This week students were introduced to constellations, and learned how there are different constellations visible each season. They explored the Mystery, “Why do the constellations change with the seasons?” Your child built a model that makes it easy for them to visualize the answer, called a “Universe in a Box.” If you can, take this opportunity to have your child show you how their “Universe in a Box” works. Ask them: Why do we see different constellations each season? What are some constellations we will see if we go outside tonight? You might even want to try out an app on your phone for finding constellations!

Many students from Div. 4, 5, and 6 have been exploring leadership at our school. How can you develop your ideas and turn them into action projects? Some amazing projects are being developed. Ask your children which project they are working on! We will be sharing them with you on the blog soon!

Currently we have groups working on organizing:

• School Yard Clean Up
• Litter-Less Lunch: Year 3 
• Recycle More! Electronics, Styrofoam, & Metal Collections
• Halloween Candy Wrapper Drive
• Refundable Drink Container Audits & Collections
• Climate Card Game
• Saving the Earth Scratch Game
• School Wide Earth Hour
• Fair Trade Fundraiser
• Classroom Presentations to Share What’s New

Here are a few links to support your groups and perhaps inspire you to keep expanding your ideas!

Halloween Candy Wrapper Drive: https://www.burnabynow.com/save-your-halloween-wrappers-for-london-drugs-waste-drive-1.23993811

Reducing our Food Waste:

http://www3.cec.org/flwy/activity_guide/

Fair Trade Advocates:

Marker Recycling 

https://www.crayola.com/colorcycle/sign-in.aspx

Be sure to log your climate challenge actions for this week, and see how you could be inspired for next week! 

• Step One: Carbon Quiz – to set your baseline: https://climatecool.org/login
• Step Two: Log your actions for week 1! Even if it is just turning the water off while you brush your teeth, you are making a difference!
• Step Three: As you go through, think about what your goal for next week can be!
• Three weeks left! 

This week we were exploring the Sun’s path changes with the time of the year. We noticed that on summer days the Sun comes up earlier, rises higher in the midday sky, and sets later than it does in winter. If you are curious about when the Sun rises and sets, you can type “sunrise” or “sunset” into Google to find out the exact time! This week we had daylight savings – how does this adjust our observations?

Changes in the Sun’s position every day add up to big changes over months. You can show this by marking the shadow of a stationary object at the same time of day once a week for a few weeks. If you are up for an experiment, try this at home! Every week, the shadow will be in a new position. 

On Nov. 1st and 2nd, many people celebrate Dia De Los Muertos, Day of the Dead. A big thanks to Sierra, who shared an amazing presentation, describing her experiences and understandings about this cultural tradition with our class. We read a book with our little buddies called, The Dead Family Dias, and were inspired to create some of our own art. 

Wishing Div. 4 a happy and safe Halloween! We are so thankful to Nesters and to our amazing PAC for donating and sourcing pumpkins for our whole school! We created some beautiful jack-o-lanterns with our families this week. 

During our garden day this week, we focused on extending the garden season and putting our garden beds to sleep. In the garden, we have covered the beds in hoop houses, so plants can grow. However, we needed to cover the other garden beds in mulch to create safe places for insects over the winter. Div. 4 carefully weeded and cleared the garden beds at the front of the school, hanging the sunflower heads in the forest to provide a delicious snack. We raked and collected leaves, and after jumping in them, we blended them into a delicious and cozy mulch for worms. We discovered that leaves were not just a place for insects however, when we found a toad in our leaf collection! We made sure our froggy friend found a safe place to continue their adventures, and realized that we need to be careful when we are working in the garden to respect the homes of our animal friends. 

On Oct. 24th, Laura Bamsey, from the British Columbia Sustainable Energy Association, led us in “Cool It! Climate Leadership Training”. We played games, discussed ideas for making change, and created our very own safe and sustainable cleaning solution. 

Here is the link to where you can login to do the carbon quiz and then start the contest! Submit once a week for the next 4 weeks! www.climatecool.org. 

Here is a link to online instructions.

Here are some links to activities and resources you might be interested during your challenge!

Local/Organic Food

Find a farmers market 

http://www.bcfarmersmarket.org/

Westcoast seeds catalogue https://www.westcoastseeds.com/garden-resources/request-catalogue/

Dirty Dozen https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/dirty_dozen_list.php#.Wl5_X4XxO80 (mentioned in the workshop)

Energy 

To recycle lights such as CFLs, LightRecycle  https://www.lightrecycle.ca/collection-site-locator/

BC Sustainable Energy Association (bcsea)

http://www.bcsea.org

https://www.bcsea.org/cool-it/resources

Climate Change

Earth Future

http://www.earthfuture.com/theclimatechallenge/downloads/Teachers_Guide.pdf

Go Bio 

Queen of Green Cleaning recipes https://davidsuzuki.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/queen-of-green-green-cleaning-recipes.pdf (mentioned in the workshop)

We love spending time with our little buddies! During our first week, we created skeletons, and last week we had the opportunity to dissect owl pellets! We found so many interesting bones, fur, and feathers, and wondered how they might all connect. The digestion systems of owls are quite amazing!

We have an exciting week ahead of us, and families are welcome to join us!

• Monday, Oct. 28th – Garden Day with Pablo & Roots2Grow at 9:15-10:15
• Wednesday, Oct. 30th – Pumpkin Carving from 1:15-2:45 (please send carving tools if you have them! )
• Thursday, Oct. 31st – Costume Parade in the morning 

Please let me know if you are available to attend any of these events, or have other activities you would like to be involved in! We love having our families join us in our learning and exploring.