Almost vacation time!!

Today was our second day of caroling. We also had dress like an elf spirit day. At caroling Mr. O'Reilly came ready to play Six White Boomers on his guitar and we all sang along! We are excited to see what Mr. O'Reilly will be ready to perform tomorrow!

Tomorrow the theme for our day is "Polar Express Day". That means we are invited to wear our pyjamas and we will be getting hot chocolate. Please leave your stuffies at home so they can't accidentally get forgotten here over the holidays.

Today we are bringing home a special gift for our families. We have put a lot of love and work into them and we hope you enjoy them!

Please remember tomorrow is a half-day. Students will be dismissed at 12:00. Before we leave for holidays we will be doing a desk clean out. Please try to bring an extra bag for any bits and pieces that need to go home. 

Festive Hat Day!

Today was our first day of caroling and also festive hat day. Lots of us had special hats to wear today. Some were store bought and some were home made. For caroling Mr. O'Reilly had lots of songs ready for us to sing and Ms. Boyer helped him out. Ms. Boyer says our school sounded even better than last year! Ms. Boyer thinks all our new students must be helping us out. We sang six white boomers, frosty the snowman, and I want a hippopotamus for Christmas.

Tomorrow we will have another day of caroling. The theme for tomorrow is "Dress Like an Elf", or, wear red and green day.

After caroling we worked on our poetry project. Ms. Boyer showed us how the poem will fit with our tree project to make a really beautiful piece of art. We are excited to finish them up tomorrow and bring them home!

After recess the grade 1's spent a bit of extra time on their poems and then continued their graphing work with Mrs. Hamby. The grade 2's went to the learning commons to finish their graphing projects. When the grade 2's were finished they got to play Mathletics.

This afternoon we read a story and then we worked to finish up our trees and our poems. Tomorrow we will put the whole project together.

Then it was time for gym. Mr. O was here today for Mrs. Hamby so he took us for gym while Mrs. Hamby's class was in music. We played ringette. After that we had music. We did some writing about our favourite instruments. At the end of the class Mr. O'Reilly gave us a special gift. We could either choose a book mark or two erasers.

Tomorrow our helper is: Ashton

The countdown has begun!

Today we had to work on our winter poems instead of journals because we only have 3 days to get our project finished. We worked really hard and everyone was able to finish their rough copy.

After recess the grade 1's worked on reading graphs with Mrs. Hamby. We worked in groups to answer questions about a graph. The grade 2's worked to finish their graphing project on the computer. They will need one more day to get all finished.

This afternoon we worked on our trees. Some of us were able to finish and the rest of us are really close. After that we had gym. We played ringette. Then we had finish up and free choice.

Tomorrow our helper is: Taylor

Tomorrow we will have our first day of carol singing at the start of our day. The theme for tomorrow is festive hat day. Please feel free to wear your festive hats if you have them. 

Herbivores, Omnivores, and Carnivores

Good afternoon parents,

Today we continued our animal study by talking about animals that live on Nose Hill. First, we brainstormed animal that we know live on Nose Hill. Some of the animals we came up with were: fox, porcupine, owl, cougar, grasshopper, bear (long ago), weasel, rabbit, red-winged black bird, hawk, bald eagle, mouse, insects, bat, deer, moose, and coyote.

Then we talked about the terms herbivore, omnivore, and carnivore. A herbivore is a plant eater. An omnivore eats plants and meat. A carnivore is an animal that only eats meat. After we learned about those we went outside to play a game. In the game we pretended to be animals. Some of us were carnivores. Some of us were omnivores. Some of us were herbivores. If you were a herbivore you had to hunt for plants in the Whispering Woods. Our food was cups filled with pennies. If you got tagged by a carnivore or an omnivore you had to give them one of your coins.  If you were an omnivore you could hunt for plants and you could also hunt herbivores. But, you had to watch out for the carnivores. If they tagged you, you had to give them two pennies. If you were a carnivore you could hunt herbivores or omnivores for food but you couldn't collect pennies from the cups.

Our helper on Monday is: Senna

Have a great weekend!

This morning we moved on to the "I hear" part of our winter poems. We started by brainstorming lots of ideas about things we hear in winter and then we brainstormed describing words for hearing. We came up with words like jingling, growling, ringing, whooshing, howling, and snoring. Then we each went and wrote our own idea on our poem template. Ms. Boyer could tell that we are starting to get the hang of using describing words because we had a much easier time completing our sentence this time!

After recess we worked on our survey project. The grade 1's had a special guest come to visit...Mrs. Polski! She came to hear each group present the findings from their surveys and to hear her recommendations. She was very interested to hear about all the information we have discovered for her about fun lunches, gym, special days, lunchtime, and special events. The grade 2's kept working on their survey reports on the computer. If you would like to see what your grade 2 student has done so far, ask them to log-in to google at home using their email address and new password. They can show you their report in google docs and how they made their graphs in google sheets.

This afternoon we continued working on our trees. It is a lot of work to cut out all the hand shapes we need but we are working really hard so they will be ready to bring home before the holidays. Next week we will be starting to decorate the trees and add our poems.

In gym we played a big game of hockey using the whole gym. We had to play in shifts, just like real hockey players. It was a really good game and ended up with a score of 2-2! We are getting better at controlling the puck and keeping our sticks down.

After that we had music. We watched a video of a person who can sing two notes at the same time. We also learned about beat, rhythm, and melody.

Tomorrow is Fresh Air Friday. We were not able to get volunteers so we will be staying at the school and working in the Whispering Woods. In preparation for our work tomorrow here is a homework challenge:

1. What is a herbivore? What is an omnivore? What is a carnivore?
2. Can you think of 5 herbivores that live on Nose Hill?
3. Can you think of 3 omnivores or carnivores that live on Nose Hill?

Our helper on Monday is: Senna

We are still collecting items for the "Fill a Sock" campaign. We are in need of deodorant, kleenex, gift cards, candies/chocolates, razors, and lip balm/chapsticks.

This week our blog team is Lawrence, Aksel, Leander, and Jasper.

This morning we had festive centers, had library, and then worked on our winter poems. Here is what we have so far:

I see my jolly little elf in his crimson red coat. ~Jasper
I see my jolly little elf in his emerald and red coat. ~ Leander
I see puffy shiny snow. ~ Aksel
I see fluffy shiny snow. ~ Lawrence

After recess we had booktime and then math. In math the grade 1's worked on making our survey reports. We are inviting Mrs. Polski to come visit so we can show her what we found out in our surveys. We think knowing about our surveys will help Mrs. Polski with the decisions she has to make about things like fun lunches, clubs and special days.  The grade 2's continued working on their computer graph projects. Today we had to start making our reports in Google Docs. We had to copy and paste from Google Sheets into Google docs and then start writing up the report.

After lunch we started making pine trees for our new project. We made the trees by tracing our hands and cutting them out.

In gym we played hockey again today. The gym was divided in half with the benches so there was space for a grade 1 game and a grade 2 game. Some people got a bit upset when things in the game weren't fair, but we were able to solve the problem and make the games fair again.

We are still collecting items for the Fill-a-Sock campaign. We will be collecting items until Friday.  We are hoping to go to Nose Hill on Friday. If you are able to volunteer please email Ms. Boyer

Our helper tomorrow is: Leander

This morning we started working on a new poetry project. We are each going to making a special gift to bring home and it will have a winter poem on it. Our poems will be senses poems. Today we started thinking about ideas for "I See...". We talked about using "juicy" describing words to make our writing really interesting. Ask me what idea I am planning to write.

In math our grade 2's started making their graphs in google sheets. The grade 1's started working on a group report to share our survey findings with Mrs. Polski.

This afternoon we continued making fancy paper using coffee filters and smelly markers. We will move on to the next part of our project tomorrow.

In gym we played hockey. We had a grade 1 game and a grade 2 game. We had to remember to keep our sticks low so that people wouldn't get hurt since we weren't wearing hockey gear.

At the end of the day our Amaryllis team measured the plant. It is now 29cm tall. It has grown 20cm in one week!!  It has some leaves at the bottom and it is very tall and skinny. It has two stems that are growing.

We are hoping to head up to Nose Hill on Friday. If you are able to volunteer please email Ms. Boyer.  We will be collecting items for the "Fill a Sock" campaign until Friday. Here is the list of items we are being asked to bring:

Our helper tomorrow is: Shawn

Today the grade 2's started a new survey project. To start we had to get signed in with our CBE Google accounts. Then we went to Google Sheets and started experimenting to see if we could figure out how to make a graph. We are going to be making a survey report using Google Docs and Google Sheets. While the grade 2's were working on their project the grade 1's did some more practice with reading information from graphs.

This afternoon we started the first step of a new project that we will be working on for the next two weeks. Today we worked as a team to start making some fancy paper using coffee filters and smelly markers. To make the fancy paper we coloured the coffee filters and then we got them wet. When they got wet the colours spread and blended together.

In gym we started playing floor hockey. We practiced passing. We practiced keeping the puck under control when weaving through cones. There was a slow lane, a medium lane, and a fast lane for practicing.

Please remember that tomorrow is treat day!

Our helper tomorrow is: Liam

What makes black?

This afternoon we did an experiment. The question were were looking to answer was: What makes black?

Some of our predictions were: All the colours, brown and grey, dark colours, primary colours.

To find out the answer to our question we each took a coffee filter and put a black dot in the center using a smelly marker. Then we used droppers to put water onto the black dot. We watched as the black separated into many colours as it spread across the coffee filter.

Before

After

We noticed pink, blue, yellow, orange, purple, red, green, turquoise, and lime green. This made us think that the "All the colours" prediction was correct. But, we also figured out that the "Primary Colours" prediction was correct too because all the colours are really made out of the primary colours.

Tonight is the festive evening! Our class will be singing a special song at about 7:15.

There is no school tomorrow. Enjoy your long weekend. 

Our helper on Monday is: Dhvani

Good afternoon parents,

Our blog team this week has been Ashton, Senna, and Lily.

Today we had centers in the morning and also guided reading. Then we went to library and Mrs. Kidd read us a story called Brave Irene. It was a very old story made in 1920. Then we started working on making puppets of our family for our All About Me books. We noticed that everyone was planning a Family category so it made sense to do this part first.

After recess we did printing and guided reading. The grade 1's have finally finished our printing practice and will be moving on to studying word families. The grade 2's practiced spelling the months of the year. Ms. Boyer will give them a quiz tomorrow.

In math we needed to finish up our survey projects. If we were finished we got to play Mathletics.

After lunch we continued our paint chip challenge from yesterday. We needed to use what we know about colours and mixing colours to try to make the colours on a whole bag of paint chips. Some of the colours we tried to make were: Beach Purple, Bold Orange, Track Green, and Clear Teal.

Then we went to gym. We played pillow polo. We had two games going, one for the grade 1's and one for the grade 2's. We are getting better at passing but sometimes we will forget that we shouldn't take the ball away from people on our own team :)

After gym we did sharing and then we met with Room 1 and PT to practice our song for the festive evening.

We have a new sharing category starting tomorrow. It is "Bring Your Favourite Toy". Please remember that anything very expensive or breakable should be left at home. 

Our helper tomorrow is: Addison

Good Afternoon Parents,

This is what we did today:

First we did our journal pictures. Then we did our journal writing. The grade 1's were trying to write one hamburger paragraph and the grade 2's were trying to do two hamburger paragraphs. A hamburger paragraph has 1 topic sentence, 3 detail sentences, and 1 wrap it up sentence.

After recess we worked on our survey project. Today some people were finishing their survey and some people were working on their graph. After the graph is finished we need to write about our survey and the information it has taught us.

This afternoon in our colour study we learned how to make a shades. A shade is when you take a colour and you add black to make it darker. It is the opposite of tint. We each started with a colour and kept adding black to make darker and darker shades. Black is very powerful so we only needed to add a tiny bit to see a difference.

After that we did gym. We are working on pillow polo and hockey. We started by practicing keeping the ball under control using the polo mallets. Some of us were ready to try weaving between cones when walking, some of us were ready to try jogging, and some of us could keep the ball under control when weaving while running!

New Info:
In our class we are trying a new strategy at the carpet. This strategy is called "No Hands Up". When we use this strategy Ms. Boyer chooses people to answer her questions or share their ideas by choosing names out of a jar rather than calling on people who have their hands up. By using this strategy everyone has to try to think up an idea because we don't know who will be picked and we need to listen closely to our classmates so we can build on their ideas. This is important because when we are thinking up ideas and listening to others our brains are getting smarter. When we stop listening or let other people come up with all the ideas we aren't giving our brains the chance to learn. If Ms. Boyer calls on us and we don't know what to say that is ok, sometimes we just don't know yet. If this happens we have to listen closely to the ideas that other people share and then Ms. Boyer will come back to us and ask us to add on to those ideas or to re-phrase someone else's idea to show what we have learned from our classmates. 

Our helper tomorrow is: Taylor

Animal Evidence

Today we started our study about the animals that live in our neighborhood. We learned that a scientist who studies animals is called a zoologist. Today we used cartography, statistics, and photography to help us document signs of animals we could find in the Whispering Woods. We looked for tracks, scat, homes, fur/feathers/bones, and other signs that animals live in the woods. We were in groups of 3. One person was in charge of recording the location of our findings on a map. Another person was in charge of keeping track of how many pieces of evidence we found using tally marks on a chart. The last person was in charge of taking photos of the evidence we found. Here is a chart that we made together when we shared our findings at the end of the day.

Group	Findings
Jasper, Aksel, and Joachim	1 track – maybe deer or coyote 10 scat 6 homes – ants 1 set of teeth marks
Taylor, Ashton, and Liam	2 tracks – hare 4 scat – dog, and rabbit 6 homes – ants, mouse chewed bark
Dhvani, Cedar, and Shawn	2 tracks – maybe from deer 5 scat – rabbit 3 homes – ants and mouse
Addison, Abdul Ahad, Lily	3 tracks – rabbits, dogs, maybe deer 2 scat – dog and rabbit 3 homes – mouse chewed bark
Leander, Senna, and Katie	7 scat – rabbits, dogs, 1 fur – rabbit 5 homes – ant, deer, wasp chewed bark
Reid, Aiden, and Josie	1 – dog 2 scat – dog, rabbit, coyote 3 homes – ants, mouse, rabbit broken bark

Have a great weekend!

Our helper on Monday is: Addison.