with Ms. Lai & Ms. Loungsay
We had a fun literacy week! Our new principal, Ms. Ashton, read us a story, teachers changed classrooms to read their favourite children’s book, we read in the dark with flashlights and we had a book cover parade! A very special guest also read us a story. Mr. Lee surprised all the kids with a pre-recorded video of him reading a story to the whole school!
Hope everyone enjoyed Literacy Week! Thank you parents for participating in the Family Bingo!
Our Fall inquiry started with many wonders. We wonder:
“Why do they (leaves) change from green?”
“Do leaves change every season?”
“Why do the leaves fall down?”
“Why do the leaves change colour?”
“How does it get colder?”
“Why are the leaves red?”
On our nature walk we explored around Parkcrest Park and looked for different kinds of leaves. We sorted them into Fall colours (brown, yellow, red, orange) and green and then tried rubbing leaves on paper to see if they leave a colour. We were pretty amazed to see nature colours on our paper!
We worked as a team and sorted leaves into different sizes- small, medium, big, biggest.
As scientists, we investigated why leaves change colours in the fall. First, we made some guesses.
“The weather is cold.”
“We have less sun.”
“It rains a lot.”
Then, we sorted the fall leaves by colour, ripped the leaves into bits and covered it with rubbing alcohol. We put coffee filters into the leaf and rubbing alcohol mixture and allowed it to sit long enough to absorb the liquid. As the liquid travels up the coffee filter it separates all the colors that were inside the leaf.
We learned that during fall, the days get shorter so the leaves don’t get enough sunlight and the green chlorophyll disappears from the leaves. As the green fades away, we begin to see yellow, orange, red and/or brown colours. Small amounts of these colors have been in the leaves all along!
Symmetrical drawings of our leaves
Parts of a Leaf
Our Leaf People
The Leaf Man goes where the wind blows…
Our Leaf People flew to a lot of places and saw many things. Some flew to a pumpkin patch, some went to a forest, one went to a big city, a couple went to a farm and a few flew home. Please ask your child to tell you their Leaf Man story 🙂
We painted poppies on our hands
We also read “The Peace Book” by Todd Parr and talked about what peace means to us.
The story Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert is about the Leaf Man drifting around and it visited many places and saw a lot of animals. We don’t know where the Leaf Man is going because it goes where the wind blows. After reading the story, we created our own Leaf Man. As the children were building, we heard some interesting stories of where their Leaf Man has gone and what they have seen! A few leaf men went to the beach, some went to Parkcrest school, one went to the states and another one went to a pond. These leaf men can be anywhere! Look around next time when the wind is blowing. You might see a Leaf Man drifting by.
We are scientists and we have been studying about pumpkins. We read stories, had discussions, made observations, and last week, we touched and smelled the inside of our class pumpkin! The children watched me carve our pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern.
We created a web of words that we thought described the inside of the pumpkin.
We measured, drew pictures, and counted pumpkin seeds. Our small pumpkin had many seeds, much more seeds than a bigger pumpkin! We learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin, and most importantly, we had a fun week!
Ask your child to tell you what they know about pumpkins.
In one of our lessons in Indigenous Cultural Enhancement with Ms. Ditta Cross, she taught us the importance of exploring one’s own identity. She shared an artifact that showed her connection to her family, her traditional territory and her ancestors. She also shared a story about her artifact and how it connects her to her family. Ms. Ditta Cross encouraged our class to write a poem that will tell others more about ourselves.
Our class brainstormed objects that are special to us, our favourite food, a tradition that we like to do or celebrate and something special people say to us. We then created our own poem and painted a background with our favourite colours.
Please log in to your child’s Blogfolio and enjoy reading their poem!
We had a fun literacy week! We listened to daily stories – read-alouds recorded by different staff members. Thank you parents for participating in the Family Bingo!
Students all did an amazing job on their bookmarks! Congratulations to Everett who won the library prize.
Thank you to Ms. Sanchez for creating this campfire for our “Reading in the Dark” literacy day.
