The Polar Express

We read the book, “The Polar Express”, by Chris Van Allsburg. We then created our little booklets.  The second page is a storyline illustration in a sequence.  The last page is a drawn picture of their favourite scene from the book.  The covers are quite well coloured.

We will be watching the movie on Friday to wrap up our week before the holidays.

Mittens with our Buddies

We did this activity over two weeks.  The first week students created patterns on their mittens.  The second week they glued them onto blue construction paper and did a winter scene around it.  These are in the hallway by the Office.  Some are from our class and some are our buddies’ mittens.  Other of our mittens are in the hallway by Mrs. Branco’s room.

Primary Colours – Bernard, the Butterfly

Students have been learning about colour theory through our explorations in Art. Two weeks ago they learned about the three primary colours – red, yellow, and blue – and created pictures using just those three crayons.  On Friday we used the primary coloured paints.  They heard a story about a mischievous butterfly who got into Mother Nature’s way while she was painting a garden and ended up being very colourful.  They then experimented with paints and a butterfly shaped paper.  They put dabs of paint on one side of their paper, folded the paper closed, and rubbed the two sides together.  The results were many (mostly) symmetrical butterflies.  They made construction paper bodies which they glued onto the wings today when they were dry.  The addition of pipe cleaner antenna finished the look. Students were encouraged to try and have the primary colours close in some spots so that they could flow together to create the secondary colours – green, orange, and violet (purple) – when pressed together.

These are on the bulletin board at the back of our classroom. 

Remembrance Day

Our school will be holding our assembly tomorrow at 10:45 a.m.  All are welcome to attend.

Here are our poppies on our bulletin in the hallway.  The large ones were created through a directed drawing lesson.  Once the poppies were drawn, students traced over the pencil lines with china markers.  They then painted the red and green on the poppies.  These dried over the weekend.  This week we re-traced the china marker, cut them out, and glued them onto green construction paper.  They all did a great job!

The smaller poppies are made from four layers of coloured (red and green) construction paper.  We did these with our big buddies on Tuesday.  It was great to see the buddies working together!  These small poppies are a lovely complement to the larger, painted ones.  Check them out when you get a chance.

What We KNOW or Think We Know …

We had a brainstorming session where the students talked with their partners and came up with things that they knew, or thought they knew, about bats.  All answers were accepted.  As we learn about bats we will confirm or debunk these thoughts and ideas.

Students then came up with a list of questions that they want to know about bats.

These will form the basis of our inquiry into bats.  We are currently reading, “Zipping, Zapping, Zooming Bats”.  So far students have learned that bats eat mosquitoes (so they won’t bite us) and help protect crops for farmers by eating grasshoppers, moths, and other bugs.  The Little Brown Bat can eat 600 mosquitoes in one hour!