It was a week of théâtre here at school. We kicked off Tuesday with a visit from a French theatre group who had us use random objects for a variety of improv experiences. Later that same afternoon, another hilarious French theatre group performed for all of the French Immersion classes. It was audience participation and it was such a great show that they even had the adults in stitches. This week was also our last ice skating field trip. Many of us were très fatigués, but our skills have improved a lot over the course of the 3 trips and we should be very proud of all of our efforts! On our walk back to school, we noticed that there were some salmon berries beginning to ripen. We did a great job of asking Madame first before picking the berries and eating them, but some of us found some that weren't quite ripe yet and discovered what sour berries taste like. ;-) We are looking forward to going on some berry hunts in a couple of weeks when more of the salmon berries and huckleberries have fully ripened. In French this week, we have been talking about story elements - specifically, that every story has a beginning, middle and end, and that some kind of problem occurs in the middle that needs to be resolved. We read through a really funny book called "The Creepy Pair of Underwear", discussed the various elements, and then reenacted the story using loose parts. We had so much fun with this little project and some of us did a really outstanding job with our French retellings of the story. We then began the process of creating our own stories with a beginning, middle and end. In Math, we continued our measurement theme, this time with a challenge: how tall can you make a tower using kiva blocks and playing cards? Even though Madame had divided us into groups, most of us began by working individually. It took us awhile to realize that we were stronger together and could build a much bigger and better tower if we shared resources and communicated with one another. Madame measured each tower at the end and a winner was declared. Interestingly, it was the first group that had discovered the power of teamwork that won the challenge. Extra Photos...
Here comes the sun, doo-doo-doo-doo!... And it's about time! The rest of our butterflies emerged from their chrysalis over the weekend and some of us boys who were a little hesitant to hold them last week finally warmed up to the idea on Monday. Madame has been working us hard with all the walking around town we've been doing. Wednesday was our 2nd ice skating trip and some of us who had been so scared to go out on the ice the last time were among the first ones out there this time! And then, in a test of our walking stamina, Madame had us walk the very next day to Eagle Park for the afternoon. There was something for everyone there!... trees to climb, giant sticks for building forts and even "ladders" into our forts, playground equipment to hang and swing from, and a huge field for playing soccer. We had such a great time but many of us had sore legs on the return trip. ;-) Thank you to Holly for many of these photos! The weather was so perfect today that Madame brought us outside for a picnic. It was Lincoln's birthday so he shared some Twinkies with us for a perfect little birthday celebration! Merci, Lincoln! For Math this week, we've continued with our measurement theme. We went on a stick hunt and found what we deemed to be the perfect measuring stick. As a class, we talked about how some sticks are better than others... curvy sticks won't work as well for measuring because we can't lay them out straight. We measured our sticks with unifix cubes, then went outside to measure various things around the playground using only our sticks. During play time, Madame has been bringing out the rainbow loom elastics. We've been figuring out how to make all kinds of jewelry with nothing but pencils and elastics. Some of us are getting so good at it that we've started teaching it to our friends. In French, we've been doing a big push lately to work on improving our writing. Specifically, we want to be working on putting periods in the right places, spaces between words, and understanding when to use capital and lowercase letters. Madame has been doing "correct the error" challenges and anyone who can guess an error and how to fix it gets a nickel. We are amazingly engaged. ;-) Extra photos...
It's been an exciting butterfly week! We've been checking in on our chrysalis every day and finally today, we arrived to find that one had emerged! We were so excited! We decided to make a table, estimating how many butterflies we thought would emerge before the end of the day. (Even the guinea pigs and the frogs "took a guess"). ;-) The "3"s were the winners! We had 3 butterflies emerge before the end of the day and we decided to release them right away so they wouldn't be trapped over the weekend. To celebrate this exciting day of butterflies, we also did some butterfly art! We had so much fun mixing the colours together in this symmetrical exercise. Many of us have been writing about the butterflies in our journals, too. In Math, the focus has shifted to measurement. We don't need to learn about specific units of measurement yet (cm, inches, etc), but we can learn how to use different objects to measure and compare items. We began by measuring various lengths of the classroom with our bodies. We found that the width of the room was longer than the length, but we also decided that using our bodies wasn't a great measurement tool because we are all different lengths. We needed something that was consistent in length. We found some pretty strange items to use, including miniature babies from a baby shower that Madame hosted awhile back. Paper clips and unifix cubes were also a winner! And it was a wet one in the forest this week, but we didn't let that "dampen" our spirits. (Pun intended). ;-) Some of us are so motivated with our reading that we wouldn't even pass up the chance to bring our flashcards to the forest to work through them with Madame in the rain. Extra Photos...
We finally got to go on our first official field trip! Wahooo!! It was such a fun, little adventure and we can't wait for our next two ice skating sessions. For some of us, it was our very first time on the ice! We were so brave and got out there anyway, despite being nervous about it. There has been lots going on in Science classes lately! We've continued to watch the transformation of our caterpillars into their chrysalis and have been fascinated to notice that even while inside their chrysalis, the "pupa" (what a caterpillar is called while inside its chrysalis) will randomly start shaking and moving about. At first we were nervous that something bad was happening or that the butterflies were about to emerge, but we've now become used to this shaking as a normal behaviour. We watched a great documentary called "The flight of the butterflies" and learned all about monarch butterflies, though the butterflies in our class are actually the "painted lady" variety. Another transformation has taken place this week in Mme Towne's class - baby chicks hatched! We were so excited to get to see them and hold them. And something weird about Science class... Madame just keeps talking about poop. How weird is that?! Yesterday she had us trying to match pictures of poop to the animals that did it. We talked about how being able to identify various animals' poop can keep us safe while we're in the forest. Another fun investigation that has carried over from last week has been looking at the insides of digital cameras. Sadly, we discovered a broken digital camera on our walk to the forest last week... it was probably one of ours, which had been taken off someone's neck and placed on the ground only to be forgotten and destroyed. Madame shed a few tears and talked to us about treating these expensive tools with respect, and then we pivoted and used the opportunity to look at the inner workings of the camera. What are all the different parts? Madame also had an extra digital camera that was given to her that wasn't working properly anymore and wasn't worth trying to fix. She set this one out for us with some screwdrivers and let us purposely take it apart, piece by piece. This was actually more difficult than we expected, but there were a few of us who were very determined and managed to break parts of it open, being careful not to destroy the glass. Extra photos...
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