It was a hard week for us with the passing of our beloved Turbo, the only chick that managed to hatch. He had been such a good snuggler and had captured all of our hearts. Some of us had some big emotions to process, but we made some special drawings in his memory and had a little funeral. We felt like we needed to sing something, but weren't quite sure what, so we ended up with a soulful version of "O Canada". We were all very respectful of this process and of each other's feelings. But the good news is that we now have more chicks! Farmer Crystal had been wanting some specific breeds of chickens and managed to order them from New York this week, so we got to enjoy them fresh off the airplane. We learned that even chicks have to go through customs! They will hang out with us for the next week or so, and then head home with Farmer Crystal. We are slowly getting used to their New Yorker accents. Thankfully none of them have insisted on wearing their stilettos. Meet the cast of characters... In other news, Madame had a "fan girl" moment this week as Will Stroet, one of her favourite French-speaking kids' musicians, came to perform at our school! He was very engaging and we all had a great time singing and dancing along to his music! We have spent some time in previous weeks learning about nouns and adjectives and this week, it was time.... time for the beginning of the rest of our French Immersion lives... the introduction to VERBS. For possibly the next 10 to 12 years, we will wrestle with the complexities of French verb conjugations and all their irregularities so we might as well start now! (Madame actually secretly loves this stuff because she is a self-professed grammar nerd.) We began learning how to conjugate one of THE most common irregular verbs - "être" (to be). We actually use this verb all the time in our journal-writing so it was high time that we learned to write it correctly. We will continue to practice these conjugations in sentences throughout the coming weeks, and will slowly add more to them. We also came to the realization that we use verbs aaaaall the time in our daily show-and-tell when Madame interviews us about what we DO with our special object? "Do you EAT it? Do you PLAY with it? Do you THROW it? Do you SLEEP with it?..." We were already experts at identifying verbs without even realizing it! In Science, we are reminded these days every time we look at the bulletin board about the importance of washing our hands. We have been watching our bread experiment over the last several weeks and the slice that was rubbed all over dirty hands is the only one so far that has gotten mouldy. And boy, is it ever getting mouldy!! While we continue to focus on our addition and subtraction skills in Math, we have added in a new focus - MEASUREMENT! We tried measuring tables and chairs with hands, feet, and even ears, but we realized they weren't optimal measurement tools because everybody's hands, feet and ears are different sizes. What about paperclips and unfix cubes?... those would be great tools because each one of them is exactly the same length as the other, meaning my friend and I could come up with exactly the same measurements for an object even if we were measuring separately. We were *just* about to try out some measuring with the paper clips and unifix cubes when Madame decided to be dramatic and toss those worksheets in the recycling. "You know what?!... you guys are sooooo smart that we're going to LEVEL UP and begin measuring with REAL measurement tools." Out came the rulers, metre sticks and measuring tape! We learned about millimetres, centimetres, decimetres and metres and why the different units of measurement would be optimal in different scenarios. ("You wouldn't use a metre stick to measure an ant!" And "you wouldn't use millimetres to measure the length of the slide!") We took our workbooks outside and tried our hand at some of our own measurements and recordings. Extra pics...
Exciting times in the classroom! Meet "Turbo", our new chicky friend that just hatched this week! We removed the ball pit balls from the bathtub and have made her (him??) a special temporary "chicken coop" in the tub. We are all very enamoured with her. Madame actually had to be absent on the day that the chick hatched (boo!!), but she received regular text updates from the custodian and the secretary and returned to find the students had made her a map to find the chick, just in case she didn't know where it was located. We continued our egg-speriment (ha!) from last week and removed the egg from the vinegar we had been soaking it in. We were amazed to find that the outer shell had completely dissolved and left only the inner membrane containing the rest of the egg. That meant that the egg was now bouncy! We had so much fun squishing it delicately between our fingers... or, not so delicately, since we eventually made it burst. Thankfully into a bowl. We have also been taking a look at the chick's life cycle! This has had the added bonus of reviewing sequential French vocabulary: first, second, next, last... And speaking of sequential vocabulary, we did another "how to..." writing page this week, this time with the theme of "how to eat a candy". We were particularly fond of this theme, as we needed hands-on observation materials in order to properly deduce the correct steps involved. We are continuing to learn to sound out words on our own and trust our own instincts when writing. And, hey!... it's Earth Month! We've been so distracted by the chicks that we've barely touched on the topic. This week we read some great books about Earth Heroes and talked about ways that we can make a difference for our world. One of the topics discussed was the importance of plants for helping us breathe. In keeping with that theme, we decided to do some plant-inspired art. We started with a directed drawing of a tulip, then traced over it with dyed glue. Finally, we coloured some tinfoil with markers, sprayed it with water, and laid our artwork over top. We were so pleasantly surprised by the results! We also headed to the forest with our big buddies to make some cool nature art, and just to play and enjoy being in nature's playground. Madame thinks the big buddies secretly had just as much fun as the little buddies. ;-) On Friday, we had an assembly all about Earth Month. Some of us even got up in front of the school to answer questions. We got really nervous just before we were called to go up, but we mustered our courage, shoved our fears, pictured the audience in their underwear, and did a great job up there! Aaaaall the chick pics...
Today was "Dress like your favourite storybook character" day! We had some fabulous outfits... We also participated in school-wide "Drop Everything And Read" event in the afternoon. We enjoyed finding different corners around the room to get cozy with a book. But 20 minutes is a LONG time to try to stay silent!! We have been working on sequence writing and learning how to use the French equivalents of "first", "then", "next", "last". Madame had us go to the garden to make mud pies and then record our ingredients and our process. The writing piece of this activity was very difficult for some of us, not only because of all of the French writing involved, but also because it was complicated to try to break down the steps of our pie-making in our minds. But we persevered through the task! We will continue to practice this form of writing in the coming weeks with other fun activities. We have also been continuing to learn about eggs this week as we anxiously await our chicks' hatch date next Tuesday! Madame had us do all kinds of science/math activities with hard-boiled and soft-boiled eggs, and then we also began an experiment with an egg in vinegar to see what will we become of the egg after we let it soak in the vinegar all weekend. And it was our final ice skating week! We really enjoyed this series of practice sessions and we had some amazing mini coaches who even helped Madame learn to skate backwards and stop without using a wall. (Ok, well... she learned the theory of how to do it, but definitely has not mastered either skill). Extra photos...
In the spirit of Easter, and having chicken eggs currently incubating in our classroom, we decided to investigate bird nests and eggs this week. We looked at some sample nests that Madame had in the class and then took a walk with our Big Buddies to the forest. The challenge: Could we make a nest as well as the birds? And the added challenge: Was our nest strong enough to hold a raw egg for the entire walk back to school, and then for the rest of the school day? We definitely emerged from the experience with a profound new respect for the birds who create incredible structures with just their beaks! We found it difficult and we even have opposable thumbs! Some of us discovered that we could rip cedar bark into strands and use it to bind pieces of our nest together. This lead to some great follow-up discussion about how Indigenous people used to use cedar bark for all kinds of things like weaving baskets, making hats, clothing, nets, mats, etc. In fact, they often refer to the cedar tree as "the tree of life" because it has so many uses. We had a few casualties on our walk back to the school, but most of the eggs survived and developed personalities throughout the day. Some brave parents even brought them home in their vehicles where the eggs eventually met their demise in a frying pan. In other Science-y news, we began an ongoing experiment this week to test mould growth. A few of us were given the task of making our hands REALLY dirty... rubbing them on the bottom of our shoes, all over the door knobs, on the floor, outside in the dirt, etc. One of us then rubbed our dirty hands all over a piece of bread and put it in a plastic bag. A 2nd volunteer washed their hands with soap, and THEN rubbed their hands all over a slice of bread. And still a 3rd volunteer used hand sanitizer before rubbing their hands over a slice of bread. Madame put a 4th "control" piece in a bag, touched only by tongs. We are excited to examine the bread and watch how the mould grows over the next several weeks. Madame says she's hoping it will be a good lesson in the importance of washing our hands really well! :-) But as with any experiment, we can't predict with certainty how this will play out. Spring is in the air and we've been noticing cherry blossom trees around the neighbourhood! We were inspired to do some art... We also had fun making some Easter chicks (des poussins), in keeping with our whole egg theme. And we had another ice skating day! Some of us are already noticing big improvements since the beginning of our first session. We are looking forward to our last trip next week!
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