Week of May 9-13

Dear families,

I hope you are enjoying the lovely weather this weekend! I would like to wish all the moms a very Happy Mother's Day. The children have made and wrapped something special for you!

This week we finished our study on Habitats and the children brought their folders home with them on Friday. We completed our inquiry by learning about the flora and fauna in deserts and mountains. We also read all our booklets on the Smartboard so that the children could continue practising them at home. The Pond and Savanna booklets can be completed at home. Our Habitats bulletin board in the school hallway is finished! If you have a few minutes after school please come see the wonderful work the children have done to create it!

This week we also continued our learning about Dinosaurs and the children brought home the fossils they made. Our first batch didn't quite work since we poured the plaster mix on top of the sea shells. We re-thought our instructions and made another batch with the shells on top of the mixture.

We have also been reading a lot of fiction and non-fiction books about dinosaurs, and learned about and drew the Earth when there was just one large continent called "Pangea." The children are also learning a song about the seven continents.

We learned about the life cycle of dinosaurs, and compared features of herbivores and carnivores. The children completed a Venn diagram activity about this with their Grade 2 reading buddies.

The children have also been counting and sorting dinosaurs of various types, and made T-Rex Skelton art. I was pleased when some of the children wanted to,leave some of the "bones" unglued and raised off the paper "so they would be 3-D!" Great connections between units of learning!

The sight words of the week were LITTLE and OUT. Thank you to Stella, Cole and Dylan talked to their classmates about supporting the Syrian refugees at Springfest. Thank you as well to Matthew's mom who was our Mystery Reader, and to Catherine's and Christopher's moms who helped out in the Computer Lab!

The children brought home the grass seed "Egg Heads" they made and the Sunflower sprouts. Pleas help your child plant them directly into your garden or a pot. The sunflower will need some support as it grows.

I have had some questions about the field trip in June - no worries, the permission forms are not ready yet since we are still awaiting the cost for the school buses.

I hope you have a wonderful time at Springfest if you are going! Psst - there is a Dinosaur Dig in the sandbox!

Next week we'll continue learning facts about dinosaurs, focusing on the (always popular!) T-Rex and Truceratops. The children will be Paleontologists and will do some excavating activities, and then they'll write a booklet called "I am a Paleontologist" describing what they observed and learned.

That's all the news from Room 166! See you on Monday!