Inline skating starts on Wednesday this week! The students are so excited! Our inline skating times are Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 9:15-10:15. If students have their own helmet (like bike helmet) they can bring them. All equipment including rollerblades, helmet, elbow pads and knee pads will be provided and are mandatory regardless of ability level.
Friday, March 17 is an early dismissal day so students will be dismissed at 11:30. It is also St. Patrick's day so students are encouraged but not required to wear green for this fun spirit day.
We will continue to explore the cold arctic and the Inuit people who live there. Students are learning about how both animals and humans survive the freezing winter temperatures and are beginning to understand how where you live impacts how you live. The kids have discovered that Polar Bears have 2 layers of fur, one that acts as waterproof type coating and another that has hollow tube hairs that store the heat inside. Other animals such as walrus', seals, and whales have thick layers of blubber that help . Students participated in a science experiment where they compared how cold cold water felt with their bare skin and with a blubber coating on their skin. They concluded that the blubber really did work as a protectant coating to keep them warm.
The class is focusing on writing Pourquoi stories about Arctic animals. We are writing a class story about how the Walrus got its long tusks and students are in the middle of planning their own story using a graphic organizer to ensure they complete all the required details.
We have started a new Math schedule. 2 days a week we will focus on learning new skills and develop our number sense, 1 day will be centers and math games to practice basic facts and increase logical reasoning, and 2 days will be spent working on a project that involves a variety of math problem solving tasks. The project is to plan a Birthday Party! We used the book Moira's Birthday by Robert Munsch to get us started. In this story, Moira ended up accidentally inviting her entire school to her birthday! This required a lot of cake and pizza.
In this project, students will not be inviting the whole school but will be going through the steps of organizing an imaginary party for a set number of people. Some students will be inviting smaller numbers (like just their family), some will invite a few friends and family and some students may invite their whole class. It is important that students are working with numbers that will challenge them but not be too difficult to build their knowledge and understanding. We started with creating their invitations and brainstormed what information is required on an invitation. Kids were amazed at how much math is a part of our everyday lives like dates, time, address' and phone numbers. Because it's an imaginary birthday party, we said that students could use their home address and phone numbers on their invitations to allow them to practice learning them. It also allowed us to have a great conversation about not sharing personal information like this online or with strangers. Next we will be brainstorming what supplies are required at a birthday party and start calculating the costs of supplies like plates, cups, napkins, etc.
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