A Week Full of Trees and Dancing

Hello again wonderful Dickens families.

The children in Divisions 1 and 2 had another busy week studying trees and learning a dance for the Chinese Lunar New Year.

On Monday, we headed back outside to identify the four life stages of trees.  Within seconds, our tree experts located the first stage - the seed.

Soon thereafter, the third stage was spied by keen observers - the sapling.

As we continued our quest for the second and fourth stage, the children located a seedling in Sunnyside Park.

The students had no trouble finding the fourth stage: the mature tree.

Tuesday was a day about apples.  Darcette, who is a farmer from the Okanagan, visited the primary students at Dickens. 

She talked about the different varieties of apples grown on her farm and also told us about growing season and harvesting season.  The pouch on the front of her body is her apple picking bag.

Next, Darcette taught the children how to make apple sauce.  She had some nifty apple peelers that the students loved!

The apple sauce was yummy.
The recipe is:
shredded apples
brown sugar
cinnamon

On Wednesday, we created beautiful tree art!

Each Thursday, our UBC teacher candidates come to Dickens as part of their practicum experience. Olivia has expertise in dance and she taught us a Chinese Lunar New Year ribbon dance.  It was a lot of fun.  Our parent volunteers had fun too!

Dance moves included water, volcano, rainbow, snake and dragon. 

Then Olivia gave us a brief dance demonstration.  Fantastic!

Later in the day, our parental tree expert Mark Boyland came to visit.  He brought with him many samples of tree branches and cones for the children to learn about.

During Mark's presentation, Divisions 1 and 2 developed a Venn diagram to illustrate the similarities and differences between deciduous and coniferous trees.

Mark was a captivating speaker and the students really enjoyed his stories and tree facts.

He passed branches and cones into the audience and told us about a type of wasp that burrows into tree cones. We pulled apart the cones to find the larva inside.  We also learned that sap can be thought of as a band aid as it protects trees from injury and insect invasion.

Suddenly, we hurtled back in time to our spiders unit as several baby spiders decided to make quick exits from the tree cones!  Chaos quickly ensued as spider rescue attempts were rapidly put into action.  We are happy to report that we think that all spiders were saved!

Here is a glance at this week's poem:

Friday afternoon Buddy Reading.  If you look closely, you'll see they are reading a book about...trees!

In Jen and Karen's Math group, the students are learning about addition and subtraction. In this activity, the children had to figure out how many cubes were hidden under the cup using Math strategies.

In Wendy and Jenny's Math group, the students were practicing "counting on and counting back" from the larger of two numbers in preparation for more complicated addition and subtraction activities.  This activity involved rolling two dice, counting on from the larger number, then moving their counter along the Race to 100 sheet.

Enjoy your long weekend everyone and we will see you on Tuesday.

Next week at a glance:

• the students will be performing the ribbon dance at the assembly on Tuesday morning.  Join us if you can!
• on Thursday, Divisions 1,2,3,and 4 will be making and delivering Valentines to neighbours.  We will also be having a Valentine's Day celebration.
• Hip Hop dance sessions start this week.  Our time slots will be on Thursday and Friday so please dress to move!

Thanks for checking in :)

Let's BRANCH out and learn about trees!

Happy Friday everyone.

This week, we started learning about trees and began by taking a very interesting walk.  On Monday, we focussed our attention towards the sky and noticed many interesting things about trees such as...

 

 It's easy to find nests during winter time,

 

trees don't have just bark on their trunks and branches - they have strange things like moss and even ferns!

 Trees also have big bumps on them.  The students decided this was a very bad sign and that the trees were not healthy.  Stay tuned for next week because our tree expert Mr. Mark Boyland (Sage's dad) will be able to add clarification to this theory!

Trees can be very tall and they are also very functional as shelter, gathering places and "free" zones in tag games.

After our tree exploration walk, we discussed uses of trees in our world and then searched for things in our classrooms that were made from trees.  Then we made collages of "Things That are Made From Trees" by cutting pictures out of magazines (also made from trees).

On Thursday, we learned about the seasonal changes that deciduous trees go through year after year. We looked at an illustration of a tree and talked about why this tree did not make sense in nature.

The students then illustrated a deciduous tree's appearance during each season.

 During that afternoon, our student teachers Olivia and Sarah taught a lesson about the parts of a tree.  They began with a story, a brainstorm, and then a tree-ish version of "Head, Shoulder, Knees and Toes".  Here are a couple of photos of students drawing a tree and then labelling it's parts.

 

Today, some students who work with Jill throughout the week performed puppet shows for the rest of the students in Divs 1 & 2.  The first show was based on the story "Little Red Hen",

The second performance was entitled "The Gingerbread Girl".  Our puppeteers decided there needed to be some gender equality in the show so the traditional character was changed from a boy to a girl.

That's the week at a glance.  Thanks for checking in.  We hope you have a restful and wonderful weekend.

Homework:  Hug a tree :)

Important dates:
-Scholastic Book Club order forms went home today.  We would like them back by Tuesday to give time for Valentine's books to arrive.  Remember, there is no obligation to purchase books!
-Monday, February 11th is the new B.C. statutory holiday - Family Day.  Schools will be closed.
-Tuesday, February 12th marks the beginning of our two week Hip Hop program.  Performances will be held on Friday, February 22nd. Time TBA.

We're back on!

Hi again everyone.  After home computer gliches making it difficult to upload photos we are back in the land of blogging!

It was really great to see everyone again after the winter break and to hear all of the stories the children had to share.

We started our week back with a very funny book entitled: There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.  I think most of us know this story and the accompanying song.

The students embarked on their own book-making adventure but added a twist to their story lines.

The cover of their book reads: There was _____(student's name)___ who swallowed a spider. Holes were cut through the "belly" section of the book and the children added hungry characters such as brothers and sisters to the following pages who also ate the spider.  The end results were very clever and very funny!

Some of our students are visiting Cherie in the library four times per week.  They have selected a topic of study that they are fascinated about and are working on research projects.  With the help of some older students, they are creating video presentations.

In gym, the students are developing ball skills.  They are practicing rolling,

throwing,

and catching.

In Karen and Jen's Math group, the students are doing hands on activities and playing games that develop beginning addition skills.

In Wendy and Jenny's Math group, exploring numbers and number patterns to 100 was the focus during the first two weeks of January.

Now they are beginning to learn about addition strategies.

On Thursdays, our UBC teacher candidates come into our classrooms and become part of our community.  They are beginning to plan and teach lessons as well as participate in Calendar, Language Groups and Guided Reading.  Last Thursday, they read the book, Diary of a Spider.

Then the children created short book responses describing an activity they did yesterday and today and then predicted what they would do tomorrow.

These past few days have involved a lot of change and closure.  Firstly, our learning of spiders came to an end.  Students created spiders hats that illustrated their knowledge of the life cycle of spiders.

We brainstormed and discussed our ideas then sequenced them on a strip of paper.

Then we became spiders!  Eek!

Secondly, our beloved Rahel had her last "official" day with us.  She will be taking some much-deserved time to keep her feet elevated, to nap, and to prepare for the birth of her baby girl.

On Friday, the students offered advice to Rahel to ensure she takes care of her baby properly.  Here is the list. 

Finally, Rahel was presented with a beatutiful card made by some students in Div 1 and 2 and signed by everyone.

Once Baby is born, Rahel will be returning for visits.

Thanks for visiting and we'll see you next week!