important about me" ideas.  We created topic bubbles to include with our self portrait and then to be part of our book.  Some of our topics were celebrations, sports, family, friends, hobbies, art, music, travel and adventure, to name just a few. 

After recess we practiced our song for the festive evening with both grade one and two classes.

In math we worked on our opinion survey questions.  Tomorrow most of us will be ready to begin our survey.

This afternoon we began painting our self portraits.  Mrs. Hamby demonstrated how to paint various skin colors without using white and then also, hair and eyes.  We got started on painting bur we didn't finish.  We saw that all you need is bit of paint and then water to spread the color.  The tricky part is not using too much water or else it spreads and runs into other colors. 

In gym we played a game that was sort of like basketball.  We used a hoop for the baskets and our team had to try and get the ball to the person on our team that was standing in the hoop and they had to try to catch the ball.  Before we could try to get a point in our teams basket, we had to pass it to three people on our team.  We talked about making sure that we weren't the only one on our team having all the fun and that we needed to make sure we shared the ball with our team mates.  We will play this game again tomorrow.

Our helper tomorrow is Mika.
There is a festive evening notice going home today.  Please check your child's back pack for this notice.

What is Important About Me?

This morning when we had some new center choices during guided reading.  One new choice was making a popsicle stick word spacer and the other new center was making a mini book report about a story we like.  Ipads/word work was also still a center.  After guided reading we had library.

We read a story called "The Important Book".  We talked about what is important about us.  We each had to think about what is important about me and to me.  This will help us get ready to begin working on a book about ourselves.  When we know what is important we will know what we want to include in our books.  We will be making paper bag books.

After recess Mrs. Polski came and shared a story with us called, "Good Morning Canada".  It is a TD Book Giveaway program and we each got to have a copy to take home for ourselves.

In math today we talked about reasons for doing a survey.  One reason for a survey is when you need to find out an opinion because you want to make a change or have made a change.  We came up with Dr. Coffin ideas of questions you could ask for a survey.  Some of the ideas were;
Do you like fun lunch in the gym or in the classroom?
Do you like eating lunch more in the gym or in the classroom?
Do you like the curtain open or closed?
Which clubs would you want at our school? (choices provided by student)
Which days do you want for Spirit Days?
We only had enough time to share our question or write it down so we will have to work on them again tomorrow.

Before lunch we had to practice a song that we will be sharing for the festive evening.

After lunch we learned about tints and shades.  We practiced making tints by choosing a color and then adding a little bit more white to it each time.  We started with white and then added our color choice to it using a little bit more each time, so the last strip of color that we did was the darkest.  You could see the color getting darker with each strip of the paper.  It was cool!  Next time we will do shades by adding black.  That one will be trickier!

In gym today we played a mini basketball game with two people versus two people using hoops on the floor to score a point.  Each team of two had a hoop.

We still have lots of treats left over from treat day so we will be selling treats again tomorrow.

Our helper tomorrow is Yazmine. 

Saa'kokoto's Visit Today

This morning was our usual Monday morning routine.  We started with guided reading as others worked on their journal pictures.  At carpet time Mr. Hamby wrote a "hamburger paragraph" about her weekend.  She wrote about going to see the A Christmas Carol by Theatre Calgary.  We also had to find and correct her mistakes.  We also had a story called, "Snowmen All Year".  We worked on our journals until recess time.

After recess we had printing and word work time followed by Math.  In math today we had to finish our 4 choice survey graph.  When we were done we got to go onto Mathletics.

After lunch today Saa'kokoto came to visit our classroom again.  He talked to us about signs that animals give us to show that there is a change coming in the season and the weather.  He talked about horses becoming frisky and active before a storm.  He said that most animals turn their bodies to the storm but the bison never do.  They face the storm head on and all the snow gets caught up in the hair around their face.  That is one of the ways that we know that the buffalo are native to this land.  Most other animals turn their backs or bodies to the storm.  Horses and cows always do this.   He said that in the fall you can see crows gathering as well as other birds such as geese, to migrate to a warmer place.  He talked about how some animals including wild dogs such as wolves and coyotes get thicker coats to stay warm through the winter.  He also shared a story with us and the lesson in the story was that what matters most is what is on the inside of a person's heart, rather than what is on the outside, someone's appearance.  We won't have a chance to have another visit until the spring.

After our visit with Saa'kokoto we had time to finish up our journals followed by gym.

In gym today we played a mini one on one basketball type game called "Hoops".  We had a partner and a hoop on the floor.  Our partner had to guard the hoop and try to prevent us from scoring a point by bouncing the ball in the hoop. Our partner would wave his arms and use his body to block us from the hoop.   If we got a point we switched spots.
After that our class did jobs and sharing.  We noticed that our Amaryllis bulb seemed to be split open a little bit more. Maybe it is preparing for the stem to start pushing itself up.
* Our helper tomorrow is Maria.
*Tomorrow is also treat day hosted by room two.  Remember to bring 25 cents for a treat to be purchased at recess time.

Fresh Air Friday and our visit from Saa'kokoto (Randy Bottle)

I can't see anyone...

I think I see someone over there!

Here we are playing Camouflage in the Whispering Woods.  We had a conversation about predators and prey.  One way to tell whether or not the animal is a predator or prey is to look at where their eyes are placed.  A helpful saying is "Eyes on the side ready to hide.  Eyes on the front ready to hunt."  We also discussed things that prey would do or what they have on their bodies for protection and adaptability.  Our rule in the game was that the predator had to count to 20.  We all had to hide but we had to be able to see the predator from our hiding spot.  The predator had to stand in one spot and when we were spotted they would describe us or call out our name and we had to come out.  We played 4 rounds of the game.  It was so much fun!  We were surprised that even with some of our bright colors we could still hide in the trees by laying down in a dip or sitting against a tree.

Between activities we had our visit with Elder Randy Bottle.  His Blackfoot name is Saa'kokoto.  He talked to us about where colors come from in nature.  He said that the Blackfoot only use five colors to paint their tipis.  They are black, white, blue, red and yellow. All the colors come from berries, rocks and plants.  Black come from charcoal after the fire.  He told us that all berries were medicine.  He also taught us that the carvings at "Writing On Stone Provincial Park" were done by using deer antlers.  They can be very sharp and that is how the pictoglyphs were made.  They would use red ochre to add the red color to the pictures.  We will have another visit with him again on Monday afternoon.

Our second outdoor activity was the Rainbow Chip Walk.  We went out to the Natureground and we had to take a color chip out of the bag and see whether or not we could find that color in nature.  If we couldn't find the color in nature then we could look for something man made that was in the playground environment.