Halloween Fun

What a day of fun activities.

The pumpkin seed were enjoyed at morning snack and they were delicious!

During literacy time we read by flashlight.

In gym we enjoyed a relay race.

Ask your child what they did.

This afternoon we had some special centres:

Pumpkin Lanterns

Ghost Pencils

 Popcorn Hands

Cards

Ghost Toss

Pin the nose on the pumpkin

Straw Skeletons

And a few more. 

Ask your child which center was their favourite. 

Have a safe and Happy Halloween!!

Don't forget clocks fall back this weekend!

Pumpkin Carving

Jack-O-Lanterns 🎃

This afternoon, we carved our pumpkins in small groups. The adult in each group cut the top of the pumpkin off and everyone got a chance to scoop out the pumpkin "guts" and get the seeds out. Many students learned that they did not like scooping out the inside of a pumpkin!

After that, everyone took turns to draw a part of the pumpkin to be carved out. These are our final jack-o-lanterns. Some are conventional while some are more creative! 

Room 21

Room 20

Big thank you to the parents who volunteered their time this afternoon and/or who donated a pumpkin. This could not have happened without you and we appreciate all of you! (Thank you to Ms. Nair, our music teacher, who came to help us too ☺). 

Pumpkins will be sent home tomorrow. We were unable to carve all of the pumpkins as we did not have enough adults in the room to have more groups of students. Those that did not get carved will be sent back home. 

Reminder that it is Flashlight "Friday" tomorrow. Please send a flashlight with your child's name on it to school so they can participate! 

October 31st Notes

Flashlight "Friday"

All grade 1 and 2 classes will be participating in Flashlight "Friday" this Thursday during our guided reading time. Flashlight "Friday" is when all of the lights are shut off in the classroom and students use their flashlights to read their books. Please send a flashlight to school with your child so they can participate! Please ensure that the flashlight has their name labelled somewhere on it. If you have extras, we would love to have them as well and we will make sure to return them home safely.

Costumes

Students may choose to dress up and wear their costume to school (so long as it does not interfere with their learning). We do ask that any weapons, loved items, masks, accessories, and gore stay at home. We look forward to seeing your looks!

We Scare Hunger

We have set a goal to bring in 100 food items between rooms 20 and 21 for the We Scare Hunger food drive. So far, room 20 has brought in 11 items and room 21 has brought in 13 items. 

We still need 76 more food items. Please help us reach our goal.

Pumpkin Carving

Today in Social Studies, we learned about the holiday of Halloween and how it came to be. We did a learning journal page to show some of the things that people like to do to celebrate Halloween.

The October writing samples have been sent home in Room 21. Please sign and return with your child this week. Room 20's writing samples will be sent home tomorrow.

We are carving pumpkins tomorrow. Thank you to all the parents who have donated pumpkins so far! We are still in need of more volunteers (who have their security clearance completed). Please contact Mrs. Holman or Ms. Le if you can volunteer tomorrow afternoon from 1:03-2:35pm. We would LOVE to have you here!

Diwali

Today we learned about Diwali. 

Diwali is celebrated by Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and Newar Buddhists. 

The festival represents the same symbolic victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, and good over evil.

We read a story about the celebration:

After reading the story we compared similarities and differences between Diwali and other celebrations. We also tasted the Ladoos that a family brought for us to share. 

Finally, students completed a learning journal page to share their knowledge.

Weekly Update

Tuesday October 22

On Tuesday, we had a class discussion about what we should do during a lockdown to keep ourselves safe. Everyone understands that when we hear "Lockdown, lockdown, lockdown" on the speaker, we calmly leave our things where they are, find the green dot in our classroom (above the coat hooks) and we sit silently until the policeman and Dr. Bettesworth come by to open our door.

If we are in the hallway or the bathroom, we find the closest classroom to us and go in there. We did a short lockdown practice and we all did a great job quickly finding a spot on the floor and staying quiet for the entire time.

In Social Studies, we talked about all of the different holidays and celebrations that we celebrate with our families and how we celebrate them. Some examples included celebrating Chinese New Year by eating traditional foods, and celebrating Easter by hunting for eggs. We did awesome learning pages about our holidays and hope that parents had a chance to see them during conferences!

Wednesday October 23

On Wednesday, we did our monthly writing sample for October. Monthly writing samples are meant to give us an idea of where students are at in their writing skills each month. Students were given free choice of what they wanted to write about. These writing samples will be sent home next Monday for parents to sign and return.

Thursday October 24

On Thursday, we had a shortened Friday schedule with an early dismissal to accommodate for conference times. We had clubs and went to the library to exchange our books for new ones.

Thank you to all the parents who came to conferences this week! ☺

October Assembly

This afternoon we had an assembly. Each month different classes will be performing, rooms 20 and 21 will perform in December. At todays assembly we revealed that our school raised over $2000 for Terry Fox. Because so much money was raised, 3 teachers were pied in the face.

A lucky student is ready to pie Mrs. Holman.

Ker-Splat!

Wow!

Ms. Sharpe is getting reading for her turn.

Second Great Lesson

On Thursday, October 17th we had the Montessori Second Great Lesson, The Coming of Life. In this lesson we learned the order that species came to be on the planet:

• Bacteria
• Blue Green Algae
• Sea Life
• Trilobite
• Fish
• Plants
• Insects
• Amphibians
• Ferns
• Reptiles
• Dinosaurs
• Conifers
• Flowers
• Birds
• Mammals

Students participated in guided drawing exercises for most of the species. 

Take a look in your child's Learning Journal on Thursday and Friday during student learning conferences.