Learning about rockets

This morning, I noticed some of the students busy making rocket ships out of paper tubes and leftover shape pieces from the other day. Their creations were very elaborate, complete with fins on the sides, cones on the top to help them "fly", and all sorts of smoke and fire coming out the back. I decided to Google some pictures of rockets to help inspire their play.

The pictures prompted lots of different questions about the different shapes and sizes of the rockets (some were long and skinny, some had 3 parts), and about why there was so much smoke and fire coming out of the bottom of some of the rockets. When the students had gathered at the carpet again, I showed them a video of the launch of the space shuttle Discovery (Discovery Launch). We talked about the different parts of the rocket, and how they helped the shuttle take off. The students were very excited to share what they knew about rockets! Later, we used some of those pictures to put together a book of rockets to help further extend our learning.

Maverick built a shuttle out of the lego blocks

LES FORMES

Today, we were learning about shapes and experimenting with them.  We went over the terms "carré, rectangle, cercle et triangle".

                                                            

Following are some pictures of the work that was completed with shapes during play:

 Maverick made a mouse in an enclosure

 Tyse and Mia worked with shape tiles

 Kealii made shape monsters

 Chloe made various shape creations

 Markus made a shapes train

 Derek made various shapes

 Rosemary made a shapes bear

 Brady made a shapes crown

Tyse made a shapes mouse

Bear Cam

This morning we read a book called "Castles, Caves, and Honeycombs". It was all about different animal homes - turtles, birds, beavers, wolves, even people!

Since we had been talking about hibernation earlier in the year, and some of the students are still showing some interest in exploring more about it, I decided to share an interesting website with them. Grouse Mountain Wildlife Refuge in Vancouver has two grizzly bears, Grinder and Coola, that are currently hibernating in specially built den. They have put in a special infared camera and connected it to a webpage so people can log on and watch the bears. We talked about how far away Vancouver is from Kanata, and the students had lots of questions and connections. Brady even shared that he has been to Vancouver before, and saw a real bear on a mountain (not in a zoo)! This morning we watched as the bears slept (not very exciting), but later this afternoon we saw the bears start to wake up a little bit - we even saw one of the bears stick out its' tongue! 

Sleeping all curled up, just like Grinder and Coola.

If you would like to check out the Grouse Mountain webpage, go to: 

 https://www.grousemountain.com/wildlife-refuge/bear-cam

Happy bear watching!

Ms. Quinn

SCIENTISTS IN SCHOOL AND OTHER NEWS

Bonjour les parents!

This morning, we became scientists!  Scientist Nancy from Scientists in school came to help us learn more about winter.  Please read the handout in your child's mailbag as it gives a detailed description of the 5 centers your child worked at today.   We spent the morning learning about many different aspects of winter.  Following are some pictures of the children at work.

Learning about snowflakes: observing snow

Learning about the structure of a snowflake 

Learning about birds 

Making bird feeders

Learning about body heat and insulation

 Learning about animal habitats during the winter

Learning about snow, snow pellets and sleet

It was a great hands on workshop enjoyed by all!!

A reminder to continue reading every evening and to fill out those reading sheets!  For every book read, a snowball is added to our snowman!  

As you can see, we have reached almost 1/3 of our goal!

In French, my goal is to have everyone speaking as much French as they possibly can during the day.  In order to encourage this, every time they speak to me in French, they get a sticker on their mitten.

Once the mitten is full, they can take it home.  The children are quite motivated by this and it is so nice to hear all the French being spoken!  We started this initiative this week and as you can see, already several stickers have been awarded.  I have also started documenting some of the words that are being said in class.  My goal is to move them from words to sentences.

 Mittens and French words spoken on the first day of initiative.

BRAVO MES HUMMINGBIRDS!!

Happy New Year! (and homework???!!)

Happy New Year to all of our Hummingbird friends and their families! We hope you enjoyed your holidays. The students were very excited to share their stories about their holidays with all of us today. We had a great first day back.

Today, since the weather was slightly uncooperative (much too cold), we were only able to get outside for a short 10 minute block this morning. While we were outside, lots of friends had questions and wonderings about the snow and ice. When we came back inside, we started to talk about some of the things we noticed, and some of the things we were wondering about.

After talking about the things we saw, and writing down some of our questions, I asked the students to think about what they wanted to know about the snow... In fact, I told them this was their "homework" for tonight! Your child is going to make some observations about the snow (what they see, what it feels like, what they already know about snow, etc.), and any questions they have about the snow and bring them to class so we can add them to our list. Please write them on a piece of paper and send them in the note totes on Wednesday (the next English day). Your child can write their observations/questions themselves, or parents can help. 

Thanks so much for your help in growing our inquiry about snow!

Ms. Quinn