Evergreen theatre

For a whole week our school participated in the Evergreen Theatre's Artist in residence program. We had an Evergreen artist working with us everyday to develop our own play about the needs of plant and animals. Our artist was Ian and he was a lot of FUN! One of the days he was here he brought his drum and we moved in many different ways to the drum beats. One day he brought a beaver pelt and he let us feel it and then told us a story about how beavers almost became extinct! We played crazy games with him like SPLAT and Bibbity, bibbity BOP! The games were our favourite part and kept us thinking and laughing!

Here we are being worms!

Here we are playing SPLAT!

Our play was about the needs of plants and animals. We took on the roles of plants, animals and cowboys and cowgirls on the open range! Mrs. Draper even took on the role of a bear! It was a lot of FUN!

Engineers at work!

This past week we worked on designing and building cars! First we looked at various different pictures of different kinds of race cars and we also looked at toy cars. This sparked a discussion about the kinds of cars our parents drive. The children were interested! We talked about the different features of the cars we had pictures of. The children made observations through drawings and notes. 
Then I had them draw a design of a car they would like to build. They drew and they labelled. Then I gave them a challenge! I provided the kids with straws, paper, tape and peppermint lifesavers. I placed all the materials in each child's own ziploc baggie. The challenge was to build a car that would move on it's wheels down the length of two meter sticks and blown by a hand held fan.  
The children were so excited to get building!! They built and tested and changed things and  tried new ideas! It was awesome! 
One of my little girls had a very successful design and test, so she immediately became the class expert! Everyone was asking for her "advice"! So cool! This was a wonderful set of lessons to go with our "Building Things" unit in Science! 

Trying out the hand held fan to make the car move.

Our cars displayed

Our "Expert" engineer! 

Trying out a new add on design

Adding more details and figuring out that less weight is better! 

Trying out a "sail" 

Very proud of her design! 

Hallway races!

Science is my favourite!

I honestly love teaching SCIENCE! 
It is just so fun! I think I like it because it is hands-on learning at it's best! 
This past week we did two hands on experiments. 
We made Flick YoYo's with chop sticks and wrapping paper. It was part of our building things unit. 

We also had a wonderful time working on our Science Inquiry unit. We worked on discovering what dissolves and what does not dissolve. I explained to the children that when something that is a solid is in solid form it is holding hands really tightly and when it "goes swimming" in the water it lets go of hands and then it will "disappear" into the water.

The kids had lots of questions and they were really observing very well and drawing their own conclusions. It was really fun to watch and listen to them!  

The kids really worked well on this experiment. I love my little scientists! 

100th Day was SUPER!

We celebrated 100th day by dressing up as Super heroes! The kids looked so cute! We had a very full and fun day! 

Germs are EVERYWHERE!

We have been talking about hand washing and how germs are spread. Partly because it is in our health curriculum and partly because lately we have had a lot of sick kids in our class! So I came up with this cute idea! I showed my kids pictures of what microscopic germs actually look like. I found pictures on the internet and put the pictures up on the Smartboard. We talked about the different shapes of the germs and how they can make you feel. We also talked about the easiest way to get rid of them is to wash your hands with soap and water. Then I had the children draw and paint a germ and give it eyes and a mouth. They turned out so cute! Then I had them write about their germ and how it makes them feel. I think they look great and the kids put in such a great effort! I was proud of them! 

I love how every child interpreted the germ in a unique way! Each germ is different and some are so cute!  

I love the googley eyes on the red germ! LOL!

Writing for a purpose!

I love it when my students write for an authentic purpose! This is a photo of a poster 2 of my little girls created. They made the poster when one of them lost her little stuffed mouse. They asked me if they could work together at centre time in the art centre. When I saw what they had created I was so excited! Then they went and hung it up in the hallway, so others could see it and help to find the lost little stuffed mouse. So adorable!
BTW the mouse did "get found"!

Science ROCKS!

We LOVE science! This week we made LAVA lamps! It was super fun! Just listening to the squeals of delight when the children watched the "lava" rising up, was so wonderful! 

I love my little scientists! We have such fun discovering amazing things!