Day 2 of our Outdoor Education Adventure!

Neither wind nor rain was able to deter us for our second day of the outdoor education week challenge! We managed to create a makeshift tarp shelter over the play structure, the building of which provided some hilarious moments for the first hour! After that we explored various wet stations such as building sand castles, chalk painting and water play. We also headed off to Truro Creek to do some "critter dipping", which was very exciting when someone caught a "critter" in their net!!

Our shelter!

Heading off to Truro Creek!

  

Dragonfly nymph

                                           

Tadpoles, a damselfly nymph and a minnow

                                           

Colour blending in the puddles (powered by wind)

Outdoor Education Week Has Begun!

What a great day to kick-off our outdoor education week! The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the tent caterpillars are crawling and we are embracing the joy of learning and playing outdoors! We will post photos on the blog this week to share with our families some of the experiences we are having. Enjoy!

Spending "tarp time" in our outdoor classroom

Working on a scavenger hunt

Outdoor music class with Ms. Versteeg


Painting sticks and rocks


Weaving on the fence






Enjoying the "sea" of dandelions


Making beautiful pictures with loose parts

Spring Growth Scavenger Hunt

Today room 4 headed outside to put our plant knowledge to the test. Students were tasked with searching around the playground for evidence of the beginning of the plant life cycle, as well as any other observations they could make connected to our study of growth and changes in plants. They rose to the challenge and headed off to discover, among other things: fibrous roots, leaf buds, dandelion buds, birch bark, rough bark, oak tree seeds (acorns), sap, moss, pine cones (seed containers) and "helicopter" (maple) seeds. It was a great experience looking at our playground with a different perspective.

Thanks to Rowan's "eagle eyes", we discovered this well-camouflaged moth!

The Room 4 Array Tournament Champions

In math we have been learning how to read "arrays" in multiplication (2x3 or 3X2). Each year, we have an "array tournament" in which students play one of our multiplication games. We use a "bracket" similar to March Madness and hockey playoffs, and we even have a wildcard round. The students have lots of opportunity to practice using arrays, and there is much excitement focused around the tournament!

Congratulations to all of the students, each of whom played with excellent sportsmanship throughout the tournament. Our tournament finalists were: 

Imogen - "B" side winner

Maddox - "A" side winner

Ben - Grand Champion!

                    

  

           

We're All Thumbs in Room 4 - Green Thumbs That Is!!

Some of our seeds have become actual bean plants this week! It is so exciting to see the growth and changes each day. Our plan is to have everyone's seed planted in soil by Friday.

Interesting Fact: The bean seeds belonging to the students who sit closest to our classroom door have all grown into plants. There is only one other student in the classroom at a different table whose seed has grown into a plant. We are wondering what the science is behind this interesting occurrence!!

Plants and Soils

We have begun our study of Plants and Soils, despite the slow arrival of spring! This week, we soaked bean seeds and on Tuesday we created our own mini "greenhouses" to watch our seeds sprout. It was very exciting to see changes begin to happen each day. Almost all of our seeds have sprouted! We have placed them in the sun to see how much they will grow over the weekend. We are keeping track of the changes in our planting journals.

         

     Spraying the paper towels to put our seeds on.

 Our mini "greenhouses".

          Our seeds have sprouted!        

A Quilt and a Dance

It's hard to believe that our break is only one day away! It's nice to see that the weather is cooperating so that we can actually spend pleasant time outdoors.

The students in room 4 are very proud of our contribution to the Linwood Art Auction. Each student created a fabric square depicting a Canadian animal. Mrs. Harms, our classroom educational assistant, took these squares and fashioned them into a beautiful "Canadian themed" quilt. We are so fortunate to have Mrs. Harms donate her time and skills to create such an amazing piece of art for us.

Room 4 was also treated to a special surprise today when Imogen performed one of her Irish dances for the class. Her classmates had lots of questions for her and were very impressed with her dancing!

"Charged Up" in Room 4!

We have been learning about static electricity in Science. On Tuesday, we conducted investigations into how static electricity works. We created static charges using balloons, and observed how the balloons reacted with different materials. We learned that static electricity is similar to magnetism because it creates an attraction.

 

    

100 Days of School!

Today room 4, along with rooms 6 and 10, celebrated the100 days we have been in school this year! For the entire afternoon, each of the classrooms hosted fun activity centres. Each activity was connected to the number 100. Some examples were: spend 100 cents to decorate your 100 day snack, make a 100 days smarter crown, score 100 on the stairway bean bag toss, and make a pattern with 100 pattern blocks. It was a busy and fun-filled afternoon of math!