Look what we've made...

Pasta Day

Our Pasta Day was a huge success! Thank you for all your support. 

Our visit to the Ottawa Street Dentist Office

We wanted to take the students to a Dentist office to relieve some fear and anxiety of going for a check-up.  The Dental Hygienist showed the students the tools for cleaning, shared information about proper teeth care and what would happen if they did not take care of their teeth.

Kaylo was our brave model.

What the students learned:

• kids at their age should have 20 teeth (at around age 6, two teeth will fall out)
• you have to brush your teeth  2 for 2 - two times a day (morning and night) for two minutes (Lydia and Kyiah)
• there are germs in your mouth called sugar bugs (Lucas and Yohanna)
• the sugar bugs can cause cavities that will hurt (Natasha)

Here is a song to help kids know the proper brushing technique:

Brush your teeth up like the flowers and down like the rain, then brush them back and forth like a train!!

Busy Builders

The Block and Construction Centre provides many learning opportunities for our students.

They learn to:

• experiment with building using a variety of different types of blocks
• fosters co-operative play (planning and problem solving)
• develops gross and fine motor control
• extend imaginative role-play and oral language
• explores math concepts (counting, comparing, estimating, sorting, height, area, measuring space)
• explore scientific concepts (balance, simple machines, structures, design process)

Students bring in a variety of materials and manipulatives into their designs and creations.

• Students have been building baby nurseries, houses, beauty parlors, stoves, garages, helicopters, bridges, transformers, motorcycles, dog houses and the list goes on.

High Frequency Words

For the past few weeks, we have been focusing on 'POPCORN Words'.  Popcorn words are words that 'pop up' in your child's everyday reading.  They are high frequency words that are repeated often in books and print.  At school, these words 'pop up' in our morning message, during our "Readers' and Writers' Club", and during centre time. 

We engage students in meaningful encounters with the words during our morning message and literacy centres.  This helps to build connections to other words they are learning.  We do not teach our students to learn by memorizing and reciting the popcorn words. 


Ideas for meaningful POPCORN WORDS at home!!! 

·       FIND THE WORD  Write the popcorn words out and spread them out on the floor.  Provide clues such as: “I’m looking for a word with 3 letters…there is an 'a' in the middle of the word…it starts like cat.” Students enjoy giving the clues also.

·        ERASE THE WORD  I write words on the dry erase board.  I say a word and the student erases it.

·       LIGHT UP THE WORD  Students take turns finding the given word and lighting up the word with a flashlight.

·       CLAP THE WORDS

·        Highlight or cut the popcorn words out of the newspaper and magazines

Readers and Writer's Club

Hopscotch using 'popcorn words'

Example of a morning message.

Balancing -- Physical Education

A favourite time for our students is Physical Education with Ms. Murray.  Our students receive Physical Education twice a week, once with all 90 students participating in a variety of free choice centres, and on the other occasion each class will have a skill learning period using different centres with only their homeroom peers.


Some of the students favourite activities are:

• broom ball with nets

• ball area (contains a variety of basketballs, scoops, rackets, chickens, beanbags, nets and containers) 

• noodles (building, spaghetti and meatball game)

• tricycles, wagons
• hurdles and an agility ladder to jump over
• a mini slide with tumble mats for rolling and somersaults
• hoola hoops
• dancing with music
• plus many more physical opportunities using the manipulatives in a variety of ways

This week Ms. Murray introduced three new activities -- to practice BALANCING

Curriculum Expectations:

3.3 begin to demonstrate balance, whole-body and hand-eye coordination, and flexibility in movement

 balancing on a beam 

walking on a bench while bending to touch each tennis ball

 balancing a Frisbee while standing on a crate