After Miss Hooper read the interactive picture book "Press Here" by Herve Tullet the students became interested in creating their own press books during activity time. The students particularly enjoy having an audience member come up and do the activities while the writer explains the book for the class. The students have created many books that are kept in the class library for all to read and do.
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The students took some time last week to plant flowers with the help of the grade 7/8's. Last Friday the students rotated through some modified Track activities in the morning and then spent the afternoon taking part in developmental activities outdoors. Great fun was had by all! As you know the students are working on a Fun Friends unit with Miss Hooper. This past week the students were looking at emotions and what they can do to help themselves when they are upset. One of the techniques the students have learned to help themselves calm down is called milk breathing. Each of the students were given a small glass of water and a straw. The students were told to take a deep breath through the mouth and to breath out gently creating bubbles so that no water splashed out of their cup. Most students were able to do this exercise properly with few spills. Learning to take deep breaths with their mouth and blow out slowly can promote calmness when needed. As a treat on Friday Miss Hooper provided more practice with blowing bubbles outside. This past week the students continued their interest in our snails. What was one snail has now become a collection of snails. We have continued to read informative non-fiction books about snails and have discussed and charted what student know about snails, what they wondered about snails, and what new information they have learned about snails. We continue to try and find different foods that our snails like to eat. The students have only observed one snail eating a strawberry during the day. The students made an hypothesis that the snails come out at night to eat, after school, because they observed 2 large bites out of a piece of whole cucumber we placed in their habitat box. We have also seen the evidence (small holes bitten out) that they like to eat cucumbers and spinach leaves and the cuttlebone we add because we learned that the snails need calcium in order to build their shells. Ask your child were the snails mouth is located. Most of the day the students observed that they like to spend time in their shell stuck up on the roof of the habitat container. The students figured that they are trying to stay away from the light (sun) because they don't want to dry out. In the afternoon we have taken them out and observed them moving and have noticed the trails of mucus they leave behind. The students have also noticed that rather then move around objects, such as other snails, the snails will just travel over the object in their way. This is how we can stop them moving off the mirror as they put a leaf in its path in order to move it back on the mirror. The students also decided to name their snails. After discussions about how to vote and only choosing one name for each vote the students choices for top name were Jewel (6 votes) and Fast (3 votes). After the students found 3 more snails we then went back to our list and the students voted again. The students elected to call the new snails Ariel, Frozen and Batman. We are going to continue learning more about snails this week through reading different books and produce some writing and art work about snails. On Earth Day the students took part in cleaning up their school yard. In the process Amirah found a land snail which we brought inside and put in our bug viewer jar. On Monday morning we came to school and found out that the snail was alive and moving around. During the week the students found more snails which we added to our jar. The students wondered what the snails might eat so Miss Hooper went to the library and found a book about snails. In the meantime we found out that they eat grass as well as cucumber and cooked carrots. The students all wanted to touch and watch the snails as they moved around. This week we will continue our science lessons about learning more about snails. During our science lessons the students have been learning more about conservation and how important it is to keep our Earth clean. As part of our study the students were read "The Lorax" and also watched the movie during of rainy recesses. The students were inspired by the story to create a diorama from the movie that included the Lorax's stump, the river and the truffela tries. This week the students will be adding some of the characters from the story. Our class also welcomed a new student, "Tiffany". |
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June 2019
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