We had our swimming lessons this week! We went Monday to Thursday and our last day for swimming is Monday, don't forget your bathing suit and towel! Some of us went in the super deep water and jumped in and learned how to dive. Mr. Southworth took over our read aloud book (The Hobbit) and read it to us at the pool when we were waiting for our lessons to start. He is a great reader and super good at accents and using expression!
We planted and researched plants this week! Before we planted we had to research HOW to plant our seeds and how to care for them. After we planted we wrote about our predictions for what we think will happen next in the life cycle of our plants and what we still wonder about our plants. In June we are going on a field trip with our plants so that we can transport them into a farm. More information about this to come!
Once our research was completed, we got to plant:
We have been practicing our song a lot because the 40th Anniversary Assembly is on Tuesday! We need to keep practicing so that we are ready!
We got some new students in our class and had some 5/6's join us this week as well! It was a FULL HOUSE in here with 60 of us!! Wow!
We talked about the elements of Fairytales this week and we are going to start writing our own next week! After we learned what some of the rules are for fairytales we put some elements into a big spinning wheel and picked 5 things we have to include in our stories. These 5 things are:
1. a walking armor stand
2. a king that is a pig
3. a talking portrait
4. a magic jacket
5. a magic spider
We all have to have these elements in our stories and figure out interesting ways to incorporate them. If you want to make your own spinning wheel at home we used this website:
This week the grade 4's filled out the "Tell Them From Me" surveys about how they feel about school. While the grade 4's did that the grade 3's got to do some creative writing about the National Geographic Photo of the Day.
We had an in-school field trip about First Nations. We got to make dream catchers and hear a legend about how they came to be, ask me about this Legend. We also got to play some games that the First Nations used to play they were pretty fun! We played sticks and stones, jumping sticks, and ring the stick! Ask me how to play these games. There was also a station where we got to read some legends. The best station of all was the dream catcher station though. It was a bit tricky because of all of the over and under lapping and adding of the beads and feathers. They look so beautiful that Miss Klem and Miss Kolb just couldn't let them go home yet so they are displayed in the classroom for the month of May and we have already gotten lots of compliments from the other teachers around the school.
Even Ms. Luzzi and Ms. Deol joined in on the fun!
We are so thankful to all of our awesome parent volunteers that come in so we can do such amazing work! These field experiences wouldn't be able to happen without you!
In gym we played soccer outside all week! The weather was amazing!
Next week we are going swimming from 10am to 12pm! Make sure you are dressed for the weather and don't forget to bring appropriate pool wear (your bathing suit and towel!!)! You can also bring a hair brush if you want. If you are going to wear your bathing suit under your clothes so you are super prepared to start swimming quickly, don't forget your undergarments for after!!
Today we had a Jumpathon for Jump Rope for Heart. If we collected donations for the Heart and Stroke Foundation our donations were due today. We did such an amazing job raising money for this foundation. Way to go Room 7&8!
This week was Mental Health Week. We hung up the posters we made last week and had lots of discussions about the importance of healthy and happy minds. We talked a lot about how it is okay to have feelings and to talk about them. Here are some quotes from one of our many great conversations:
"It keeps your body healthy so you can live a long and happy life."
"Mental health is what keeps your brain healthy."
"It helps your body operate."
"Mental health is keeping your body and brain healthy."
"Eating healthy, like fruits and vegetables and grains and following the Canada food
guide keeps our brain healthy."
"Keep your body and your brain healthy by also exercising and eating healthy."
"If you are feeling sad or not like your normal self it is important to talk to someone
about it."
"If you aren’t sure who you can talk to there is a phone number you can call and
someone will be there to listen to you. 1-800-668-6868"
"Some people think that it is not okay to talk about your feelings. Mental health week
is good because it lets you know that it is okay to talk to someone if you are feeling
sad or mad."
"If you need help you can talk to a counselor, a therapist or a psychiatrist."
"If you have anxiety a lot or most of the time you can see a therapist or find someone
to talk to about it because sometimes anxiety can lead to depression."
"It’s okay to have feelings and to show them."
We continued our study around fairy tales. We read some originals and compared them to the more modern versions we know of today. We worked in groups and presented our findings to each other. Next we will learn some more about the history of fairy tales and their elements before we start writing our own!
In math we created our own math tests for multiplication and division! It was cool to get into the mindset of a teacher and think about what is important when thinking of multiplication and division. This is a good study tool for us as well because we have a test in math next week! We used what we learned in math, we looked at our previous assignments and then made our own tests. It was actually pretty fun!
It was Star Wars Day this week. "May the fourth be with you!"
We had a discussion about bees and homelessness and we talked about how these two topics might be connected. We linked these two topics together by thinking about food. We wonder how much the food supply we have depends on bees and what the homeless population in Calgary eats. We watched this interesting video about the Bee problem, check it out:
This week, as a special treat, we got to go outside at the end of the day to play and enjoy the beautiful spring weather! It was so nice!
We have spent so much time together this year that we are starting to dress alike!
We are singing a song for the 40th anniversary assembly. We started learning the lyrics this week. Keep practicing at home!
It was another busy week in Room 7 & 8, especially with the Celebration of Learning! We want to send out a big thank you to all of the families that attended to make the night really great! Check it out!
We finished our self portraits for the 40th Anniversary assembly. We did 3D paper art and they turned out very very cool! They will be posted around the gym when we have the assembly along with all of the other classes self portraits, we can't wait to see them!
We had a choir assembly and practiced for the Celebration of Learning on Monday. Then our actual Celebration of Learning was Thursday night. Some of the students from our classroom were in the assembly as MC's, choir singers and handbell players. It was very fun to have guests in our classroom and show off the great work we did around story writing.
It was so fun to have our families come into the classroom to see how hard we have been working and see how much we have been learning about story writing and publishing.
We loved getting feedback from our families and other teachers in the school! This is Mrs. Broadland checking out Brook's Aurasma video for her book.
Even Mr. Southworth came to check out our learning during the Celebration!
Next week is Mental Health Week. We made posters that we are going to have hanging in the hallways around the school to raise awareness about metal health. #GetLoud about mental health!
Next week on Wednesday you can wear a hat all day if you bring in a money or non-perishable food item that will be donated to a charity dedicated to supporting mental health.
Today we earned free choice. Woo Hoo!
This week we had Roots of Empathy. We switched things up due to Roots and we had Free writing on Tuesday instead of Friday!
We continued to look at fairytales this week. We are studying the difference between the modern versions and traditional versions of Snow White, Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Little Red Riding Hood. A question we have is, "Why do you think fairytales have changed?" We have had some really interesting conversations about how these differences are connected to history and how children and society has changed over time. We are in small groups reading the versions together figuring out the differences as we read. Next we will present our findings to the class.
In math we learned more about the vocabulary around multiplication and division. We learned about the dividend, divisor, quotient, factors, and product. Ask me which word goes with which numbers in a multiplication problem and division problem. We also learned about fact families, this means that you can have 2 multiplication and 2 division questions using just 3 numbers. Ask me to show you!
Just in case you have been wondering Pet Wet is still alive and mostly well with only some evaporation but we make sure to replenish him.
