Good for the Heart ~Good for the Soul!

Last Friday we participated in the school-wide Jump Rope for Heart fundraiser.  It's a fundraiser for the Heart and Stroke Foundation, and we worked hard to keep our bodies moving!  We were put into seven teams with our big buddies, and we took turns skipping for one minute each.  We skipped for about 40 minutes without stopping!  In the end, we were all hot and tired, but proud of our efforts. 

 Here are some action shots of us skipping. . . .  We were so fast it was hard to capture us!

Do you volunteer your time to raise money to help other people?  Do you do any fundraising at your school for charities?

Signs of Spring!

This past week we talked about the signs of spring.  We noticed that it is getting warmer outside, there are many cherry blossoms on the trees, and we hear more birds singing!  Mrs. de Jager led our class and hers through a directed drawing of a birdhouse.  After practicing the drawing on our whiteboards, we transferred our drawing onto paper and added details.  Then we outlined our pictures in brightly coloured pastels.

Then we painted our pictures using water colour paints.

We added a bird that we made out of construction paper and colourful feathers to finish our projects.

The finished product!

What signs of spring do you notice outside your classroom?

Salmon Release

  Last week our class was invited to release salmon into our nearby creek!   The Ministry of Fisheries, along with a  group of volunteers from a local organization, brought 20,000 baby salmon to the creek area just past our school.  We took turns going to the edge of the creek with a bucket of fish, dumping them into the fast-running creek with the help of the volunteer.  We couldn't believe how fast they could swim while they were waiting in our bucket, and the volunteer told us that it would only take one day for them to make their day down to the ocean. 

 It's hard to see our faces under our hoods, but we were very excited!  The rain was not so fun for us, but it made for perfect conditions for the little salmon!

Thank you to the wonderful volunteers who gave us the opportunity to participate in such a worthwhile activity!

Have you ever seen baby salmon?  Did you know that these salmon will return back to this creek in four years to spawn?

Green Thumb Gardeners!

  This past week we planted Warba seed potatoes!  We began by examining the potatoes.  As scientists we used our observational skills to look closely at them.  We brainstormed words to describe the characteristics of the potatoes. We learned that they had eyes and sprouts on them.  We measured the potato being careful not to knock the sprouts off and we counted the number of eyes and sprouts it had.We recorded our findings on paper using a diagram and labels! 

Before we planted our seed potatoes we made signs for our pots so that people wouldn't touch them while they are growing.  It was lots of fun working together as a group to create a sign!

 Then it was time to get planting!  First we mixed fertilizer in with some soil, and then we added our potatoes. 

We were careful to space them out in our pots so that they don't get too crowded as they grow.

Once all the planting was done we worked as a team to carry the pots around to the gym door so we could put them in the foyer.  Mrs. Betts was amazed at how well we could work together to carry such a big pot! 

We brought them into our front foyer so that they can get lots of natural light from the skylight.  We also gave them some water.  We know that the potatoes will need four things to help them grow - air, water, sunlight, and nutrients from the soil.  We will move the pots outside once it's not so cold at night.  How long do you think it will take until we can harvest our potatoes?