Week 31: April 30 – May 4, 2018


Posted by on May 08, 2018 at 10:12 AM

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It's hard to write about this week without focusing on a very exciting addition to our classroom. The Grade 1-2s welcomed 30 Painted Lady Butterfly larvae into our classroom and ever since, the students are keen to tell anyone they encounter about their "new class pets". Over the next several weeks, the Grade 1-2s will make predictions about their growth, record observations about their changes each day, and care for them until they have all grown into butterflies. Then, since Painted Ladies are a local species, we will be able to release them near our beloved ravine. These scientists have been taking meticulous notes and raising interesting research questions based on their observations. We look forward to sharing our life cycle learning with other members of the Linden community as the weeks pass! Our observations of growth and changes in living things also extended to the roof as Grade 1-2 students continued to care for the seeds they planted at Earth Day. Some have even started sprouting and the girls are very excited to point out how much they've grown when we get to the roof each morning for recess. On Tuesday this week, the class also helped Savannah to prepare for the Linden Used Book Sale. A new event at Linden this year, the sale was a chance to refresh home libraries and to help raise funds to purchase Indigenous resources for our Linden classroom libraries. 

 

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In the morning, with a few of her friends who arrived early to school, M was keen to share her paper airplane construction technique that she learned from her mother.

 

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G is very keen to improve her reading skills. She uses a new set of sight word flash cards to practice reading and writing familiar words.

 

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In preparation for Tuesday's Linden Used Book Sale, the Grade 1-2s and Early Learners worked together to decorate and post signs for the sale. The girls were very excited to preview what books were for sale!

 

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Z helps a Grade 6 student to sort and lay out books for the Linden Used Book Sale. The proceeds of this sale will be used to purchase new Indigenous resources for our Linden libraries.

 

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In CERES class, students work together to create a video by shooting a series of photos and playing them in sequence. Z and K opt to create a video that celebrates all the different parts of their bodies. Here, Z gets her hair in the frame while K helps capture the image. 

 

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For their video in CERES class, S and M opt for a series of dramatic and expressive poses together. There were abundant giggles when they played the video back after shooting.

 

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In Cooking Club, M works to whip the cream using an electric mixer while making chocolate mousse. This recipe was a big hit!

 

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The Grade 1-2s and Early Learners work together to trace the bodies of a few of their peers. They then used these body outlines to identify and locate the French translations of different body parts.

 

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When M was writing her spelling words, she started connecting her printed letters and I remarked that they were starting to look like cursive. This led to a passionate interest in learning cursive with the whole class so I made practice sheets for each student to practice writing their name in cursive. M and G feel so proud of being able to write their names this way.

 

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After some planting on Earth Day, K is over the moon to discover that her seeds have sprouted in her rooftop planter. She has been watering them each day during recess and loves to track their growth now that they have emerged from the soil.

 

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An engineer in the making, S finds a creative way to transport multiple pieces of wood at a time and is excited to show it to those around her.

 

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Deep in concentration, S uses her fingers to help her subtract two-digit numbers from two-digit numbers. She is proud of how many questions she can get right!

 

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Z and M have fun on the roof linking their skipping ropes together and choreographing fun dances.

 

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As part of our science unit on life cycles, this box arrived in our classroom. Grade 1-2s and Early Learners work together to read different words on the box and decode clues to guess at the contents. 

 

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After figuring out that some of the words on the box meant that the contents were fragile and alive, Grade 1-2s guessed what living thing was inside. Guesses included red pandas, plants, materials for a chemistry experiment, and a turtle. 

 

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Once the contents were revealed to be Painted Lady Butterfly larvae, the Grade 1-2s were keen to observe their movements, size, and to hypothesize about their growth.

 

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In order to give the larvae the space to develop into the next stage of their life cycle, we needed to transplant each larvae into an individual container. Since our fingers might be damaging to the larvae, students had to use a paint brush to move them. Classmates look on as S carefully moves one larvae to a new container.

 

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M prepares a container with the larvae food that came with our larvae. M remarks that it smells like oatmeal. She is careful to put the food in at a diagonal to leave room for a chrysalis. 

 

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K is keen to introduce two Early Learning students to our "new class pet". 

 

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Just like us, the larvae need oxygen so G uses a pushpin to make breathing holes in the top of the containers.

 

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Z carefully uses a paintbrush to transport larvae into a new container. After remarking that some of them are stubborn and unwilling to grip the paintbrush bristles, M proclaims that we should name that larvae "Stubborn".

 

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More spring birthdays! On Friday, we celebrate A and N's birthdays with the Early Learning class during afternoon snack.