Christmas Gift Basket Raffle

Well, Division 5 is ‘going to the dogs’!!

We would appreciate donations of new items to be donated to our division’s basket:

DIV 5. PET (DOG) BASKET: (dog toys, treats, doggy baggies, leash, collar, etc.)

This year the donated items need to come into the classroom by Tuesday, December 3rd.  There will be a box in the classroom for your child to put the items in.

Ticket sales will commence between December 9—19th every day from 12:00-12:15pm and 3:00-3:15 pm.

We would like to thank you in advance for all your generous donations.

 

Magnet Play

Students have been learning about magnets with our student teacher, Ms. Sue.  Today we had free time to explore around the classroom with our magnet wands and horseshoe magnets.

Students had time to find things that do – and those that don’t – attact to magnets.  They discovered that not all metals will attract to magnets but many metals do – even the bits inside pipe cleaners!

It was a lot of fun watching the children in ‘scientific mode’.  The discoveries and experimentation was inspiring.

Ask your child what they have learned about magnets.

Apple Explorations

We have been learning about apples.  Today we heard a story of how apples got the ‘star’ in their centres.  Ask your child to tell you the story.

We then looked at a variety (seven) different apples.  These were: Honey Crisp, Granny Smith, Ambrosia, Royal Gala, Fuji, MacIntosh, and Spartan.  We talked about their similarities and their differences – colour, shape, size, texture of the fruit and its skin.

We furthered our exploration by cutting open the Ambrosia apple (sideways) and finding the star.  We talked about the core and its storage of seeds.  We have also been discussing the concept of core (its meaning as a root source) during our Math unit on patterning.

I then cut each of the seven apples into pieces which the students enjoyed sampling.  As I cut each one we discussed the different textures and firmness of the apples and predicted the sweetness – or tartness – of each of them.

I think the students had a good time – and, hopefully, discovered some new favourite apple flavours while learning about the apples.

 

Have You Filled a Bucket Today?

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Students have been learning about – and working on – their personal relationships with their fellow classmates.  This is a great book which speaks about the invisible ‘buckets’ that we each carry around every day.  When people are kind to us (through their actions or their words) then our buckets become more full and we feel better about ourselves.  Through being kind to others we also fill our own buckets.  When people mistreat others (through their actions or their words) they ‘dip’ into our buckets and take away our good thoughts and feelings.  We cannot fill our buckets by being mean to others.  In fact, oftentimes, people who have empty buckets end up mistreating others because they don’t feel good themselves.

We also read a second book on the same subject.

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I hope you take the opportunity to talk to your child about these two books.

 

Bernard the Butterfly

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Last Friday the students heard the story about how the world became so colourful.   It involved Mother Nature and a curious, white (originally) butterfly named Bernard.  Ask your child to tell you the story!

Students then created their own butterfly using the same colours that Mother Nature had used in the story – the primary colours of red, yellow, and blue.

Today we discussed ‘symmetry’ – what it means and what parts of our bodies display symmetry.  They then added the bodies to their butterflies and curled the antennae.  The butterflies have now migrated to the bulletin board outside of our room.  Take a look when you come by the school.

There are also three butterflies created by some Division 1 students who worked with us on Friday afternoon.

Student Teacher

Beginning on Monday, November 4th Ms. Deanna Sue will be joining our class for the month of November.  She is completing her 402 practicum from the PDP programme through Simon Fraser University.  I am looking forward to having her in our class.  I am sure that the students will also enjoy her presence as she begins to take on some of the class routines and teaches a Science ‘mini-unit’.  More information on this will be forthcoming once she and I have time next week to tee everything up for her lessons.

Pumpkin Carving

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Today we joined our big buddies in a school-wide pumpkin carving activity.  Even though some students – but clearly not all – were a bit squeamish about touching the insides of a pumpkin, a good time was had by all!

The seeds were collected and will be washed, roasted, and given to classes to eat tomorrow.

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A huge thank you to the parents who came out to help with this event.