Yesterday was a very special day - a leap year! We learned about why this crazy day exists once every 4 years. Quiz us to see if we can remember our lesson! Remind us that it has something to do with how many days it takes the Earth to travel around the sun. As a goofy connection to leap year, Madame spontaneously decided to have us leap frog around the classroom, because... why not?? It was also "Pink Shirt Day" this week, where we were reminded of the importance of being kind to one another and being a good friend. We were so excited to welcome the RCMP to our school and to work with them to create a school-wide banner about lifting each other up. We also had an assembly where our class opened the ceremony with our French and English land acknowledgment. We did such an amazing job that the VP tapped Madame on the shoulder and asked if we could come do it again for the Intermediate assembly. The big kids were so impressed with us that they cheered, clapped and hollered, which... if you know many big kids, you'll know that they typically prefer to temper their enthusiasm, so we must have been pretty incredible. ;-) The other big theme of this week - Carnaval! ...a week-long festival in Quebec that celebrates winter, culture, and tradition with all kinds of fun activities. Our first activity was learning about the "ceinture fléchée", a sash that French-Canadian fir traders used to make and wear, but that was also very important to the Métis and the Indigenous communities in the 19th century. These special sashes were made using finger-knitting techniques. So... we gave it a try! Some of us made some impressively long belts by the end of the week, and a couple of us even tried weaving in different colours. We owe a big "merci" to Ry-Ry and Mila in Grades 2 and 3 who came to help teach us some techniques. The "Bonhomme carnaval", a snowman, is the official symbol of Carnaval, so our team challenge this week was to create our own "bonhomme" using fake snow and our finger-knitted sashes. We also watched some crazy cool videos of the ice sculptures that are made during this winter festival, and then tried to create our own "sculptures" out of marshmallows and glue. Most didn't turn out exactly as we had planned, but we had fun making them and eating the left-over "ice". ;-) A signature event at Carnaval is the massive snowball fight. So clearly, we needed to have one of those, too. The classic Carnaval tunes in the background really got us in the mood. And as if that wasn't enough excitement for one week, we also got to visit our big buddy class' "arcade" that they made out of cardboard. Their creativity was so impressive! Madame couldn't stop laughing at the "Guac-a-mole"! Extra photos...
It's "100s Day" and we really got into character today. Madame used a special app to age our photos and the results were... well... interesting. Our big buddies helped us write out our predictions for what we'll be doing when we're 100 years old. Some highlights (translated from their French writing): - adopt a cat, buy some food, then go shopping - sleep, wear nice clothes, and buy a dog named "Spot" - watch the News - go skydiving - sit on the couch all day and watch TV - have an office all to myself - live in a basement, buy a sofa, and make lots of money - eat lots of cupcakes We loved making 100s day "trail-mix" to help us count by 10s all the way to 100. We also got to go to Mme Belson's 2/3 classroom to see some 100s day projects that her students completed. It was so fun to see the variety and chat with the other students. And, the big climactic moment... We've been counting the school days since September, always adding ones, then eventually trading for tens... and today we got to trade our ten 10s for a 100s block! We were so pumped! On a completely different note, with Family Day last weekend, Madame taught us a new song and had us practice writing about our families. We are starting to get so good at sounding out words all on our own! Also, did you know that the first U.S. spacecraft in over 50 years just landed on the moon yesterday? Apparently it's exploring its surroundings and is looking, among other things, for potential sources of ice water that could be converted to drinking water or even rocket fuel for future missions to Mars. Since we've been tracking the moon a lot this year, we were excited to watch this exciting moment on the news. Extra photos...
Happy Valentines' Week! ...and welcome to February - the shortest month of the year, with the most special days to recognize! But we're not complaining. We had a ton of fun (and a ton of sugar!) on Valentine's Day. We even had a special visit from Nana Kesler, who so lovingly made us individualized bookmarks and created special goody-bags for us. We were so thrilled that we literally almost knocked her over with one of our multiple group hugs. Madame had to dive to rescue her. (Next lesson: gentle touches...) Even the guinea pigs received Valentine's Day cards! They thought the cards were very tasty. We had another special presenter in this week, too! This time it was a visitor from Science World who taught us all about electricity and the way electrons travel through different circuits. We loved attempting the hands-on challenges that he gave us and trying to create different circuits of our own. We had a special treat for show-and-tell this week, too. Normally we play a game of "What's in your bag?" in French where we start out asking, "Is it a person? Is it an animal? Is it a thing?" Usually if we say it's an animal, we give a collective gasp and ask if it's living or non-living. The answer, of course, is always "non-living"... that is, until this week! Merci, Mia, d'avoir apporté ton chien! And we decided to try something different this week and bring some friends on our forest walk with us! We had a great time finding old friends and making new ones from Mme Paschalis' Grade 1/2 French class. For the most part, we did a good job of teaching them the boundaries and the rules of the forest. Extra photos...
Happy Lunar New Year! We have been tracking the moon's cycle for several months and learned that the Chinese celebrate their new year based on this month's "new moon" - when the moon is completely dark to us on Earth because the back side of it is facing the sun. This year's Chinese zodiac animal is the dragon! We had so much fun making special accordion dragons with our big buddies. The time has come for us to be initiated to the never-ending world of verb conjugations. Any parents or grandparents who attended French Immersion know aaaaaaall about verb conjugations. But we are starting small!... with just the singular pronouns... We have been practicing these throughout the week in our journals, and we are starting to get pretty good at them! And speaking of French, we have a new "monitrice" named Marilou who has begun coming to visit us twice per week. She's fresh off the plane from Montreal and will be leading us in oral games/activities. Madame says it's pretty special because Madame, herself, had the same job as Marilou, only as an English "monitrice" when she was a young, spring chicken 20 years ago, living in France. We are excited about all of the things we will learn from Marilou! Our classroom economy system has been humming along, with an impressive increase in our French-speaking efforts thanks to the fact that we are now getting PAID to speak to Madame in French! Some of us have even started little side businesses... building or creating things and selling them to our classmates for classroom money. We also had more students become "home owners" this week, having saved enough to purchase their home outright and rid themselves of their weekly rent payments. And at least one student has started purchasing additional investment properties. ;-) We have gotten so good at counting our nickels that Madame decided we were ready to move on to dimes. And this requires counting by 10, and sorting our nickels into groups for exchange. There's also a song for that, as Madame brainwashes us to learn our skip-counting... (one of Madame's first attempts at video-making... the kids asked, "Why do you look so different?!") We turned the song into somewhat of a "rap battle" and ended up yelling our numbers at each other. For Christmas, Teddy gifted Madame some little flower pots so we decided to try growing some grass seeds in them. We've enjoyed checking its daily growth progress and today we even fed some to the guinea pigs! They were very happy with their homegrown treat! Now that our ice skating trips are finished, it's time to get back into our forest walk routine. A big "merci" to Nana Kesler for joining us again this week! Madame forgot her ukulélé so instead of singing our usual forest song, we practiced some knot tying. This was a challenge for a lot of us, but we kept trying even when it was hard and many of us made our first bow! And of course, we played. We made fascinating discoveries. We built forts. And we even learned to set up a tent. Extra photos...
It's February 2nd, and that means it's Groundhog Day! We were on the edge of our seats... would Canada's "Wiarton Willie" predict an early Spring, or would we be doomed to 6 more weeks of Winter? It would all come down to whether or not he saw his shadow. And that called for some Science... What makes shadows, anyway?... We played around with a flashlight as the sun, first shining it directly on our groundhog, revealing a shadow, then blocking the "sun" with a cloud, eliminating the shadow. So it seemed we should be rooting for a cloudy day for Wiarton Willie! In the end, we were thrilled to tune in to CBC's coverage of Wiarton Willie's prediction and find out that the clouds hath smiled upon us. They blocked the sun, in turn blocking Wiarton's shadow, meaning that Spring will soon be here! We also learned that there are a whole lot of other groundhogs out there predicting the weather!... Shubenacadie Sam, Fred la marmotte, and Punxsutawney Phil (from the U.S.A.). There's even a lobster from Nova Scotia who has been encroaching on the groundhogs' monopoly of weather prediction ("Lucy the Lobster"). Thankfully, all of the groundhogs agreed about an early Spring. Lucy the Lobster was more pessimistic, but... what do lobsters know, anyway?! And groundhogs weren't the only animals on display this week. We also got to meet an amazing barn owl and red-tailed hawk, thanks to a visit from the OWL society ("Orphaned Wildlife" Rehabilitation Society)! The presenter taught us so many interesting facts about raptors, including the shocking fact that peregrine falcons can dive at speeds of 300km/h!!! We learned all about the foods they eat and how their various eyes/ears/beaks/wings/talons help them when hunting, etc. We also learned that the French actually distinguish two categories of owls where in English, we just refer to them all as "owls". In French, owls with feathers on their head that look like ears are called "des hiboux", and owls without these feathers are called "des chouettes". We did some art to represent the "hiboux"... In Math, we're trying something new!... Math stations! In small groups, we have begun rotating between written work, Math games, and small group lessons with Madame. We only had time to try this out once this week and didn't quite get through a full rotation, but Madame says that she was pleased with how well it went and how she was able to begin targeting the specific needs and curiosities of the various groups. We are looking forward to seeing how this new routine progresses. We also had our last ice skating day for this year, and we lucked out with a walk that didn't involve snow or rain! Madame was so impressed with all of our progress in just 3 practice sessions, and with our determination. We kept trying, even when it was hard! Extra pics...
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