Week of April 17-21

Dear families,

I hope you are enjoying the gorgeous Spring weather today!

We finished our inquiry on Oceans and all the children's wonderful work went home in Friday's mail bag. Their beautiful dioramas are done, too! They worked very hard on learning about ocean life and are eager to share this with you! The "In the Deep Blue Sea" hall bulletin board will stay up for a bit longer and then that writing and art will be sent home, too.

Happy Earth Day! Last week the children started bringing in their Earth Day projects: toys or art made from recyclable objects. They are awesome! Some of the things the kids made were: a caterpillar, a shark, a giraffe, a telescope, binoculars, a jet pack, a jelly fish, a diorama, and a turtle! I can't wait to see what the kids make next week!

For Earth Day the kids also made a door hanger, wrote how to take care of the Earth, learned about what to put in the garbage vs. the blue recycling bin, and painted a still life picture of pussy willows. They also watched a "Peep and the Big Wide World" video about Earth Day.

We are also continuing our learning about 3-D shapes in Numeracy. I showed the children how to turn two circles into a square and sent them each home one so they could, too. Just search "Geometry Magic: Turn Circles into a Square" for a video on hoe to do this. It's easy! We also learned a poem about 3-D shapes and sang a fun rap about them from the Smartboard. The children are learning to identify, name, make, draw and write the names of 2-D and 3-D shapes. In the computer lab with Miss. Santiago the kids worked on the Millie's Math House program about shapes.

We also read the well-known book "Rainbow Fish" which is about being a good friend, and about how we can all learn from each other. The kids enjoyed doing a colour-by-letter picture of the rainbow fish (i.e. R=red, B=blue etc.).

The children are very excited about our upcoming field trip to the Science Centre on May 11! Please ensure that your child's permission forms are returned and that the online payment is complete by APRIL 28. Thank you. If you would like to volunteer, please "tick" the volunteer box on the form. The Grade Parents will determine volunteers based on previous opportunities. Thank you for your enthusiasm and time!

Thank you to Rielle for bringing in her toy fish and sea star, William for sharing his "growing and shrinking" sea star, and to Sebastian who brought in a Robin's egg that had hatched!

Please note the date change of the April Sharing Assembly from April 26 to APRIL 27.

That's the news for this week. Next week we will start a Science Inquiry on "Will it Sink or Float?" and will continue our learning about Spring and the Earth!