Hurray for Spring!

Spring Break has come and gone and the warm weather will soon be upon us.  This past month we focused on taking care of Our Earth.   We had the chance to take part in creating, capturing and exploring rainbows with our special guests from Steinbach Regional High School; we also had the chance to walk around our neighbourhood to take part in the Nature Scavenger Hunt.

We love our Earth!

¡Viva la primavera!

Las vacaciones de primavera han llegado y se han ido y el clima agradable pronto estará sobre nosotros. El mes pasado nos enfocamos en cuidar nuestra Tierra. Tuvimos la oportunidad de participar en la creación, captura y exploración del arco iris con nuestros invitados especiales de Steinbach Regional High School; También tuvimos la oportunidad de caminar alrededor de nuestra comunidad para participar en la búsqueda de la naturaleza.

¡Amamos nuestra Tierra!

What was Room 22 learning about during Earth Week?  We learned a lot of things about water! First, we met with Mary, the guest speaker from the Green Action Center, who explained to us about how much water Canadians waste every day.  Did you know that most Canadians use about 430 litres of water a day!  Even though the earth has lots of water, we can’t use a lot of it.  In fact, less than 1% of the water on earth is drinkable.  The water cycle makes it possible to recycle our water, but if it is polluted or poisoned, then we can’t use it at all, which makes it unsustainable. This is a problem! We decided to investigate and design a variety of filtration systems to test if we could clean polluted water. First, we had to make our polluted water so we took sand and soil from outside and added it to a jug of water.  We then added peppermint tea leaves, dish soap, salt, vinegar, baking soda, and paper to the jug. It was dirty!  Next, we worked in groups and created filter systems using two liter plastic bottles and filters such as sand, soil, small pebbles, large pebbles, charcoal, nylon mesh, coffee filters and cotton balls. We did an activity to see which filter made the cleanest water.  Even though all of our filtered samples still looked dirty, we examined our filters and were surprised that the soil filter cleaned the best.  After, each group took this data to design a new system with a combination of filters to determine which method will remove the polluted water best.  Now we are waiting for our results. During this time, we have also read books about conserving and protecting our water supply. We have learned that water is a valuable resource and we need to protect it.

Shared Writing by students in Room 22

We started a new inquiry project! Our classroom is turning into a camp site.  People camp where there are lots of trees. That’s called a forest. – Natalie

There are two kinds of trees that grow in a forest. They are called coniferous and deciduous. A coniferous tree is a Christmas tree. They have lots of needles. A deciduous tree has leaves. The leaves grow and change colour in different seasons. They even fall off. – Georgie

We built a trailer for our campsite. There are flowers on our trailer. We built a fire, too. We read books about flowers and trees under the canopy. It gives us shade. I have slept in a real trailer! – Jaxson

We made a white and yellow birch tree on our bulletin board. We added details to the tree using paint. Birch trees can grow really tall.  –Hunter

Birch trees are deciduous trees. There are two different kinds of birch trees. There are white and yellow birch trees. You can peel off the bark on the tree. Paper is made from trees.  Also, the yellow birch tree doesn’t peel as easy. – Watson

Trees have roots, leaves, branches, and a trunk. My favourite part of a tree is the leaves. – Brody

Don’t rip off the branches from trees.  Its not respectful. Trees are living things. – Salvador

We have a real tree stump in our classroom. If you look really close you can see rings. Not like the rings you wear. Trees keep growing and they get bigger. The rings on a tree are really tiny. You can count the rings and find out how old the tree is. – Emily Marie

Leaves help the tree make food to grow. – Andrii

Trees clean the air. – Emily

I’m writing a book about plants and trees. I am an author and an illustrator. – Mya

Trees have rings inside. You can count the rings to see how old the tree is.  – Andrii

I painted a tree using tree parts! It was tough but a lot of fun. I used blue, brown and green paint. I mixed blue and brown to make a dark blue. – Hunter

I painted a tree. I used a stick and leaves instead of a paint brush. – Jaylee

My teacher brought in a bunch of tree parts. We tried to figure out what kind of tree they came from. I knew that it was coniferous because of the needles. We watched a learning video about different kinds of coniferous trees. We thought it was a spruce tree or a fir tree. It ended up being a spruce tree. – Juliette

We made a forest. There is lots of dirt, animals, pine cones, rocks, and trees. Its fun to play in dirt. I made a bear den. – Ella

We learned about the different parts of a tree. We built and painted a Cedar tree. The branches were real parts. We labelled the tree parts when we were all done. -Georgie

On April 12th, Room 23 got to take a free field trip to the Canadian Human Rights Museum to learn more about the effects of Residential Schools. It was such an interesting and HUGE building with so much to see. Our guides were so impressed with how much we already knew about First Nations traditions and culture and what we knew about Residential Schools. After our tour, we got into groups and used magnetic poetry to help us show what we learned and how we felt about the impact of Residential Schools. Here are some of our completed pieces…

We have been really, really busy in junior high language arts since returning to school after Spring Break. We began the month with a new novel study on the book “The Giver.” The students have worked together through a variety of activities to help them to develop an understanding of the terms “utopia” and “dystopia” and to explore the big idea for this unit that societal structures have the power to either limit or promote our freedoms, choices and desires.

On April 12, the International Day of Pink, we explored the ChanieWenjack story through the MacLean’s article from 1967, “The lonely death of Charlie Wenjack” and                                         through Gord Downie’s and Jeff Lemire’s “Secret Path.” Chanie’s story certainly highlights the big idea of our novel study. The students were assigned the task to produce something that told their story of “coming home.” The results featured an amazing array of poetry, art work, short stories and PowerPoint presentations. We all have our own stories to tell and our own creative ways to tell them!

On April 24th, the grade seven students have invited our grade six students to join us for part of the afternoon to get “the feel” of our junior high. We are hoping many of them will be joining us next year for an exciting year of learning!

We will be ending our month by participating in the International “Pay it Forward Day” on April 28th, a day to do something nice for someone else without being asked. The junior highs will be “Paying it Forward” by making and delivering Rice Krispie treats with special messages to some of the people in our community.

Overall it has been a great month of learning and growing together!

Ms. Desrosier – Grade 7/8 English Language Ars

April flew by in Room 16!   Most of the focus this month has been on the importance of caring for each other and the earth.  If you’ve been in the school recently you might have seen our hearts with student messages about using kind words with one another.

Earth Week activities had us busy too.  Room 16 and Room 27 went on a community walk in our neighbourhood to pick up garbage.  We filled four large garbage bags just from litter on the boulevards on our neighbouring streets.  Students planted flowers in the classroom and also in their House Groups.   We also planted wheat which we have discovered sprouts fast!   Mary from Green Action Centre came to the school for two days and presented information to our students in Room 16 about composting and Vermicomposters.  She made it look so easy!

Students have begun to work on their inquiry projects.  Many are quite excited to begin researching on topics of their own interest.  We hope to have these projects finished by mid- June.

Hopefully this snow is finally behind us and we can enjoy getting outdoors more often in the month of May!

Ms. Tattersall

This month we’ve been doing a lot of poetry! We made acrostic poems, concrete poems anddefinition poems. Right now, we’re making colour poems. We will hopefully be hosting a Poetry Night later next month. In art class we made water lilies, and we did Easter egg printmaking. In math we have been learning about how fractions and decimals and percents are related. We made appointments to work with other people, and did problem solving activities.
This month there was Earth Week, so we planted different seeds (sunflower, poppy, onion, parsley and tomatoes, carrots and beans) and did a scavenger hunt with our Nursery buddies.  We also cleaned up Garwood Street. Waldo called himself “Garbage Santa” because we picked up SO much, and the bag was getting full!

As a class we are working together to improve our focus and teamwork during the beanbag toss. We’ve had fun playing Rock Paper Scissors try it, it’s good exercise! We’ve also done an instant challenge where we had to work together to build a tall tower out of just paper.

We have been busy rehearsing for our assembly performance. We are                                                             dancing and acting out skits to the song  “Stand Up” by Mike Tompkins.                                                               This song teaches people that Human bullying is not ok, and to help others.

Written by the students of Room 25

On Thursday, April 6, Room 27 went for a tour of the Manitoba Legislature. It was a beautiful sunny day and we enjoyed the walk to the bus stop!  Mrs. Last said she was proud of us for giving up our seats for others during the bus ride.

When we arrived at the Legislative Building grounds we took time to look at the statue of The Famous Five.  Have you heard of them?  They are five women who fought for women’s rights. One of them is Nellie McClung from Manitoba!

Our guide for the tour of the building was awesome. She was both informative and funny. Our favourite story was about a scandal involving Thomas Kelly. He was in charge of building the Legislature. He stole building supplies and used them in his residence down the street. Of course he got caught!

Wab Kinew, the MLA of the Earl Grey neighborhood, stopped by to see us during the tour. He told us about his sister who just graduated from Harvard with her Ph D. She went to Earl Grey for grade 7 and 8. He challenged all of us to go to graduate from High School and go to University!

Later we went to the Chamber and heard him make a speech to all the MLAs and he talked about us. The MLAs gave us a round of applause!

After the rest of our tour it was time to catch the bus and go back to Earl Grey.

By The Students of Room 27

This month we have been learning about Community Helpers! So far we                                                                              have turned our classroom into a doctor’s office and an airport. We have                                                                           been learning about how all the different people in our neighbourhood work together to help one another and about people in our community whose jobs affect our everyday life. As part of this unit I am hoping to have different Community Helpers visit our classroom

Community Helper Professions that I would like to have present include:

Doctor

Nurse

Baker

Garbage/Recycling Collector

Dentist

Veterinarian or Pet Groomer

Construction Worker

Mechanic

Librarian

Bus Driver

Paramedic

Firefighter

Mail Carrier/Postal Worker

Let us know if you are able to visit our classroom!

Room 12 learns about math in lots of different ways.  We do three centres each day.  We play Dreambox on the iPads.  You have to play math games to win tokens and unlock mysteries.  We play math games with a partner.  Our favourite game right now is 10s Go Fish.  We are learning how to make 10.  We also do math on our own.  Sometimes we learn new games with Mrs. Jeninga.

Room 12 REALLY loves math!!!

Shared writing by the students of Room 12