It's been another week on measurement and this time it was all about using our measuring sticks. We went searching on Tuesday for sticks in Spirit Square and Madame presented us with the ultimate challenge: find a stick that was just as long as her metre stick. Unfortunately none of us were successful, but we did find lots of inspiring sticks, anyway. We labelled our sticks and measured them with unifix cubes to see how long/short they were in comparison with others. In the process, we made an important realization - bent sticks don't work well for measurement. Later in the week, we used our sticks to measure different things around the playground. Apart from measurement skills (learning where to start our measurements from, and how to use a short item to measure a long surface), the process also drew out some unplanned skills - counting, number recognition, problem solving, and teamwork. The spider-web required some extra determination to measure! We have also continued practicing our French counting to 100 in class and our favourite part is when Madame allows some "controlled chaos" and has us jump in the air for every multiple of 10. We've managed to soften her and she now even lets us jump off chairs, as long as we're actually counting and are being good listeners. Shhh!... we've started a super secret project for our moms. This one was tough. It involved working with clay that was super spongy and difficult to mold. But we persevered and were quite pleased with our creations in the end. But... you'll have to wait another week before you find out what it is!! No picture clues! Our tadpoles continue to grow bigger by the day, as do the bean plants that we planted last week! We enjoyed learning about the tadpole's lifecycle and about the parts of a plant. We are always excited when it's our turn to water the plants! We also had not one, but TWO assemblies this week! ...on "Body Science" and on "Earth Day". We love getting a chance to see the other classes over Zoom and to participate with our school community! In the forest, we are noticing signs of Spring everywhere as the forest floor becomes so much more lush and full with greenery and even wildflowers. We were also excited to find all kinds of bugs and creatures when we rolled over some logs. Some of those creatures even made it back into the classroom with us, soon to be released back into the wild. In order to qualify for the esteemed position of "banker" for the day, we have to be able to answer a variety of questions from Madame... "How many nickels are in a quarter? How many quarters in a loonie? How many loonies in a toonie?" If we can answer them fast and well, we can earn the rotating, voluntary job. Until this week, we only had Grade 1s interested in trying it but hats-off to Ryan who is in Kindergarten and did a masterful job as one of our daily bankers! There is a group of boys who enjoy spending most of their play time trading their coins... from nickels to quarters, then to dimes, then back to nickels again, just because they can. They don't even realize that they're learning in the process and shhh!... Madame isn't going to tell them. ;-) And a bonus pic of Allie, just because she's awesome and we have enjoyed her musical renditions this week...
Here in K/1, we take our theme days and holidays seriously. And that's why "Earth Day" became more of an "Earth Week". First, the garden came to our class... We learned that plants are really important because they can feed insects, birds, animals and even humans! We even got to try planting our own bean seeds to see if we can grow some food of our own. But the highlight, of course, was our field trip yesterday to the Pitt Meadows Community Garden. Thank you again to Stardom Childcare, Amsterdam Garden Centre, and the parent volunteers for making this great event possible! We weeded, harvested some kale, and planted new flowers and seeds. What a great experience it was to get our hands dirty and do something for the Earth. In the end, Madame made sure we all repeated the phrase, "I made a difference today!" ...because we did! We look forward to seeing photo updates of the garden from Ms. Angela at Stardom, and maybe even munching on some of that kale at home! anxious hands awaiting seeds for planting... We also learned that the Community Garden has their own bee hive! ...but these aren't just any bees... they're bees without stingers! They fly around the garden, gathering nectar to make honey, but aren't a nuisance to humans. It wasn't all work and no play at the garden... After an hour toiling in the sun, we wandered over to the playground for some popsicle treats, a picnic, and play time! We even happened upon a game of California kick ball and had a great time cheering on the players...and climbing the backstop. We were so inspired by flowers this week that we decided to make some tie-dye flower art. And in continuing our focus on Earth Day, we spent time picking up litter around the school grounds. We also listened to a few books and "read alouds" about how we can make a difference in our world. Below is one of the English ones with a list at the end of lots of kid-friendly ways to help our world. P.S. We thought our tadpoles were growing legs, but it turns out that they were actually just pooping. Oops! Heh... We are still patiently waiting for their REAL legs to appear! P.P.S. We measured stuff this week in Math too. It turns out that you can't walk all the way around the school with a ball of yarn. Ask us how we know. Other fun pics...
We ate on chairs We ate on stairs We ate in a tree And with good company We ate on a hill It was such a thrill We sure love our picnics. The weather couldn't have been more gorgeous ALL week! We tried to take advantage of it with lots of outdoor literacy activities... running to our dictée words as Madame yelled them out, spelling while kicking and throwing a ball, hangman, etc. We have also been practicing for a French play that we plan to perform in the next month or so. We took our rehearsal outdoors and ended up with some curious audience members from other classes. In Math, we have begun a unit on measurement. In Kindergarten and Grade 1, we don't yet begin to use standard units for measurement (ex. centimetres, inches...) but we introduce the concept of measurement with non-standard units. We started the week by measuring the length of the classroom with our bodies. We estimated how many people we thought it would take and some of us were quite surprised by the actual answer. Would the number be the same if we measured with babies? How about with full-grown adults? We realized that our bodies can actually be great measurement tools because we always have them with us! Ears and knees don't work so well for measuring, but hands and feet are great! We enjoyed going around the classroom and using our hands to measure all kinds of things (even our friends!), and then comparing our results with students that have smaller hands or bigger hands. The problem with using our hands, we found, was that not everybody has the same sized hands so it was difficult to trust our results. We needed a unit of measurement that was always the same size. ...enter the cubes! In Science, we continue to monitor our tadpoles closely every day, always looking for signs of them sprouting little legs. Here is a super cool little documentary, filmed in BC, that we watched in class today about tadpole migration... And some other fun photos... A new pencil holder was born!... Some of us have been super diligent savers with our classroom money and were able to buy some big-ticket items today!
It's "Earth Month"! Ok, technically there's no such thing. "Earth Day" is on April 22, but we are going to be taking the weeks leading up to "Earth Day" to highlight ways that we can make changes to help our world. We will be spotlighting 3 different categories - electricity, emissions and waste. This week's focus was on electricity. We learned first about static electricity. We had a lot of fun creating static electricity by rubbing a balloon on our heads and were especially surprised to see how the electrically-charged balloon stuck to the wall! We also took off our shoes and tried shuffling around the room to create a "zap!" when we touched each other. We also talked about current electricity and all of the different places where we could find it in the classroom. But after learning that electricity comes from power plants that pollute the air, we brainstormed some ways that we could reduce our use of electricity: turning off lights/radio/TV when we're not in a room, unplugging some devices when we're not using them, etc. We were also given a special surprise this week from Bennett and Lucas!... frog eggs! A huge "thank you" to the boys and their family for scooping the eggs out of Alouette Lake for us. We have been so excited to take a look at the jar every day and monitor their growth. They've even begun to sprout tails already! In French class, we have completed another review of all of the digraphs (two letters that together make one sound) that we need to know for Grade 1. Kindergarten students have participated with us so many of them are becoming experts, too! We have been working very hard on creating beautiful art/sound books that we are excited to bind together next week and send home soon. This week's focus was on the sound "é" which can be made in many different ways - et, -ez, -er, -es. We took our learning outdoors for a game of vocabulary tag. Ok, this sounds weird. But when you get to chase your friends around a field wielding a plastic "lézard" or "un éléphant", it's surprisingly amusing! Some of us are becoming so adept at making change with our classroom economy that Madame has decided to let us try being the banker for the day. Tyson did a masterful job as our first banker, even giving advice to some students who would drop a load of change in front of him and ask, "What can I get with this?" It was a stressful job, but he handled it like a pro! Bon travail, Tyson! We look forward to having more student bankers in the upcoming weeks. We made a lot of fun discoveries on our nature walk this week... ...an Easter tree... ...sticks that look like letters... ("it's an 'F'!") ...tiny creatures... We also read a book in class about feeding the birds, so we decided to bring some birdseed along with us. Despite our best attempts, we didn't manage to get any birds to come to us. (We can't understand why our yelling and running wasn't more inviting!) ;-) But in the end, we made a cozy nest for them, complete with birdseed snacks, and we are confident that they filled their bellies after we left the park. Other fun photos from the week... Thank you, Heather R, for some of these photos and for being our volunteer this week!
Happy April Fool's! Or, in France, the day is referred to as "poisson d'avril" (April fish). French kids like to bring paper fish to school and tape them to the backs of unsuspecting classmates. Madame decided to bring this tradition to our classroom today, but the joke was clearly on her. It was also Crazy Hair day today! And the kids did not disappoint! We also need to say, "Joyeuses Pâques"! ...Happy Easter! We've been reading some French stories about Easter and discussing how it is a celebration of new life. We talked about how Christians celebrate how Jesus came back to life, but people in general celebrate new life in nature with the coming of Spring. We had fun coming up with ideas of all of the things in nature that "come back to life": plants sprouting again, caterpillars becoming butterflies, and even how we cut our hair and nails and they grow back again! So many great student-generated ideas! In light of the season, we had some fun with Easter art. We also discovered a new favourite classroom song. We love jumping and dancing along with the bunny. We were so excited to return after the break and find that the spiderweb on the playground had been replaced! It has been a hot commodity, for sure! In fact, we have been spending lots of time outdoors between picnics, literacy activities, and forest adventures... "Look! I made a salad!" Baby plants coming to life! We were so excited to show Madame when we discovered them! Practicing our knot tying... Some of us are starting to be able to do the bunny ears knot. How seasonally appropriate! :-) Thank you, Heather E, for many of these photos!
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