Swimming, Stories, Math, and Dioramas

This has turned out to be quite a busy week! In addition to swimming we are trying to get two of our big projects finished up. Before we went to swimming we worked on our arctic stories. We are trying to get all the typing done by the end of this week so that we can move on to one last writing project before the school year is over. Quite a few of us are getting close to being finished but we are discovering that typing is a lot of work! If you are one of our friends who would like to get better at typing here is a program that might help: Dance Mat Typing.

At 9:45 we went to swimming. Our class is doing a fantastic job of being independent and respectful in the change rooms. This is helping to make sure everyone is on-time for their swimming lessons and it is helping us to arrive back at the school on-time. In the pool our class is being very brave and trying lots of new swimming skills. The instructors are very happy with the way we are listening and doing our best to follow all the instructions. Well done!

After swimming we had a few more minutes for story writing and then it was time for lunch. After lunch we worked on math. The grade 2's are working on two digit addition and subtraction word problems. We are working on showing our work by drawing a picture, recording the number sentence (equation), and answering the problem with a full sentence. The grade 1's are working on 1-digit addition and subtraction using the dominoes. When the grade 1's were finished their domino practice they were invited to try a new domino math game called "Clock-ominos".

A Few Important Dates:

1. Calgary's Bike to School day will be on June 6. On that day students will be encouraged to bike to school (if possible) and students will be invited to store their bikes in the gym for the day.

2. Ms. Boyer will be starting a "Weeding and Seeding" club on Thursday June 8th at lunch time. We will be preparing the sun circle garden for planting, planting the garden, and weeding in the Natureground. All students are welcome to attend.

Our helper tomorrow is:

P.S Sorry there wasn't a blog yesterday, Ms. Boyer was having some computer trouble. 

First Day of Swimming!

Swimming today was a great success! Everyone did a great job taking care of themselves in the change rooms and we were excellent swimming students for our instructors. Next week we will be swimming everyday so please remember to bring your swimming gear and maybe a slightly larger lunch than usual. Swimming is a lot of work!

This morning before it was time for swimming we started by talking about our Whispering Woods ants. Ms. Boyer shared some research she had done about the way that ants find food. Ms. Boyer had found out that when one ant finds food they take it back to their anthill and they leave a scent trail for other ants to follow. Then more ants will follow the scent trail and find the food.  We took some sugar outside and tried to see if we could see this idea in action. We put about 5 piles of sugar at different places around the anthill and waited to see what would happen.  We observed for about 15 minutes and then it was time to go to swimming. After we came back from swimming we went back to the anthill to see if anything new was happening. Then we came inside and each of us shared an observation. Here are our observations:

Evelyn – Some of the sugar piles were more active than others. One sugar pile was really active from the beginning and in another one the ants seemed to be piling up.

 Isla – This morning the ants didn’t really seem to find the sugar, but at the end of the day they did.

 Reid – I noticed that in the morning the ants were really fast, but at the end of the day the ants had slowed down.

 Sarah – I think that the sugar on the pathways was eaten by the ants because it was gone when we came back.  

 Bilal – I noticed that on the anthill there were more ants on it in the morning and after swimming I noticed there weren’t as many ants on the anthill.

 Jessica – I noticed that after swimming way more ants had found the sugar. I think they needed time to find the sugar.

 Ashton – We found out that the anthill we were looking at is getting bigger.

 Levi – We noticed that before we went swimming only a few ants were on the sugar but when we came back there were a whole pile of ants on the sugar.

 Anjalika – When we came back after swimming all the ants looked like they were stuck to the sugar. They were piled on top of each other.

 Addison – I noticed that the ants were moving fast in the morning and then they started moving slower.

 Shawn – I noticed that the ants looked like red ants.

 Lily – There were less ants on the path when we checked after swimming.

 Jasper – I saw that there weren’t very many ants moving to the sugar at the start. I think they were scared of us. After swimming the ants seemed to moving more at the sugar.

 Dhvani – I noticed that some of sugar had been eaten by the ants.

 Morgan – I noticed that ants were very skittish around the sugar when we first put it there. After swimming they seemed calmer and didn’t seem afraid of the sugar.

 Abdul Ahad – I noticed that the ants ate lots of the sugar.

Tessa – I think the ants were taking the sugar back to their anthill

Peter – The middle of the anthill had barely any ants. There were more ants on the outer parts of the anthill. 

Isabel – I noticed that the ants were building holes and tunnels near the sugar.

Katie – The ants are storing the sugar.

Have a great weekend!

What an Amazing Show!

Dear Room 2,

WOW! What a fabulous group of actors! Congratulations to everyone for a wonderful assembly. You were AMAZING!! I am so proud of all your hard work and bravery.  It isn't easy to put on a show like that but after all your practicing you made it look easy!

Love,

Ms. Boyer

Tomorrow is our first day of swimming. We will be working on some ant research first thing and then we will be walking to the swimming pool at 9:30. 

Please bring the following items in a bag that is easy for your to carry and that won't break on the walk:
- Swimming suit
- Towel
- Snack
- Goggles (optional)
- Hair brush (optional)

Tomorrow is the Big Day!

Today we continued to practice for our assembly tomorrow and then this afternoon we performed at the volunteer tea. Room 2 would like to give a huge thank you to all the parents, grandparents, and friends from our community who have volunteered at our school this year. We would miss out on so many fun things if it wasn't for our volunteers. THANK YOU!

Tomorrow is the Room 1 and 2 assembly!  For the show the please wear an outfit that matches your part in the show. Please don't buy anything, just use things you have around the house so you feel like you are ready to play your part. 

The show will start at 11:00am. Parents, please try to arrive a few minutes early to find seats.

Assembly, Assembly, Assembly!

This morning we started with our usual journal routine to get our day started. After a very long weekend some of us had quite a bit to write about.  If we weren't quite able to finish today we will be working on them again tomorrow morning.

After recess we did some solo book time and then we did our first assembly practice of the day. We had a chance to start using the microphones so that our voices will carry across the whole gym. We were also working on remembering our places for our parts and the words to our songs.

This afternoon we did another assembly practice. This time we tried to do the whole show from start to finish without using our scripts. Most of us are doing really well with our lines and just need a little bit more practice to make sure we are speaking slowly and clearly so that the audience will be able to understand every word.

At the end of our practice Ms. Boyer told us to start thinking about what we are going to wear. Ms. Boyer doesn't want us to buy anything new but she does want us to think about an outfit that would match our part. If we are in the arctic we might think about wearing something that looks cozy, if we are in the acadian part we might think about something like jeans and a plaid shirt, and if we are in the prairie part we could try to look like a farmer.  Please remember our show will start at 11:00am on Thursday and all parents are invited to attend. 

Please remember that tomorrow is the volunteer tea (what a busy week!). Ms. Stephure has asked that we wear our Dr. Coffin T-shirts if we have them. 

Another BIG day of Assembly Practice

Today we spent almost the whole day practicing for the assembly! We used the props and the sets and practiced moving to our correct spots and saying our lines in big voices. We also practiced what we need to do when we are "off-stage" so that the audience doesn't get distracted from the show. When we are off stage we are responsible for staying really still and quiet on the risers. This isn't always an easy thing to do but Ms. Boyer and Mrs. Hamby know that we are up to the challenge!

Over the weekend it is VERY important that everyone takes some time to rehearse their lines so that they have them completely memorized for Tuesday. When we arrive back next week we only have 2 days of practice until the big show. Yikes!! Once again, this is a big job but Ms. Boyer and Mrs. Hamby know we are up to this challenge too!

Today we also chose our new helper sharing category. It will be "Favourite Stuffy". We didn't pick a helper since we have an extra long weekend but we will start this new category next week. 

Please remember there is no school for students tomorrow. Have a great long weekend!

Assembly practice!

Today Ms. Boyer took the last two groups to learn their parts for the assembly. Now we have all worked with Ms. Boyer and now need to make sure we have our lines memorized. Please practice your lines at home so that you know when you need to speak and what you need to say!

When Ms. Boyer was working with the last two groups the rest of us continued working on our Nova Scotia dioramas. We are starting to add a lot of details that are making them look much more polished. After dioramas we worked on our stories. Quite a few of us have moved on to typing.

After recess we did some quiet reading and then we practiced our songs for the assembly. Then it was time for math. The grade 1's are working on using the dominos to record and practice adding. The grade 2's learned how to represent numbers using 100's blocks, 10's blocks, and 1's units. Then we rolled numbers using dice and had build each number and then record the blocks in our journals. Then we showed the numbers in their expanded form underneath.

This afternoon we did a read-through of the whole assembly and then we went to the gym to figure out our places for the songs and the dance. Then we practiced our dance a few times and rehearsed our songs. We were supposed to go to library but Mrs. Kidd was sick today so we are going to try to go tomorrow.

What a Busy Day!

Today was a very busy day in Room 2. We started the morning by working on our dioramas while Ms. Boyer took the Arctic group to learn their parts for the assembly. Please keep working to get your lines memorized! Only a few more days until the show!

After that we finished creating the scenes and props for the show. We were very busy painting and we got all the pieces ready to go. Sorry if some of us are coming home with a bit of extra colour on our clothes! The paint is washable and should come out with a soak in soapy water and then a trip in the washing machine.

After lunch we had a chance to go to the book fair and buy some books. We were also invited to buy book marks that were made by the Me to We club. After the book fair we went to the gym and learned more of our dance for the assembly. Ms. Boyer said we were such good dancers that she was able to add some more exciting moves! Then we went outside for some free gym time until it was our turn for music. In music we practiced our songs for the assembly and sang Kookaburra. It is an old Australian song that we are learning.

Please remember that tomorrow is our library day.

Our helper tomorrow is: Anjalika

Book Fair Tomorrow!

This morning we started by working on our journals. While we were working on our pictures Ms. Boyer took the first group of students to the music room to start practicing the assembly. Tomorrow she will take the people in the Arctic section. Our homework tonight is to try to get our lines memorized so we will be ready to practice tomorrow. Ms. Boyer will be working with the students in the Acadian group and the Prairie group on Wednesday so those groups will need to have their lines memorized by then.

After recess we did some quiet reading and then we worked on our assembly songs. Then we had math. We started by doing a 10 minute warm up of adding basic facts and then the grade 1's went with Ms. Hamby and the grade 2's went with Ms. Boyer to start learning some more adding and subtracting skills. The grade 1's looked at the different words and symbols you might hear when trying to do adding and subtracting problems. Then they tried a few problems together where they used counting on and counting back to solve the problem. The grade 2's looked at the way that numbers are built using 1's, 10's, and 100's and 1000's. They looked at the way that 1's (or units) are grouped into 10's, the way that 10's are grouped to make 100's, and the way 100's are used to make 1000's.

This afternoon we worked on our assembly sets and props. Each person worked in a group to make one of the pieces we will need. We will do the painting tomorrow and then our props and sets should be ready for us to use! Ask me what prop or set I am responsible for!

In gym we started to learn an Acadian dance that we will be performing during our assembly.

Please remember that tomorrow is our school used book fair! Students can bring as much money as they would like, each book will cost 25 cents. The proceeds from the book fair will be used to buy mini libraries for children in-need from Unicef. 

Our helper tomorrow is: Addison

Ants!

Earlier this week we discovered two huge anthills in the Whispering Woods. When we were looking at them we had a lot of questions and were very excited to study them. So, today we had a chance to spend some more time observing the anthills and spent some time learning about ants.  We learned about ants by watching some videos, reading some books, and going outside to observe ants up-close using bug jars. We also spent some time observing the anthills.

We observed that the ants have 3 body parts. We learned that these body parts are the head, thorax, and abdomen. The ants also have 6 legs that are attached to the thorax and two antennae on their heads. The ants we saw had reddish heads and thorax and black abdomens with thin stripes. When we looked up Alberta ants on the computer we discovered that our ants look like Western Thatching Ants.  We aren't completely sure that our ants are really Western Thatching Ants, but the description of their hills matched the anthills we observed so we thought we must be on the right track.



After we had observed the ants up-close we read some more information about ants and then we went to observe their anthills. We noticed that the anthills had holes where the ants were moving in and out of the colony and that lots of the ants were busy moving twigs, leaves, and even other insects like ladybugs.

Here are some facts we learned today:
- Ants can create huge colonies underground.
- Their colonies have chambers and the chambers are connected by tunnels.
- The queen ant's job is to lay eggs.
- The female ants are the workers and do not have wings.
- The male ants have wings.
- Different ants have different jobs. Some are nurse ants who take care of the babies, some are guards, and some are in charge of bringing food back to the colony.
- Ants start out as eggs that hatch into larva.

At the end of the day Ms. Boyer and Mrs. Hamby gave each student who wished to have a speaking part their lines for the assembly. Please try to practice (and maybe even memorize!) your lines over the weekend so we can start rehearsing the assembly next week.  The assembly will take place on May 25 at 10:50am. 

We still have several students who have not returned their swimming forms. Please return the forms on Monday.

Our helper on Monday is: Jessica

Assembly!!

This morning we had centres and guided reading and then we worked on our stories. We now have 7 people who have finished typing and are now working on the illustrations! Many more of us are getting close to finishing and are excited to have our stories turned into real books.

After recess and word work we got to hear our assembly script for the first time and we all found out what our parts will be! Many of us have speaking parts and will be bringing home our scripts to practice and memorize at home. Next week we will start making the scenes and props and we will begin rehearsing the show.

After lunch we did a quick run through of our assembly songs and then we worked on our dioramas. As we continue working we are getting better at adding details to each piece and we are starting to see how it will all come together to really look like Nova Scotia.  Before we began our work today we looked at some books by Barbara Reid. She does all her illustrations using plasticine so we were able to get some good ideas for adding details by looking at her work. As always, we are continuing to use our plans and checklist to make sure we are on-track.

Then it was time for gym. We went outside and ran a lap of the field and then came inside to play with the parachute in the gym. After that we went to music.

Tomorrow the Kindergarten class will be holding their plant sale. The sale will be open for Kindergarten families from 10:45 AM to 11:30 for Kindergarten Families and for the rest of our families from 11:30 AM to 12:20 PM. 

We are still looking for volunteers for swimming. We require a minimum of 1 volunteer each day to accompany our class to the pool. If you are able to volunteer please email Ms. Boyer.

Tomorrow is Fresh Air Friday. We will be working on the Whispering Woods and our Sun Circle Garden. Please dress for the weather. 

Tricky Problem Solved!

This morning after centres and guided reading we did our story writing. A few of us have finished typing and have had our stories turned into books! Now we are working to illustrate our stories. The rest of us are trying to finish up our writing and typing so we can move on to this step too!

In math, we had another day to work on our tricky problem from yesterday. Most of us were able to figure it out. Some of us figured it out by ourselves and some of us worked with Ms. Boyer or Ms. Smith. Ask me if I was able to find the answer! (A few of us still need a little bit more time. We will work with Ms. Smith tomorrow to find the answer and get our gold!)

In the afternoon we practiced our assembly songs and then worked on our dioramas. Almost all of us were able to move on to making our animals using plasticine. It turns out that plasticine halibut are a lot harder to make than we thought!!! We will continue working on this tomorrow afternoon and then we will be working on our dioramas during centers next week so that we can begin making our assembly scenes and props in the afternoon.

After our diorama time we had library and then we went outside for gym. We played a new game that Ezra taught us called Rainbow tag. Then we had a few minutes to play at the playground.

Thank you to those students who have already returned their swimming forms. If you have not returned your forms please try to do so ASAP. 

On Friday May 12, the kindergarten students will be having a plant sale starting at 10:45 AM. They will be selling tomato, cucumber, zucchini, peppers, basil, and cilantro plants for 2-15$ each. The proceeds of their sale will be used by the Kindergarten students to support a needy cause and to help fund their garden. 

Tomorrow our helper is: Dominic

A very tricky math problem!

This morning we worked on our centers and then we spent some time practicing our songs for the assembly. We are trying to sing them without the lyrics and we are trying to use louder singing voices. After we finished practicing Jordan from room 1 shared some pictures from her holiday.

After recess we did word work. Then it was time for math. We are working on solving our final problem in treasure math. The treasure has arrived and we need to figure out how much we have in total and how many pieces each person can have.  Here's the challenge we are working on:

1. We have 288 gold coins and 84 chocolate coins. How much do we have all together?
2. We have 47 students. How many gold coins can each student have? How many chocolate coins can each student have?

To figure out the first question we have talked about representing the numbers as groups of 10 and then counting by 10's to add them all up.  We figured out that we would have 8 leftovers from 288 that couldn't be made into a group of 10 and 4 leftovers from 84 that couldn't be made into a group of 10. We have to remember to add these leftovers back in after we count up all the 10's.

To figure out the second question we are using an estimating strategy. We talked about the idea that 47 is pretty close to 50 and that 50 would be a lot easier to work with.  Then we started pretending to hand out the coins like this:
- To give everyone 1 gold coin we would need 50 coin.
- To give everyone 2 gold coins we would need 100 (50+50) coins.
etc.
We need to follow this pattern until we don't have enough coins to keep giving them out.

After lunch we worked on our dioramas. Many of us have finished our landscapes and buildings and are now moving on to adding the animals using plasticine. Before we were allowed to move on we had to prove to Ms. Boyer or a partner that we had added all the pieces we had planned by showing them our diorama and our planning page.

Swimming forms should have arrived home yesterday. Please try to bring them back as soon as possible and remember to pay the fees online. We are looking for volunteers to help us each day. Dads or grandpas are especially helpful as we need to have a male supervisor in the boys change room. If you are able to help please email Ms. Boyer. 

The helper tomorrow is: Ezra

Ant Hills!

This morning we didn't have regular journals. Instead, we worked on finishing our writing from Fresh Air Friday.  We had quite a lot of time so most of us were able to finish on-time. A few of us had trouble getting started this morning and needed extra time. Ask me how my work went this morning.

Today we found some huge ant hills in the Whispering Woods.  One of the ant hills was bigger than the other and it was full of ants that had red heads. Some of us think they might be fire ants, some of us think they army ants, and some of us think they might be bulldog ants, and some of us think they might be wood ants. We will need to do some more research to find out. Luckily we will be studying insects soon and we will be able to take some more time to do this research.

We are bringing home 3 notices today. The most important one is forms for our swimming program! Please note that the fees for swimming must be paid on-line via your "my CBE account". We will also need volunteers to help us each day of swimming. Dad's are especially helpful as we need a male supervisor in the boys change room. 

Tomorrow the helper is: Max

Caring for our Rivers - Part 1

Today we continued our work as jr. environmental scientists who study human impacts. We started the first step of our project to help protect our rivers. We learned from Judy at Yellow Fish Road that pollution from our streets, yards, and cars can end up in the storm sewer system and then goes directly into our rivers. This pollution causes lots of problems for the plants and animals that live in or near our rivers and also affects the quality of drinking water for people.  Here is a video from the presentation that Ms. Boyer forgot to post:

As jr. environmental scientists we are following this process: (1)Background research (2) Identify a problem (3) Gather evidence and make observations (4) Develop solutions (5) Implement a plan. Our plan is to raise awareness about the problem of storm drain pollution by painting yellow fish and "rain water only" messages beside the storm drains in our neighbourhood to remind people to be careful about what they put down the storm drains.

Today our first step was to head out into the neighbourhood to count the storm drains and to make observations about the condition of the drains and streets. To do this work we split up into 5 groups. Each group went with a teacher and was assigned one or two streets to explore. We explored: Benton Drive, Bannerman Drive, Barrett Drive and Barrett Place, Brenner Drive and Brenner Crescent, and Breton Close. Each group had a map and an observation page where we could mark down the storm drain locations and write about any evidence we saw.  In total we counted 43 storm drains. When we came back in to the school we shared our observations and then we started writing about this project in our Fresh Air Friday journals. Here are a few of the observations we made:
- Some of the drains already have yellow fish, but most of them are very faded and need to be repainted.
- Some of the drains had garbage beside them or even in them.
- We noticed that there was a lot more garbage at storm drains that were near busier streets like 52 Ave.
- We noticed some cars that were leaking oil. That oil will end up going into the storm drain the next time it rains.
- We noticed that lots of the storm drains were placed at the bottom of hills or at the end of streets.
- We noticed that storm sewers and man-hole covers were often found close to each other.
- We think that there might be pipes or tunnels under the streets that connect all the storm drains together.

Our next step is to plan out painting day. We will let you know when we have set the date as we will need quite a few parent volunteers to help us with this project. 

On Monday our helper is: Lily

p.s A few discoveries we made along the way today:

Crocuses in the Whispering Woods

Happy Star Wars Day!

Today we had guided reading and then started out story writing. In story writing we talked about editing. Ms. Boyer introduced us to an editing checklist that we are using to help us. Here is the checklist:

After recess we had word work. Then we had our last day of Treasure Math! The student who were finished worked on Mathletics. We will be starting to do more work with adding and subtracting next week so it was nice to get warmed up with some basic facts practice on Mathletics Live.

This afternoon we practiced our songs for the assembly and then we worked on our dioramas. Quite a few of us finished up the landscape and started working on creating the houses and buildings. We looked at some photos of villages in Nova Scotia to help us get a better idea about how they should look. We noticed that lots of the villages are right near the water but they don't usually put the houses right at the edge of the cliffs. We also noticed that there are docks and sometimes small buildings for fishing or boats right on the water.

Tomorrow is Fresh Air Friday. We will be doing a mapping activity around the neighborhood. Please wear good walking shoes and dress for the weather. It is supposed to be very nice out tomorrow but the morning could be chilly. Dressing in layers might be a good idea. If any parents are available to help tomorrow please send Ms. Boyer an email. 

Today our routine was pretty much the same as yesterday in the morning. We worked on our new centers, continued our story writing, and tried to finish up Treasure Math. At story writing some of us are writing, some of us are editing with friends, some of us are working with an adult, and some of us are typing. Ask me what I am doing! In math, the students who were finished treasure math went to the learning commons to play math games or try an addition hidden picture page.

This afternoon the schedule was different. We worked on our dioramas and then had gym and music. Usually we would have library and no music but Ms. Stephure is going out to meet the grade 5-6's at outdoor school tomorrow so we had an extra music time today. We will have our library time tomorrow. In gym we played King's Gold outside. We talked about the importance of honesty when we play games like this so that everyone feels the game is fair. If we pretend we didn't get tagged when we did, or if we pretend we tagged someone when we didn't quite, other people can get frustrated and the game isn't very fun. After the talk our class did pretty well.

On Friday we are planning to do some community mapping in anticipation of a big project we will be doing to help protect our rivers from pollution that can go through our storm drains. If there are any parents who are available to help please email Ms. Boyer.

Our helper tomorrow is: Ibrahim

Caring for our Teeth

This morning Ms. Boyer introduced a new center for us to work on when we are not a guided reading. We are working on some very detailed pictures that will decorate the gym for our assembly on May 25. The pictures are all about Canada. After centers we continued out story writing. Three more students have moved on to typing!

After recess we had word work and then we moved on to math. The students who are still working to finish up treasure math staying in the classroom and the student who are finished went to the library to play Race to 100 and Math War.

This afternoon we had some special guests come to talk to us about caring for our teeth. We had 4 different presenters who have to talk to us and talked to us about brushing and flossing, keeping our gums healthy, eating healthy foods, and drinking lots of water. Ask me what I learned from the presentations this afternoon.

This Friday we are going to be doing a mapping activity in our neighborhood. If there are any parents who are available to volunteer it would be very helpful. Please email Ms. Boyer if you are able to help. 

Our helper tomorrow is: Katie

Can't believe it's already May!

Today we started with our usual Monday routine of journals and dioramas. Ms. Boyer had to help with some work in the office this morning so Ms. Brayal was here with us. We continued working on hamburger paragraphs and the grade 1's were working to spell our "no excuses" words correctly.

After recess the grade 2's did solo book time and the grade 1's started practicing our new words for the week.  After that it was time for Treasure Math. We changed things up a bit today by sending 3 of the groups that were finished out to play some new math games instead of being helpers. Tomorrow the 4th group will go out to play and a different group will stay in to help. The math games were called Race to 100 and Math War.

This afternoon we worked on our dioramas. Some people were away when we painted last week so they started with painting today. The rest of us moved on to adding the landscape pieces to our dioramas.

Then we had gym. We went outside and played a new game called King's Gold. In King's Gold there are two teams. Each team has 10 pieces of gold. Players try to run across to the other team's side and steal a piece of their gold without getting tagged. If they get tagged they have to go to jail and wait to be saved by someone on their team. The first team to steal all the other team's gold wins. Today we played for quite a while without anyone winning. That usually means that the teams were really evenly matched.

Tomorrow our helper is: Peter