with Ms. Lai & Ms. Loungsay
Last week our class made some treats for the birds in our Parkcrest park. Ms. Paul brought in suet mixed with seed mix and we covered our pinecones with the mixture. We then went outside and hid the bird treats around our park for the birds to find!
During our nature walk, we found an owl pellet! Pellets are the undigested parts of a bird’s food, such as hair or bones, which are regurgitated (coughed up through the beak). We all thought that was pretty cool!
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.
We had an amazing experience visiting the Aldor Acres Pumpkin Patch in Langley! It was a beautiful, sunny day. For some of the students, it was their very first pumpkin patch experience. In the classroom, we talked about farms and animals, so this field trip was a great opportunity for them to explore and experience animal life cycles and their local environments.
The children were delighted with the animals. We saw so many – sheep, horses, piglets, chicks, bunnies, goats, llamas, donkeys, chickens, even a newborn puppy, and more! Some of us were hesitant at first to hold these delicate baby animals, but most of us got the chance to either pet or hold some animals.
After lunch, we all hopped onto a tractor-pulled wagon and headed over to the field to pick our pumpkins to take home!
At the end of the school day, we had a sharing circle and each student shared their favorite part of the trip!
Here are a few things that were said:
“I loved the baby bunnies!”
“Riding the wagon was the best!”
“the big, biiiiiiig goats!”
“the pumpkins – so many!”
“jumping on the hay”
“ride the bus”
If you ask your child to tell you what their favorite moment was, feel free to share their answer in the comments!
I would also like to say a big Thank You to our parent volunteers who were able to come and supervise groups of students. Thank you for helping out and sending me your photos.
Also, thanks to Ms. Gourlay for organizing and booking this trip!
We have been learning about plants! We planted three types of beans. We planted the Runner beans and Bush beans in our class planter.
We sprouted the Pole beans in our “sprout houses” (in Ziploc bags). We sprayed water in our bags and taped them to our classroom windows so they can absorb the sunlight. In days, our beans began to sprout! We noticed that the seeds absorbed the water and soon, we saw roots pushing through their seed coats. We documented this and what we have learned in our Plant Journals.
We soon transferred our seedlings to soil in our class planter. Within days, they began to grow, grow, grow! We will continue to water our beans and watch them grow. The Pole beans can grow up to 20 feet tall!
Please view your child’s blogfolio for individual photos.
Cherry blossoms are such a welcome sign of Spring. We are so fortunte to have beautiful white and pink cherry blossoms outside our school! Last week, we went outside and studied these trees.
We decided to paint some cherry trees. First, we painted a dark blackground. We used black and white with shades of gray. Next, we painted the wider tree trunks with thin tree branches. Finally, we used cotton swabs to create different colored cherry blossoms.
Please log in to your child’s Blogfolio to see their work of art!
Our class ended our Winter theme unit by building homes for some of the animals that hibernate in the winter time. Each table group chose their animal(s), gathered materials and then built the home together. We were so impressed with how everyone worked collaboratively and helped each other out!
We had so much fun looking for “animal tracks” in our little forest area! We first looked at what animal tracks we might find and then each table group was responsible to find two sets of tracks. Afterwards, each team read a short animal tracks booklet to help them match the tracks to the right animal. Then they had to find the “animal” in the classroom. Everyone worked so well together and accomplished the goal as a team!