The Earl Grey Patrols would like to say a huge thank you to the Rockwood A.N.A.F. for their generous donation of $200 to pay for lunch at our wind up at Fun Mountain.  Thanks to President Duncan Anderson and Life Member  Marj Miller for choosing our Patrol Squad for their donation.

Room 25 decided we were going to write a narrative story that focused on specific details like numbers, shapes, sizes, quotes, colours and names.  We worked really hard on the story as a whole group.  Ms. Vik helped up design our props, and we practiced and practiced acting the story out.  It was so much fun!

The Worm Story

Once upon a time there was an awesome class.  They were the students in room 25 at Earl Grey school in Winnipeg.  They enjoyed their learning so much, and came to school everyday excited to learn with smiles shining bright! Until that frightful day when the worms escaped!! How did it happen? Why did it happen? Let us tell you.

On Friday when everyone was getting ready to leave for the weekend, Mr.Shenkarow forgot to feed the worms (he’s getting old)!  The worms were starving,furious and nasty!! They needed to escape so they tried to dig through the bin, but they failed!!  They saw a tiny sliver of light and 100’s of them piled up and made a humungous morphed worm and escaped through the drain hole!

At 12:00 AM the worms squiggled to Mr. Shenkarow’s desk. They saw the biggest, shiniest neon green glowing apple.  The worms were so attracted to the sight, that they went to take tiny, juicy bite out of it.  They were so hungry they couldn’t stop there- they ate the whole thing!  But what they didn’t know was that it was RADIOACTIVE!!! After 5 minutes something mysterious happened they turned gigantic, green and radioactive.

Mr. Shenkarow comes to school very early with an apple and to feed and check on the worms, but they aren’t there!  He starts to panic.  He looked high, he looked low and out of the corner of his eye from the hallway he saw the green glowing light.  He went toward the light and saw the worms.  He ran as fast as Sonic the hedgehog to Mrs. Thompson and Mrs. Toulman the worm wizards of Earl Grey.  “what’s the matter Mr. Shenkarow?”

“ The worms!! They escaped and they are green, angry and they are chasing me!!”  They knew just what to do.  They made a brown, ugly, bubbly looking potion.  He carefully put the potion on the apple and headed toward the worms.  He put the apple in front of the worms, and they wormed straight to it and gobbled up the whole thing.  They started getting woozy and fell asleep.

While they were asleep they slowly shrank down to normal size, and normal colour.  He put them in a bucket and placed them carefully back home in the bin.

The school bell rang, the students came into class with their smiles and never knew what happened! He never ever forgot to feed the worms again!

The End

This month the grade 5-8 students had an event called mini Olympics. Before the day of mini Olympics, we had an opening ceremony where the students were split into three teams. Each team had to pick a country to represent. The countries chosen were Russia, Germany and Japan. After the countries were decided, the gym teacher, Mr. Sneesby, explained how the entire event would work. The winning team would be rewarded with a pizza party and the top grade 7 and 8 students would be invited to the divisional track meet at the U of M. Then each team competed in a tug of war by grade level. A few days before the mini Olympics, the boys and girls in each grade also completed the high jump event.

In the morning of the Olympics we had several track and field events which included, the long jump, the discus, and the 1500m, 400m and 100m races. We moved from event to event by grade level and competed to the best of our abilities. In the afternoon we continued with more track and field events such as, the shotput, the triple jump, the 200m and the 4 by 100m relay. At the end of the day, the event was a success.

A couple of days later we had the closing ceremony, where the winning  was congratulated for their achievements. Mr. Sneesby revealed Russia as the winning team. After the announcement, many of the junior highs were invited to attend the divisional track meet at the U of M.

Over the two days at the track meet, 14 students competed in different events. Competition levels were high and everyone tried their best. Eliana placed 4^th in high jump and 6^th in the 200m, Riley placed 6^th in the discus, and Salam placed 1^st in discus and 3rd in shotput. Everybody had a great and fun experience.

We were honoured last week to be visited by Warrant Officer G. Olynyk, a search and rescue technician with the R.C.A.F. He spoke to us about survival in the wilderness and how we should use a technique called S.T.O.P.  which stands for Sit, Think, Observe and Plan. He told us about two plane crashes, one in a forest in the summertime and the other on a mountain top in the winter. The pilot in the first crash was more experienced and trained as a navy seal. In the second crash there were 4 passengers, a little boy, his mother, a nurse and a pilot. The nurse and the mother were killed in the crash, however the pilot and the boy survived. He asked us who we thought would have survived. Most of us thought the experienced pilot was the one who survived but, to our surprise, it was actually the pilot and the little boy who survived. The experienced pilot panicked and started running which lead to his demise. The little boy and the pilot stayed put in the plane, made a fire to keep them warm and waited for somebody to rescue them. He also showed us a video about the training that Sartechs receive. Then he split the class into groups and gave each group a survival scenario. Each group had to decide on a plan in order to survive and present it to the class.  Overall, it was an interesting presentation.

Exams are coming soon, the first exam starts on the 11^th of June, and the last is on the 19^th. Our grade 8 grad is on the 25^th at 10:30 am in the gym. All of us here in junior high are really looking forward to the end of the year. The teachers can’t wait as well.

What a wonderful year we’ve had singing, dancing, and learning to play instruments! It has been such a joy to see each student grow as a musician and performer, and learn to express their thoughts and ideas about music!

Many of the Grade 3-6 students are currently learning to play recorders. If your child has a recorder at home, and is wanting to practice recorder, he or she is encouraged to visit the Earl Grey Music Class Blog:

earlgreyguitarclass.weebly.com

Grade 7-8 music students are also encouraged to use this blog to practice guitar. The Grade 7-8 music students will be performing their guitar music at the Grade 8 grad ceremony! We can’t wait to hear how their hard work will pay off as they come together to make beautiful music!

-Mrs. Alvarez

We are learning about the life cycle of beans. Seven of our beans are growing. – Maggie

Beans need water, sun and air to grow. They can grow tall. – Alexa

Seeds just know when to grow. The outside of a bean seed keeps the seed healthy and safe. There is food for the plant inside the seed to help it grow.

Beans can grow with no soil! We planted bean seeds in a bag. We used cotton balls and paper towel. We put them against the window for sun. – Sage

We didn’t plant the seeds in the soil because we want to see the roots grow. – Angelika

Our beans are starting to grow! I can see the roots. – Dmitrii

Beans grow very quick. They sprouted over the weekend. – Janella

The bean seeds are growing faster in wet paper towels than the wet cotton balls. – Lily

Did you know it is the 100^th anniversary of the Winnipeg General Strike right now?   We do and we have been learning about it in our class.  On June 5, eight Grade 10 students from Kelvin High School came to share their research projects and learning about the strike.

We learned about why the strike happened and what events led up to it.  One of the projects was about two leaders of the strike, J.S. Woodsworth and Helen Armstrong.  Helen was the only female strike leader.  She organized a food kitchen because so many people did not have enough money to buy food.  She also advocated for women’s rights in the workplace such as safety measures for the dangerous machines and chemicals that were in many of the factories where women worked.  J.S. Woodsworth spoke out about low wages and thought that people had the right to ask for a fair wage that was enough to pay rent and food.

One of our visitors wrote a song about the strike and played the guitar and sang to us.  It was awesome!  Another project was a board game.  We played in teams and had to answer questions as we played.  Zia, Aira Mae and Emma won and they got lollipops that had some information attached to it.  We also heard about fashion and music at the time.

It was a great presentation.  Thank you Kelvin High School for sharing your learning with us!