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. 

Becoming a butterfly: stage two

    Five days ago we separated a large group of larvae into smaller, individual containers.  When they have completed their cycle they will be Painted  Lady butterflies. We have observed them and noticed they have grown in length and width. 

Pea seeds

   Last week we let our pea seeds soak in water. We knew that the seeds would absorb water and the seed coats would become soft and help the embryo break out of the seed. We put the seeds in soil and watered the soil.  It has been five days since we planted our seeds and we can see sprouts! We can also see long roots and see how the embryo came out of the seed. 

writing about someone or something that is special to us

  A little while ago the students were given the opportunity to write about someone or something that was special to them.  Here are a few examples of what the students had to share….

1)     Taylor Swift is my hero because she lets me know that sometimes when I'm older there will be   some tough times and you can solve them.  You just have to shake it off.  One of her songs is aggressive but most of them are kid appropriate.  That is why I love her, because she inspires me.

                                                                                                                                     By Gracie



2)    Someone special to me is my older sister because she always comes to my dance recitals.  Also, when I ask her to do a ponytail, she will always do it.  When she does't have homework or when she doesn't go to her dad's, she will come to my activities.  When she comes home from trips, she always brings back something special, just to be nice.
    Someone else that is special to me is my cat because he is the perfect cat for us.  He is also a very playful cat so it is fun to play with him.  When we feed him, he meows really funny.

                                                                                                                                     By Kayda

3)    Something that is special to me is my turtle.  My mom bought us two so I got one.  Mine was small, my brother's was big.  The shape of their shells were amazing.  I think when they race on the wood floor, they race each other because I think they are battling each other.  They were showing us who is faster.  When I gave them turtle food, they fought each other to see who would eat the food.  They were pushing each other.  It looked like they were thinking, I have to eat first.  They also went deeper into the aquarium to touch the shiny rock that I had put in the aquarium.
         When they were sleeping the first time, I thought they were dead.  The next day, I ran to the aquarium but they were not dead.  Then I thought, from now on I should remember that when they are not moving, they are sleeping.
          When I took them out of the aquarium, I held their bodies because I didn't want to hold their heads.  If I held their heads, they would bite me.  When we took them out of the aquarium, it was hard, but I felt good giving them clean, fresh water.  While we were cleaning the aquarium, we put the turtles in a big bowl.
           I miss my turtles right now.  I have had them for four years.
 
                                                                                                                                        By James
     

Instagram account

      We have recently signed up for an Instagram account.  We would like to use our account for exploring nature.  Our hope is that we will find pictures of nature all around us, like deer footprints, a full moon, the sun setting, budding leaves, a bird's nest, and so much more.  Our goal is to show how beautiful nature is, respect the environment, and have an appreciation for the little things that we see everyday.  

     Many of us are so excited that we want to bring our cameras and tablets to school.  However, we wanted to remind families that the school is not responsible for lost or stolen items and cannot replace cameras or tablets that are lost or go missing.  We do hope that, the exploring we do in the classroom and on the playground will be continued at home.  Family walks, bicycle rides, and trips to the park, are great ways to explore and appreciate nature.

    Our Instagram account is athloneroom2.  Here is a picture of our first Instagram post.  We hope that you have many exciting adventures in finding nature!

Making music with spoons

      Today we met a guest artist. His name was Greg Sametz and he showed us how to play the spoons.  He taught us some new French words too but playing the spoons was the best part.  We played our spoon music in the art room.  We learned how to play the spoons while we tapped along to French music and music from Louisiana and Africa.  The spoons were not metal, they were wood.  Greg had an old style Louisiana guitar and Tyler had a chance to play it.  Maseeka, Lizzie, and Morgan had the chance to dress up as a fox and we tapped the spoons while we listened to, What Does the Fox Say.  We ended with the song Happy.  We were given glow in the dark bracelets and rings and we turned off the lights to see all of the colours. Learning how to play the spoons was so much fun!

By Gage and James 

You make my heart sparkle

     Last week we did a fun art proctect.  The first step was to paint a piece of watercolour paper. We did our own patterns with crayons, before we painted on the paper.  After that we cut out 2 half circles for the bird's body. We cut out the beeks with the part of the watercolour paper that we painted orange.  We also cut out heart shapes for the wing and the sparkly heart.  We put the half

circle  on a folded blue piece of paper that we painted white dots on. Inside the card we wrote phrases

like you make my heart sparkle. We made birch trees and put them on the front of the card with the

half circles (for the bird's body.) Then we put the beaks on the bird's body. Then, with black marker, we

drew feet and a piece of string in the birds mouth where the bird would be carrying a heart. With the other 5 hearts we made a tail and a wing. After, we took it home and gave it to whoever we wanted to!

By Blake and Gunner

100th day of school

 On February 12th we celebrated our 100th day of school. We each brought in a collection of 100 things in a brown paper bag. We read three clues about our collection and then the other students tried to guess what was in the bag. Our collections included 100 pieces of toilet paper, 100 popcorn kernels, 100 erasers, 100 googly eyes, 100 marshmallows, and many other interesting items.  We estimated how long our 100 collections would be and then measured them with meter sticks. We have loved our first 100 days of school! 

Guest reader, Scott Gillingham

     Last week, we had the pleasure of listening to Scott Gillingham, a local city councillor, read two stories to us.  Mr. Gillingham read Enemy Pie and The Recess Queen.  Both of these were funny stories about what to do when you come across a bully.  Thanks for reading to us Mr. Gillingham. 

Guest readers

      February is I Love Read to month and we have had two special guest readers.  Last week, Elsa from Frozen to came to visit us.  She told us the story about herself, her sister Anna, her friends Kristoff, Sven and Olaf, and the evil prince Hans. Elsa sang beautifully and we were given the opportunity to sing with her. We also asked her a lot of questions about her village and everyone's favourite character, Olaf. 

      Today we had the pleasure of meeting Lloyd from 103.1 FM. He read a hilarious story called The Day the Crayons Quit.  In the story, each coloured crayon wrote to Duncan, a little boy who loved to colour. Some colours were very happy and some colours were disappointed that they were not used often enough. Orange and yellow both thought they should be the colour of the sun. 

     We love having guest readers!

   

Building bridges

Today we built bridges.  First we had to put pizza boxes together and then paint them to look like a rainforest in Mexico.  When we were finished painting we designed our bridge and made a blueprint. We were able to choose our materials. We had clay, plasticine, popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, elastics, paper clips, cardboard, and paper.  We thought about balance and strength and which shapes we should use to build our foundation. We worked hard and many times we said it was a challenging but fun! 

Welcome back!

     Sorry for the delay in blogging about a new school year.  We have successfully completed term one and have so many accomplishments to celebrate! We wanted to show off some of our work, especially the mosaic that we helped make with other Athlone students and our very wonderful guest artist, Dimitry Melman.  

      We started our project with each student creating a sketch of the community.  There were many common themes that appeared in the students' sketches. Animal tracks, hockey sticks, bike paths, Sturgeon Creek, Grants Old Mill, and the Living Prairie Museum were just a few of the ideas that were reflected in our sketches.  Dimitry took all of them home and studied them carefully to help create a sketch of our mosaic that would include our ideas and designs. 

      We had the opportunity to cut and arrange tile pieces.  When the final sketch had been completed, Dimitry cut and divided the sketch into sections so that we could all work on parts of the mosaic. We love our mosaic! 

      We also worked on painting sunflowers to brighten up our classroom and we coloured and created fall patterns with curved and straight lines. 

We are hungry.

Dear Families,

    We are growing stronger, taller, and smarter everyday.  We need a lot of fuel to get through our day. We are usually so hungry by 2:00 that we have started chewing books.  Mrs.Krahn even found teeth marks on the iPads.
    We have discussed and thought about how much we eat.  We really enjoy having a large snack at morning recess.  Then we like having our main lunch and a snack at noon.  By the end of the day we are hungry again because we have been so busy.  We would love to have enough snacks to get through our day.
    Here are a few of our favourite food items that can be packed in re-usable containers….
-apples, bananas, pears, blueberries, oranges, strawberries, grapes, kiwi, grapefruit
-peppers, carrots, celery, cucumbers, brocoli, coleslaw, brocoli salad
-pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, nut-free trail mix
-homemade muffins, cookies, granola bars, banana bread
-cheese, crackers, hard boiled eggs, pita bread, hummus, yogurt, taquitos, samosa
-bagels, sandwiches, wraps, sushi, pasta salad

Thanks for packing us more food and taking care of the earth.
Please remember that our snacks and lunches need to be nut free.
Thank-you!

Happy Mother's Day!

Thank-you to all of our moms. Thanks for your unconditional love, for taking care of us, and for being in our corner. From the bottom of our little toes to the tops of our growing heads, we love you 1000 times over!