Jungle Safari Pictures and Spring Break is here!

Hi - just a quick note to remind you all to have a wonderful Spring break from March 23rd - April 2nd! We are back to school on Tuesday, April 3rd. We are all hoping it looks more like Spring outside by then.

An apology of the quick turn around for the Green Calgary/CPAWS/Citizen Science (they have a lot of different names!) Because our whole school is spending some time learning from this great organization - our dates got mixed up with the grade 3/4 dates in November! Our date for them to come to the school is FRIDAY, APRIL 6th, 2018. If you are okay with Mrs. Armour changing the date on the returned forms, I will do so. If you have not returned the forms yet, can I ask you to change the date from November 4/24th, 2017 to April 6, 2018 and then sign and return? This is just in case they post some pictures of our time spend bird watching on their blog. We will be here at the school and in Whispering Woods. THANK YOU!!

We wrote some Spring poems and cards this morning, had a final Safari challenge in the gym (pictures to follow), and worked hard to get a few more facts about our animal this afternoon after Music. ASK me if I found out what the male/female/baby are called? Can you guess which animal is called "Jack" for the male?

HAPPY SPRING! HAPPY EASTER! READ, RELAX and ENJOY OUTSIDE!

See you on Tuesday, April 3rd.


                                                      JUNGLE SAFARI CHALLENGE

Sharing all about our pets!

Georgia sharing about her cat Angus.

                                                     Ingmar sharing about his pet dogs

                                                       Lucas sharing about his cat...

                                                      and then she came for a quick visit!

                             Trinity brought her little hamster Mochi to hang out for the day

                                                Everyone was very excited to see Mochi

                                                       Arthur show and telling his cats!

                                      Emmaline sharing about her cat all dressed up like a cat!

100 Chart Challenge!

                                                  Tessa sharing about her favorite animal

                                                       Carmen sharing about Penguins!

                Malik sharing about his pet dog and snake (I'm quite glad it was just a picture!)

Tuesday

Writing - if we are not at guided reading, we are writing - a poem or a story or our choice of spelling words...today we had some poems about Spring, kittens, a storm, the sun, birds and being in the army...Ask me what I wrote about!

Gym - Jungle safari! It was hard staying on the "green vine" and being quiet when we had to back to "home base," but it was fun! Ask me what was the most fun and the most challenging for me!

Library - All of us remembered to bring back one or both of our books! Yay! Can we read my library books tonight?

Treat Day Recess - Yum, yum, thank you Room 5 and parent volunteers!

Mathlympics - Ask me what event I was at today and what math I had to work out to get a medal. Ask me if I used the 100 chart as a strategy? Did I count by 2's, 5's, 10's? Did I measure? Did I pick up a "deduction" or "fall" card in skating and have to subtract?

Special visitor - Lucas shared about his Tabby cat Ariel, then she came for a quick visit before lunch! She was a little nervous and wanted to explore the coat hooks...I wonder if she smelled our lunch?

Emmaline, Trinity, Arthur, Max can share tomorrow and Malik, Kashia, Jared and Tessa on Thursday. Remember, you can bring pictures or send pictures to Mrs. Armour (hjarmour@cbe.ab.ca). You can share your favorite animal if you don't have a pet!

Animal Research - we worked hard finding 3 facts about our animals this afternoon. We are finding out some interesting things about Nose Hill animals...did you know the weasel lives in hollow logs, the porcupine only lives with their mom until they are two months old or that the coyote can run faster than 60km/h or that a badger sprays its enemies like a skunk? Ask me what cool fact I found today!

A photo release form is coming home tomorrow for our "Citizen Science" program that is coming Friday, April 6th to help us discover more about birds and how to observe them and identify them. They have a blog and the form is so they have permission to use our picture or what we create on their blog. If you can send it back Thursday so it doesn't get lost in the shuffle of break that would be great! Sorry for the quick turn around. 

Thursday is the last day of school before Spring Break. If you have a chance to swing by and take a look at the lost and found so we can clear things out, that would be great. We will also try and do a desk clean and coat hook clean to help us come back to a fresh, clean school! Spring cleaning:)

Here are a few samples of our Aspen Tree Sketches using chalk and thinking about foreground and background.

Thanks!
Mrs. Armour and the Clubhouse

Monday

Today we had an "walk through the jungle" with Mrs. Polski leading us through the Jungle Safari course in the gym. We are pretending we are exploring the jungle and need to be in "stealth" mode - slow, careful, quiet movements so we don't disturb any animals! We have to follow the green line until we get to an obstacle that needs to be climbed, walked over, under or through. If we slip up, we have to go back to "home base" where we started. We will have different home bases, so we don't have to wait in a long line. It's so much fun and we can't wait for the next 3 days to have more time to explore!

We had to try and do our best work for Journals today before going to our event for Mathlympics. We only have this week to try and get a medal at each station. We think closing ceremonies might be the first week after Spring break. Ask me what event I was at today!

We practiced our "chalk sketching and smudging" again today with our Aspen tree perspective page. It is hard to see the white chalk until you add the black details and the background. Then the trees stand out!

Some of us who focused workers today got started on our "All About Me" pages on the computer. We are using Google Docs, so we can make fancy, colored print!

New jobs this week - Ask me what my job is! Thanks to Arthur and Emmaline who helped with Blog today.

Thank you Georgia and Ingmar for sharing about your pets today!
Max, Jared, Carmen, Lucas are sharing tomorrow about your pet or favorite animal. 

Trinity, Emmaline and Arthur are sharing Wednesday. 

Kasia, Tessa and Malik are sharing Thursday.

TREAT DAY TUESDAY TOMORROW

LIBRARY TOMORROW

THURSDAY is the LAST DAY OF SCHOOL before Spring Break. We come back on Tuesday, April 3rd.

                                                   Samantha sharing about her pet

                                                    Sunny days on "snow mountain"

Thursday and Friday in Pictures

                           Mathlympics - Hockey event - can you figure out the score if the goals are worth 2 points? How about 5 points?

                                                   Lily sharing about her pet dog Chaos...

                                                    SO cute......and then....

                                                            Here comes Chaos!!!

 Fresh Air Friday - Whispering Woods sketching different perspectives, foreground and background

                                                         A perfect day to be an artist!

Have a great weekend!

Home Reading - remember to read and bring back your books on Monday

Looking ahead to Tuesday...SNACK RECESS/Coffin Cares Assembly/Library

Thursday, March 22 is last day before Spring Break

Thursday - Snow again!

We have been writing in the morning. Some of us are finishing our family writing. Some of us are printing words or writing stories on white boards and some of us are writing a poem.

Gym - Today we were able to try the new Climbing wall in the gym! We listened to the safety rules first - the challenge is actually climbing ACROSS instead of UP. There are 5 panels to climb across. Ask us how we did! If we weren't climbing, we were playing tennis.

100 chart challenge - We used special squares to find 10 more or 10 less and asked our partners problems. They could tell us if it was too easy, too hard or just right

Mathlympics - Ask us what event we were at today and what we had to do. We will be adding up our countries medals tomorrow!

Music - At music we watched a show. There was a cat and a mouse that both wanted to be conductors. It was funny! (For those of you who are a little older, you might have heard of the show "Tom and Jerry")

Animal research - We all shared an interesting fact about our animal and tried to find two more facts today. Mrs. Armour learned a new fact - A "fisher" is one of the only animals that eat porcupines! Ask me what my interesting fact was!

Lily shared about her pet Chaos. The pictures were so cute! Then the doorbell rang and Chaos came to visit and say hello. It was so exciting! Pictures to come...stay tuned.

FRESH AIR FRIDAY tomorrow - please dress for the snow! 

ST. PATRICK'S DAY is Saturday but we are celebrating tomorrow so if you would like, wear green!

Pictures! Aspen Tree Sketches and Background

Beautiful Days! Monday and Tuesday

Monday and Tuesday

Journals - On Monday we wrote in our journals and then later we looked at and discussed what a 1, 2, 3, 4 journal writing page would look like. On Tuesday we compared our journal writing with the 1, 2, 3, 4 samples and tried to guess what our writing level was. If it we didn't think it was a 3 or 4, we tried to add more details and edit to make it better!

Gym - On Monday we practiced our hand-eye coordination and tried to get a "rally" going - serve, return. On Tuesday after we warmed up, we tried using real rackets with soft tennis balls and played a game. We subbed on and off, so there was lots of space to try and return the ball!

Carpet Connection - we sat in a circle and everyone got a 100 chart. Then with partners we gave them a math problem they had to try and solve like "Find 37. Now add 6." We could say, "Can you give me an easier one please?" Or "That's too easy. Can you give me a harder challenge?" We are going to practice with 100 charts for the next while to look for number patterns and give us another strategy for our mathlympic challenges. We can google "100 chart" at home and practice too!

Library - Today was Library! Some of us forgot our books in our backpacks or desks. Mrs Kidd and Mrs. Armour said we needed to wait until next week if we forgot because it was our responsibility to remember to put them into our library bin. Mrs. Armour reminds us at the beginning of the day and before we go to gym and it is on our daily calendar. That means we can keep our books and read them again!

Mathlympics - Ask us what events we did and what our challenge was yesterday and today! Did we have to count to 100? by 5's, 10's? Did we have to write a number sentence or use adding and subtraction? Or measure? Were we helpful to our teammates? Did we cheer everyone on?

Quiet reading time - Mrs. Armour said we did FANTASTIC during quiet reading time today. We all had our book bins on our desk and were quietly reading so well we didn't want to stop:) Yay! We love reading!

Aspen Trees - Monday - we used charcoal and white chalk to colour our Aspen tree sketches. "Just a dab" and a "one finger smudge" with the black to make our trees look realistic. Colin wondered if the art charcoal was the same as the charcoal that comes from an underground mine? Someone could research to see how art charcoal is made! Tuesday we added a background - we could choose to make it an evening sunset, morning sunrise, or blue sky. Ask me how I colored my background with pastel or chalk.

We have new jobs this week. Logan, Jared, Samantha, Lily and Colin are helping with Blog. Thank you!

Logan and Colin have shared their pet pictures with us. Samantha, Lily and Jared can share their pet pictures or favorite animals this week or next week. If you have a real animal to share, you can talk about it at "share time" and then share it outside at the end of the day if it works with your parents. 

Because Saturday, March 17th is St. Patrick's Day, we thought we should WEAR GREEN and celebrate on Friday. If you have any Irish background, please share with us so we can celebrate this part of your family culture!

Pictures from last week!

                               SKETCHING ASPEN TREES IN WHISPERING WOODS

                                                    ARTISTS OBSERVING DETAILS

                     OUR COUNTRIES POSTERS and MEDAL COUNTS FOR MATHLYMPICS

                                          Logan sharing all about "Marble" - his pet fish

                       Colin sharing about his 2 pet cats who have very different personalities

                                                 The blog team having "Tea with Teach"