Going Green in the New Year!

    Happy 2016! We are so excited to begin the  New Year with exciting plans that help the environment.  The students are always having an on-going discussion about taking care of the earth and animals.  We have many passionate boys and girls who want to help in so many ways.  The class decided back in December to make a list of items they would like to see eliminated from snacks and lunches.  They made their decisions based on which snacks had recyclable packaging and which ones had packaging that went straight to the garbage.  They also looked at all of the wrappers we had collected from snacks and lunches in a week.  In only 5 days our classroom had thrown out 40 ziplock bags, 19 granola bar wrappers, and 12 cheese-string wrappers.  They were very surprised by how much garbage one classroom could produce in such a short time and wanted to do something to cut it down.  We also applied our math skills to this problem and calculated that in one month our classroom would throw out 160 ziploc bags and over the10 month school year 1600 ziploc bags would be sent to the landfill.  If we included other classrooms in our calculations, we estimated that students at Athlone School would use16,000 ziploc bags. Wow!  As a result, students voted on 3 items they would like to have on our no-no list.  This is their way of making a difference in their environment. The students are kindly requesting that cheese-strings, ziploc bags, and granola bars, be left at home, or at the grocery store.  If you need suggestions to replace any of these items, your child will probably have some great ideas.   We hope you can support and foster their love for helping the planet and we can all work together in 2016 to make our environment and our lunches a little greener.

Interview With Andy

  Last week we had the opportunity to interview Andy McKiel about his trip to Churchill and his time with polar bears.  We had made a list of questions we had wanted to ask Andy. Some of the questions we asked were; how do kids trick or treat in Churchill, how big are the tundra buggy's wheels, how cold is it in Churchill, how many hospitals are in Churchill, how did the polar bears act around the tundra buggy, and how close can you get to a polar bear when you are on a tundra buggy.  We learned that Churchill has a curfew and an alarm rings to signal people that it is time to stay inside. Children go trick or treating inside one building and children are not allowed to dress as ghosts.  We also learned that when polar bears are captured in the polar bear jail, they get marked with a black spot on their shoulder so conservation officers can keep track of troubled bears. Another fact that Andy shared with us, was that killer whales have been spotted in the Hudson Bay where they are normally not found. Scientists think that because of the warmer temperatures, the Hudson Bay is taking longer to freeze, giving killer whales more time to swim into the bay and hunt beluga whales and seals. This could disrupt the food chain and make it even harder for polar bears to find food. Andy taught us so many interesting facts and we are very grateful for his visit. 

Letters to our friends

  We were sad to say good-bye to one of our friends at the end of May and we wished another one a speedy recovery after having surgery on her tonsils. We care about each other a lot and when one of us is sad or hurt, the rest of us feel their sadness as well.  We look out for each other and go out of our way to cheer up our friends when they are feeling down. Here are a few examples.....

Letters to our guest artist

  In our third term of school, we had the great pleasure of learning about all kinds of different drums and playing on those drums.  Chris Scholl delivered a great program and a positive message. We learned about the origins of drums, how drums are used in different cultures, and we learned how to listen and play our drums together.  Chris brought laughter to our learning and we all felt very free drumming on our drums. Here are some examples of the thank-you letters we wrote to Chris. 

Letters to the premier

       After we had finished writing letters to the mayor, we were inspired to write more and let our voices be heard.  We learned about the Energy East Pipeline that the TransCanadaCorporation wants to build from Alberta to Nova Scotia and we were concerned.  We were really shocked when we found out the pipeline would go under Shoal Lake.  What will happen if there is an oil spill? How will we get clean drinking water? What about the animals and the land? These are all the questions that we wanted to ask. We thought the best person to ask our questions to and share our concerns with, would be Premier Selinger.  Here are a few samples of our letters...

Surprise visit by Mayor Bowman

       Today we had a very exciting and special surprise! Mayor Bowman came to visit our classroom to thank us for our letters and to talk to us about recycling in the city.  We asked him many different questions about his job.  He loves his job.  When we asked him what the worst part of his job is, he said the worst part of his job is when he hears about people in our city getting hurt.  He also gave us some great advice and said that we could do whatever we set our mind to, by working hard and studying hard.  We loved our visit with Mayor Bowman! 

Letters to the mayor

     In our third term of school we used our writing skills to reach out to community leaders, friends, and a guest artist.  Our first letter was to Mayor Bowman.  

     We were very troubled by the fact that most restaurants in the city of Winnipeg don't recycle.  We had corresponded with Subway last year about why they don't have recycling bins in their restaurants.  They explained that the city didn't pick up their recycling and they felt it should be the responsibility of the city. When we met Mayor Katz in June 2014, he seemed to think it was too expensive for the city to be picking up recycling from restaurants. When Mayor Bowman was elected we thought we would try again.  Here are a few samples of our letters.