This week the students finished the choral reading of the classic novel Black Beauty. We had some wonderful discussions based on this 138-year-old story. Everyone was grateful for a happy ending after some of the hardships that the horse, Black Beauty had to endure. This book is a reminder to treat all animals with kindness and respect.
The students learned about palindromes. Palindromes are words, groups of words or sentences that read the same forwards and backwards. Mom and Dad are the most familiar examples but did you know these? Racecar, level, madam and the sentence "Eva, can I stab bats in a cave?"
In math this week the students continued to use playing cards. They learned how to do a magic trick, which of course wasn't really magic but was based on math. They reviewed the rules of the card game "Go Fish" and played this game with their friends.
On Wednesday, our class and Mr. Hinrichsen's class went on a field trip. In the morning we went to the Bata Shoe Museum. The students had a great time learning about the history of humans through shoes! The students also learned a lot about First Nations life too. Did you know the aboriginal people of Canada used moose hair, porcupine quills and beads to decorate their shoes? After eating lunch at the museum, we walked to the University of Toronto, where we met my partner Henry and his assistant Audrey. They showed us plant seeds using light microscopes, electron microscopes and confocal microscopes. Henry also did an exciting science demonstration using liquid nitrogen! Thanks so much to Hudson's mom and Barira's mom for volunteering on our trip.
The students sorted and peeled the paper off a lot of old wax crayons. We then used these crayons and melted them in aluminum pans in hot water to create large "rainbow" crayons.
To prepare for the Pan Am Games Play Day next week, the students researched the countries they were assigned and made flags to wave with their teammates next week.
The students counted the number of mature trees in our playground. There are 32 trees! We found a tree that was actually older than the old silver maple tree. It's the large beech tree near the east parking lot. The students figured out that it was about 130 years old. That means it was planted around 1885.
The children also used artist charcoal made out of willow tree branches to draw pictures of the trees on the playground.
We finished the Room 5 Interview Show this week. The students interviewed Ms. Konjhodzic and Mr. Pearce. These videos can be seen in separate postings.
The students created colourful hearts and cards for Father's Day! I took photos of each student and the children made little wooden chairs to hold the photos.Then they wrapped everything up to be ready for the holiday on Sunday.
The class said goodbye to their kindergarten Learning Buddies. We had a great year teaching and learning with each other this year. The children went outside and played in the NEW kindergarten playground, decorated (and ate) cupcakes and made recycled art. Earlier in the day the class made thank you cards for their buddies and for Mr. Grundy and Ms. Standing for being such great friends.
Finally, we ended the week with a friendly Speed Stacking competition. All the students had really improved since they first started stacking. Congratulations to Keira (who won 3 out of 6 prizes), Mila and Lucas who were the big winners. But everyone tried their best and they all did a great job!
Books read aloud this week:
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell (chapter book - finished)
Mom and Dad are Palindromes - A dilemma forwards and backwards by Mark Shulman
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