Animal Projects continue...

 This past week we have been working hard finishing our animal research projects.  We have learned a lot about working together as a group.  We learned that in order to be successful AND HAVE FUN, everyone needs to contribute ideas and everyone needs to listen to each other!
The groups are finally finishing up their projects.  Some chose to make posters, others wanted to make a book and a couple of groups wanted to make a movie!  Each group also had a choice of typing up their findings on the computer or iPad, or write their projects up by hand!  Here we are in action!

Winter Trees

We made winter trees this week.  We started by painting the background.  We talked about "analogous colours", - the colours that are next to each other on the colour wheel.

 We started to work, mixing colours as we went along.

 There was such concentration as we carefully added our colours ...

...remembering to leave "snow" at the bottom of our papers

After our backgrounds dried, we cut out tree and glued them on.  We made our trees 3-D.  That was tricky for some of us.  But we all helped each other!

Once the trees were done, we added some snow!

 It got a little messy!  But that was okay, as everyone pitched in to help clean up!

Look at these beautiful creations!

list 14

Practice spelling words
gave
cake
take
end
send
sent
just
dust
must
bus
buses
dusty


the extra words

bus
skip
stop
kick
jump

Unit 13

our spelling words.
small
bell
fell
sell
hill
fill
still
roll
eyes
very
hilly
smallest


our extra words.
was
many
little
cold
want

Spelling - Unit 12 Review

practice  these  words.


baking
hoping
want
ate
great
pulled
doll
walked
babies
use
are
here
like
my
with
help
give
they
went
come

Working Together

We continue to learn about animals...

 Here we are doing some research for our animal projects.  We are working together with partners to learn more about an animal of our choice.

 Once we gather all our information, we will put together a presentation to share what we learned.

Fall Planting

We were given a BIG head of garlic recently!  Look how many cloves we have here!

 We waited for a nice sunny day and then headed out to our garden bed to plant the cloves.

 We learned about the "top" and the "bottom" of the cloves and we also learned how important it was to space the cloves apart so that the garlic had room to grow.

Once all the bulbs were in place, we covered them up and  said "Good night!  Sleep well and see you in the Spring!"  We look forward to harvesting the garlic later in the Spring and making some garlic bread and roasted garlic potatoes!!  Mmmmmm!!!

In math we are reviewing what we know about 2-D shapes and solids.  Here was a fun challenge during choosing time for a couple of students.... using any 3-D shape you find in the room, how high can you build a structure?

It was tough to get some things to balance...but we kept on trying and it worked!

Learning About Animals

Since our visit to the aquarium at the end of October, we have been learning about animals - how they adapt to their environments, what they need to survive, and the characteristics of the different groups of animals.

Here we are working with partners.  We are sorting the animals into 6 different categories:  are they mammals...

 ...birds  or reptiles....

...amphibians or insects....

                                                                               

 ...or  fish??  

There were some tricky animals!.

Spelling list 10

ate
gate
late
bake
came
game
name
same
some
hope
baking
hoping

five words for other kids
tame
same
game
came
name

Peace and Remembrance Day

We have been talking about Peace and Poppies this past week as Remembrance Day approaches.

We painted poppies. We started by painting a blue "wash" for our background. 

We then practiced painting our poppies using different size brushes.  We talked about perspective - the poppies in front should be bigger and the ones at the back should be smaller.

We filled our page with red poppies and then added a black centre with a toothpick dipped in paint.  We then added the grass, stems, and leaves

The finished paintings are just beautiful!

During the week we have also been listening to stories about Poppies and Peace.  This book inspired our latest piece of writing

By Vladimir Radunsky   

The book is filled with simple words and illustrations about what peace looks, feels, smells, sounds, and tastes like in the words of young children around the world.  After we read the story, we thought about "those special moments" that made us feel safe, and loved and peaceful.  We talked about "painting a picture with your words" so the readers could actual see or feel what we were talking about.  Here are a few examples of what we came up with...

Peace - click here to listen to all our thoughts