Thanks for a Great Year!

Dear Room 2,

Thank you for such a great year! It has been so much fun watching all of you grow and learn this year. You are a bunch of smart cookies and I am so proud of you! Have an awesome summer and I will see you in September!

Ms. Boyer

Magnetism and Big Buddies

Today we worked on a final project using magnetism. We started the day by going on a magnet hunt to see what objects in our school are magnetic and what objects are not. We also watched a video and learned that magnetic objects have to contain nickel, iron, or cobalt. Around the school we noticed that the metal door frames and railings were magnetic, but wood tables and fabric curtains were not. We also noticed that some things that we thought would be magnetic, because they were made of metal, were not. These items must not contain nickel, iron, or cobalt.

After recess we did three different experiments to test magnet strength and to learn about magnetic poles. We learned that opposites attract and matching poles repel. After lunch we used our new magnet learning to design and invention that could be used to help students at school. Some of us designed inventions to keep students from losing their pencils, others designed inventions to help students stay seated at their desks, and others are creating fidget toys. Ask me about my invention. We will be building our inventions tomorrow morning!

At the end of the day we had Big Buddies. This was our chance to share our stories with an audience and practice reading them before bringing them home to share with our families. We practiced using good expression and reading with fluency so that we will be able to tell the story well at home. My story is in my backpack, please look for it at home tonight! After we finished sharing with our big buddies we went outside to play. We played with bubbles, sidewalk chalk, and at the playground with our big buddies.

Tomorrow we will be celebrating the July birthdays in our class and on Wednesday we will be celebrating the August birthdays. Please remember that we will be going up to Nose Hill on Thursday morning. Students are invited to bring a special snack with them and families are welcome to join us. 

Our helper tomorrow is: Isabel

Fish Homes Needed!

The countdown is on! Only 7 school days left, so we are working to finish up some final projects. We are working to finish: stories, a prairie art and writing project, addition and subtraction problem solving, and magnetism. These projects will take up most of our time up until the last two days of school. 

On the last day of school (Thursday, June 29) we are planning to have a morning picnic at Nosehill. We will encourage students to bring a special snack and we will have some fun activities planned.  Families are welcome to join us if they wish. Please email Ms. Boyer if you are able to come as we will need a few parents to help us meet our student-teacher ratio.

 

We are looking for new homes for the goldfish that are currently living in our aquaponic garden. The goldfish don't need any fancy equipment, just a bowl and some food. If your family would like to adopt a few of our fish please let Ms. Boyer know! They won't be able to stay at the school over the summer and Ms. Boyer can't take them all. If you would like to adopt some fish please send a note with your child or email Ms. Boyer so that we can make arrangments to have the fish picked up or sent home. 

Our helper tomorrow is: Jasper

Yellow Fish Painted!

Today's Yellow Fish Road project was a great success. We worked in 7 groups and managed to paint a total of 47 storm drains! In our groups we each had an important job. 2 of us were the safety crew, we wore reflective vests, put out the orange cone to block the storm drain and watched for cars to keep everyone safe. 2 of us were responsible for going to each house near the storm drain and putting a yellow fish door hanger on their door. The door hanger gave information about keeping the storm drains clean and protecting our rivers. The final 2 students in each group were the painters. The painters were in charge of cleaning away any debris in or around the storm drain and then using the stencil to paint the yellow fish sign.

 Thank you to the volunteers who came with us!

Tomorrow is Fresh Air Friday. We will be outside for most of the morning working at 3 stations: Boat testing, gardening, and watercolour painting. Please dress for the weather and for the activities. 

Our helper on Monday is: Addison

Rain Delay!

The weather didn't quite cooperate today and we weren't able to do our Yellow Fish Road painting. We were worried that the paint wouldn't stick to the wet roads and would run into the storm drains. Then we would be causing the problem, instead of solving it! So, we will be going out tomorrow afternoon instead.

Since we couldn't do the painting we worked on our boats this afternoon. Most of us have our boats mostly finished and we will be ready for testing on Friday after a little bit of time for finishing touches.

Before boats we worked on story writing, our prairie poems, and subtraction this morning.

Our helper tomorrow is: Levi

Yellow Fish Road Tomorrow!

Tomorrow afternoon we will be painting our yellow fish on the storm drains near the school. Weather permitting we will be heading out right after lunch (1:00) and we will be going in small groups with parent volunteers. At this point we could still use some more parent volunteers to help make the groups smaller so if you are able to join us from 1:00-2:30 please do!

For this project please wear comfortable shoes for walking and clothes that are good for painting.

In other news: 
- Almost all of us are finished our stories!
- The grade 2's learned to do subtraction in the billions today!
- Our boat building was very successful this afternoon. We will have one more building time on Thursday and then we will be testing out our boats on Friday.

Our helper tomorrow is: Reid

Boat Building!

Today we worked as boat architects to get our blueprints drawn and labelled for our boats. We had to make sure to include the ways our boat will move, the ways our boats will stay stable, and the ways our boat will carry cargo. We also had to make a materials list to show exactly what we need to collect. We have some materials at school like straws, meat trays, wooden skewers, tape, and glue but many of us will need to collect some of our other materials at home. Today we even had a few students who already brought their materials with them!  Here is the target we are using to assess our boats:

Our boat building will start tomorrow afternoon. Please make sure you have your supplies with you!

Tomorrow is our Environment Committee treat day.  The treat for sale will be donuts and they will cost $1. 

We are still planning to do our Yellow Fish Road painting project on Wednesday afternoon. So far we have a few volunteers but we would like to have a few more so that we can keep the groups really small and give every student a chance to do some of the painting. If you are available to help please contact our room parent, Marie. 

Our helper tomorrow is:

If you're not from the prairies...

This morning we started looking at our final writing project for the year. We will be creating some poetry based on David Bouchard's book If You're Not From the Prairies. The book follows a pattern and teaches the reader about lots of important things about the prairies. After we had read the story we came up with our own page together. Here is what we wrote as a group:

If you’re not from the prairie you don’t know the sun. You can’t know the sun.

The sun keeps us warm when the wind strikes.

It is bright yellow and dry, it turns grass into spikes.

It helps the grass and trees grow tall and strong.

Bright and shiny to keep us warm when the winter is long.

If you’re not from the prairie you don’t know the sun.

After lunch we finished up our exploration of ways to make boats move by writing our reflection. Our reflection had to include a sentence about each of the three strategies we learned and a sentence about the type of moving we plan to use in our own boats next week. Now that we have learned about ways to keep boats stable and ways make boats move lots of us have a good idea about what kind of boat we want to make and what kinds of supplies we might need. Please remember to keep collecting supplies over the weekend. We will need the supplies on Tuesday afternoon to start our building. 

Tomorrow is Sports Day! We will be outside for the whole morning rotating through different activity stations. Please be sure to dress for the weather and bring a labelled water bottle. Sunscreen and a hat are also a great idea if it is sunny. 

Our helper on Monday is: Dominic