Last week we noticed some visitors in our classroom. Tiny little ants, creepy crawly spiders and other tiny bugs we couldn’t identify. The students were curious about the bugs. “What are they doing in our classroom? Will they bite me? Can I keep it to show my mom?”. We’ve been trying to answer some of these questions in our studies this week. We’ve learned about ladybugs (most of the kids said this was their favourite kind of insect), walking sticks and dragon flies. Did you know that a ladybug will eat about 50 aphids in one day or that they are yellow before they turn a reddish-colour? Ask your child about what else they have learned about insects. We’ve also had fun crafting bugs out of plasticine and inventing our own insects.

Does anyone have bug catchers at home? If you do, we would love to borrow them and go on a bug hunt. I wonder what kinds of bugs we would find in our own school yard?

Today we had a great time imagining that we were at the beach. Students came dressed in sunglasses, hats, leis, and t-shirts in bright, sunny colours. They enjoyed “sunbathing” on their towels and listened to ocean music while creating colourful jellyfish. We laughed as we limboed to the ”Disco Limbo”. Wow, do we ever have some flexible children in our class! A great time was had by all. We could almost imagine that we would go outside and feel the hot sun on our skin. Almost.

Right now we are a little more than halfway to reaching our goal of reading 60000 minutes! Keep on reading and bring your yellow page to school everyday so we can tabulate the results.

Reading Minute Fundraiser

Most of you are probably aware that we are starting our reading minute fundraiser today. Our classroom goal is to read 6000 minutes. This seems like a big number but if we all read AT LEAST 10 minutes everyday we can meet our goal. We can do it!

Welcome back from March Break! We hope you had a restful holiday and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

Before the Break, we read a mystery story about some missing dinosaur bones. The kids were more interested in the dinosaur than the mystery so we decided to explore the wonderful world of dinosaurs. So far, we have estimated how many of our footprints would fit inside the footprint of a T.Rex. (it took 42 of our footprints to fit inside ONE T.Rex footprint…wow!), we’ve stomped and tromped and roared like dinosaurs, explored some dinosaur facts, graphed our favourite dinosaur, written about dinosaurs and are currently making some skeletons of a dinosaur. This week we will talk about theories of what happened to the dinosaurs, discuss how we study dinosaurs by looking for bones and even observe a miniature volcano erupting!

This week we read a story called “Have You Filled a Bucket Today?”. The premise of the story is that we all carry around invisible buckets that are filled with good feelings and thoughts about ourselves. When we are happy our buckets are full. When we are sad our buckets are empty. We can fill another person’s bucket by being kind to them and doing nice things for them. We can also be a “bucket-dipper” when we are mean to others.

On our bulletin board, each child has created a bucket. Beside the bucket they have have written a suggestion for what they can do to be a “bucket-filler.” The students have become excited about the concept of being a ”bucket-filler”and each day they tell us about what they have done to fill someone’s bucket. We have also heard them talking to each other saying words like, ”You dipped into my bucket when you didn’t let me play with you.” We will continue to encourage them each day to be a “bucket-filler!”

We hope you had a fun and relaxing break!

Before the break, our class had a really great discussion about snow. Why didn’t we have much snow even though it was Christmas time? How come it’s easier to make a snowman with packing snow? How long does it take snow to melt?

This week we have been doing some experiments with snow. On Monday, we put some snow in a container and recorded how long it took to melt (5 hours).  We noticed how dirty the water looks once the snow melts and students were sure that they would no longer be putting snow in their mouths! Yesterday we put some salt on snow and were amazed to see that it melted faster than snow without salt on it. We plan to see what happens when we sprinkle sand on the snow today.

Students in our class were interested in learning more about pets and how we care for them. We set up a vet office where students learned how to check animals in for appointments and how to care for them when they are sick. We read stories, sang songs, and wrote about our pets. To end our unit we brainstormed ideas about what a perfect pet would look  like and how it would behave. From there, students drew a picture of an imaginary pet, made a model of the pet out of clay and  created a home for their pet to live in. Our pet pictures and photos of our pet models and homes are on display outside our classroom. Come have a look!

Welcome to the blog of Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Parazader’s class. We will update you from time to time about what we are learning and creating together.

What a week this has been! My heart filled with pride yesterday when the Rick Hansen tour stopped at our school and we heard the story of Tyrone Henry. What an amazing role model for our children! The students were so excited to meet Tyrone and were delighted when some of them had the chance to give him a “high-five” after his speech. They asked many questions about him and wondered how they could make a difference in their own classroom and school. The students also really enjoyed performing the school dance together.