Hello families and welcome back after the winter break! I hope you had a lovely holiday with your children. To celebrate the new year the children made "fireworks paintings" which are on display in the hall bulletin board. I hope 2016 is a happy and healthy one for your family.
This week we started our inquiry about Arctic Animals. The children learned how Arctic animals keep warm in very cold temperatures: they put one hand in a container with ice water, and the other hand in a bag with "blubber" (lard in two zip lock bags), also in the ice-cold water. They learned that the blubber insulates the animal and that polar bears have black skin, hollow fur AND blubber to keep them warm! They also learned that walruses huddle together, and that Orcas travel in pods, as well as several other facts about these amazing animals. The Seniors wrote out beginning, and end sounds on the Smartboard to an arctic theme. All the children worked on reading and colouring two booklets this week: "Super Cool Animals of the Arctic," and "Are You Cold?"
We are learning about a new Arctic animal each day, and (weather-permitting) we will also learn about ice and arctic weather by observing what happens to water when we put it outside. We are also learning about how people in the far north live, and read a book together called "Welcome to Igloolik." My cousin lived and worked in Yellowknife and my sister lives by James Bay, so I had some stories to share about the weather in the far north. In art, the children are making igloos from paper pieces and are making several arctic animals from paper as well. Look for a new bulletin board display in the hall in the next week or so!
In numeracy, we are learning about standard and non-standard measurement, and are measuring several things in the classroom with various objects. Measurement is a main focus of this term.
The Juniors are continuing to practise letter formation, and we used our mini white boards and markers to write the letters A-Q, upper and lower case. This is really coming along, with much fewer letter reversals! I also review number formation daily and am assessing the Juniors since they will be receiving their very first Progress Reports in February! Information regarding booking an interview time will be sent via the LKS bulletin.
We have also been listening to winter poetry each morning (aside from the poems we do for the Sharing Assemblies). The poems for this month's Sharing Assembly are "I Have a Cold" and "Snowball." Copies were sent home to practise. Next week the Listening Centre will be open as well.
It was a special day on Thursday because we had a visit from Scientist Cathy who, along with our parent volunteers, taught the children all about Water! They learned about absorption, why objects float or sink, measured water in millilitres, learned about locks, and made a sailboat that they floated using their own wind power. Thank you very much to Parent Council for funding this unique learning opportunity!
This week's homework for the SKs is to complete the Polar Bear labelling and writing: a polar bear HAS, CAN, IS. The January words as well as homework bingo were also sent home this Friday. The words of the week are BIG, RUN and SNOW. I have also sent home a mini read and write book of the sight word "no."
We also met with our Reading Buddies on Friday which the children were excited about. We are continuing our Author Study about Mo Willems in the afternoons.
Some of the children are finishing all their snacks and lunch before the end of the day and need a little extra snack. Please provide your children with extra to keep them fortified throughout our busy day.
Thank you so much to: Christopher's mom who made pay dough for the class; the Science-in-the-Classroom volunteers - Avery's and Elizabeth's dads, and Henry's, Ruby's and Hannah's moms; Phoebe's dad who was this week's mystery reader; Tessa who is sharing her polar bear stuffy with the class at our Science Table.
That's the news for this weekend - see you tomorrow :)
