Our school-wide "Semaine de la francophonie" sure kept us busy this week! First up was the Missy D concert, one of our favourite French singers, and Madame lead the teacher fan-girl brigade. We were so thrilled to be able to sing along to many of the lyrics that we already knew from her songs! We also had multiple visits from Bonhomme this week, a school-wide picnic, and for some of us, our first taste of famous Canadian "Beaver Tails". Inspired by the ice sculptures in Quebec's winter "Carnaval", the whole school also participated in an "ice sculpture" contest made from sugar cubes. Apparently only brown sugar cubes were available at the store so we had to use our imaginations a bit. We started out really strong with our "ice sculpture", but soon found out that our love of liquid glue was actually melting the sugar. This turned our best efforts at a castle into a soupy mess and we were soon whipping out a spoon and stirring the messy stew that it had created. Needless to say, our finished product did not win any prizes. But we definitely had fun making it! And we enjoyed parading around the school to look at other classes' creations. And it wouldn't be a "Semaine de la francophonie" without some classic French-Canadian sports!... a toboggan race, a "crêpe" toss, a dog race, and a canoe race. (Imagination required)... Meanwhile, Madame has been continuing our chess lessons and we've been loving trying out our newfound knowledge during play time. A few of us have taken some liberties on the exact game rules, but for the most part, we are learning real chess moves and some of us are even beginning to strategize. We are also continuing to learn about the life cycle of a chicken, as well as French vocabulary related to chickens. It was especially fun to touch a couple of real nests! These ones aren't chicken nests, but were found abandoned by a special friend of Madame's who gifted them to her classroom. And hey, if we didn't have enough living things in our classroom, we now have more... caterpillars! We've begun measuring these little guys every day and are amazed at how fast they're growing! We are excited to watch their transformative process unfold. Extra photos...
What a fun week we've had! We prepared for our Aquarium trip by talking about different sea creatures, including the megalodon shark, which is the largest shark on record to have ever lived. Scientists believe it was 60 feet long, or the equivalent of about 15 second-graders. We needed to test this out for ourselves to get an idea of just how big that actually is! And all we can say is... Wow!... We would NOT want to cross paths with this shark! Tuesday, the big day came and we got to actually see the Aquarium animals. The bus ride was long, but we all agreed it was worth it! (Thank you so much to all of the parents who shared these photos with Madame! There were soooo many good ones that it would have taken forever to post them all, but here is a size-able sampling!) The Aquarium wasn't the only super fun thing we saw this week... Zahra and her mom also prepared a presentation for us all about Eid and Ramadan, a holiday that they celebrate in their Muslim culture. Zahra did a phenomenal job reading a script all about their traditions while her mom went through a prepared PowerPoint. Then they shared some treats with us - traditionally, something sweet and something salty. And one of the coolest parts... henna tattoos! This henna was extra special because it was brought straight from India by Zahra's dad. What an incredible gift this experience was to all of us! A huge "merci" to Zahra's family! Other highlights... Hey, there was an eclipse! We watched the live feed instead of the real thing, but Bodhi protected his eyes, anyway, with his special eclipse viewer. Smart guy! We were absolutely amazed at how dark it got when the eclipse was at totality! And "Farmer Crystal" (this will always be her name in Madame's heart) brought in our chick eggs! We loved checking out all the different colours of the eggs (different breeds) and have eagerly started tracking the chicks' growth within them with the help of a special app on Madame's phone. They will take about 21 days to incubate before they hatch. Extra photos...
Signs of Spring are everywhere now, and we loved experiencing them on our walk to the forest this week. The cherry blossom trees even made perfect natural confetti. "It's like snow on the ground, Madame!" We were especially fascinated by a giant bumble bee. A friend donated some wood paddles to Madame so she has been letting us spend the week sanding them and making them into whatever we want! We talked about how they may be shaped like a paddle, but they could actually be many different things - a baseball bat, a tennis racket, a puppet, a guitar, a fish... The only limit is our imaginations! Madame taught us how to use sandpaper and to look for the numbers written on the back. The lower the number, the grittier the sandpaper is, which is great for really rough wood. The higher the number, the smoother it is, which is great when our project is already quite smooth. We have enjoyed caressing our projects with our cheeks to see just how smooth they are. We had a special guest singer today - Peter's dad! He introduced us to his guitar, named "Gibson", and lead us through some really fun songs. We were begging him not to leave when it was time. Peter also did a phenomenal job telling us about his family's Easter traditions. What a great duo! We learned all about letting our kindness and love shine bright for those around us. It was also a super fun week in gym class! How could you not be excited about this?!... Even Madame couldn't resist getting in on that fun! Extra pics...
Happy Spring Break!! Woohoo! (If you're even reading this and aren't already off sipping a cool beverage, celebrating the weekend and the beginning of longer days and summer-like weather!) But if you ARE reading this, we did some cool stuff this week! There was a lot of art involved. And even some forks. Madame was impressed with all of our variations on an idea! We read a fun book about mixing paint colours and then decided we should try it, ourselves! We put dots of different colours on opposite sides of a piece of paper, then slammed them together. It created super cool butterfly-looking effects. Claire and Fria even took it to the next level later and made theirs into butterfly puppets using toilet paper rolls. But sadly, Madame wasn't there to take a picture of the moment. And in the world of performative arts, we got to watch the older kids perform their Lunchbox Theatre production of "Aladdin". We really enjoyed the show and some of us are super excited about the idea of doing Lunchbox Theatre when the opportunity comes available for us later in the Spring. We've also started learning to play chess! Madame has a game called "Story Time Chess" that associates each game piece's unique moves with a fun story to help us remember the rules. So far, we've only had time to learn about "King Shaky", who LOVES to eat and has such a big belly that he's only able to take one...step...at...a...time. A pizza blows out the window onto the checkered lawn and he goes around picking up each piece one...step...at...a...time in every direction. We are eager to continue learning about all of the other characters after Spring Break. We had lots of fun making discoveries again this week on our forest walk, and even found an amazing nest! Sadly, we had to say "au revoir" to Marilou this week, our French monitor. We will really miss all the fun activities that we did with her! A big "merci" to Nana Kesler, who spoiled us once again with beautiful Easter treats!!! Extra photos...
Happy to report that we all survived fort-building, pajama day! Madame even let us eat in our forts! But we actually managed to do some productive schoolwork, too! #Winning! While in our pajamas, we were asked last-minute to do our land acknowledgment again for an assembly with a visiting musician. So we got up in front of everyone, slippers, robes and all, and performed once again. We were awesome, of course! The concert was great, too, with a singer/artist named Ginalina who taught us some fun lyrics and actions in French, English AND Mandarin! But that wasn't the only assembly this week. The BC Lions also came to visit and talked to us all about how to conserve energy. Back in class, we enjoyed learning about an artist named Ted Harrison, a Canadian who lived in the Yukon, close to the North Pole. He loved to paint his surroundings in a style that used warm and cool colours beside each other. He is also known for his use of lines in his art. Madame had us do a directed draw to create a Ted Harrison landscape and then we practiced using a combination of warm and cool colours. Throughout this process, we also learned a bit about the landscapes in the Yukon and the Arctic, some of the animals that live there, and a brief history of the Inukshuk. Teddy asked, "Madame, can we make our own Inukshuks?" And Madame shrugged and said, "Why not?!" So we went outside to the gravel lot and had a lot of fun coming up with our own little designs. We discovered that it can be quite difficult to balance rocks in just the right way! We tried out a new forest walk this week. This one was much more wild, with all kinds of unkept branches that were perfect for fort-building. There were also lots of other fun bird houses and things to discover! Extra photos...
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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