There is no denying it, fall is in the air! For our nature walk today, we went to the east side of our field and made leaf rubbings with the fallen leaves. The children needed to make at least 5 rubbings, and were to switch crayon colours each time. The finished art pieces are beautiful and will be displayed in our classroom.
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What a fabulous day we had at the John Janzen Nature Centre. Thank you to all of our parents who were able to join us. We spent the day learning about animals and insects, about seasonal changes, and exploring the Edmonton river valley. The kids had a blast and we had many children sleeping on the bus ride home! We have been talking about and reading stories about spring. To begin our day I asked children to share something that happens in spring. Their ideas are listed below, followed by some photos from our chilly spring walk! Morning Class
Afternoon Class
What a great field visit this was! Many thanks to our amazing parent volunteers who led students around the museum to view the different galleries. We spent some time playing outside over the lunch break and really enjoyed our time in the discovery room learning about spring. Here are some photos from our fantastic day together. To begin Groundhog Day was read the story "Wake Up, Groundhog". We talked about what we know about shadows, here are the children's ideas:
Our discussion lead to the conclusion that everything has a shadow, but the children wondered if earth has a shadow. Some thought yes, others thought no, and some wondered if we could even know because the shadow would be in outer space. We then created a class graph to depict our predictions on whether Balzac Billy would see his shadow. After counting the predictions, we watched a video online showing that Billy did not see his shadow... could we really have an early spring? Welcome back to school! We started the week with the question: Can you tell a story without saying any words? Most of the children thought you could not, some thought you could, and one couldn't decide. We then watched the story "The Snowman" based on the book by Raymond Briggs. This story has no words, it's a visual story. It created a lot of discussion among the students. We then created our own snowmen using the same art technique we used to make our Santas before the break. Your child's snowman is now in their portfolio so you can see it at our next Student Led Conferences. We continued the week with a "Snow Study", by reading “Snow”, which discussed winter weather and how snowflakes are made. We then completed give “Snow Stations”: playing at the snow table, creating winter pictures with puffy paint (AKA magic snow paint), drawing snowflakes using stencils, cutting snowflakes, and building snowflakes with popsicle sticks. Here are some photos from our explorations: Popsicle Stick SnowflakesSnow TableCutting Paper SnowflakesSnowflake StencilsSnow Painting (Puffy Paint)Here’s what we learned during our snow study:
· “When you look with a magnifying glass maybe you can see the snowflakes.” · “They have six branches.” · “Every snowflake looks different.” · “Snowflakes are made out of little ice crystals.” · “Snow is really cold.” · “It’s fun to play in the snow.” Yesterday we went on a field trip to the Grade 2-O classroom. The grade twos have been working incredibly hard on their Reptile Zoo. In small groups, they researched information about each one of their classroom pets. We learned about the ball python, bearded dragon, leopard gecko, and tree agama. Fantastic job grade twos! We were able to touch the ball python and bearded dragon if we wanted to. The children were attentive listeners and loved seeing the different reptiles! Our class raised $84.50 for the Infinite Woofs Animal Rescue and the total amount raised by all classes was $326! Thank you for your contributions! Happy first day of fall! The children really enjoyed sharing their nature items during our morning community circle. What a collection we had - leaves, pinecones, rocks, a bird's nest, flowers, seeds, a deer's antler, petrified wood, clay, and coal! Many items are being examined at our science center. We also used the leaves and pine cones to make prints using paint. This collage will be hung on our room for the month of October.
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