We did go outside to eat our lunches and then stayed out for the rest of the day. We had another chapter of Charlotte's Web and wrote about our week outdoors. Mrs. Tomoniko came out with her class and taught us a French game. Then, later they helped us make whistles with tongue depressors and a piece of paper. It was hard for some of us to blow into the whistle without getting too much saliva on the paper. The wet paper did not work. It was interesting to see how the children took more notice of things like the rapidly changing cloud shapes today. When we played a math game but realized we hadn't brought out any game pieces, the children quickly found a few stones to use. I think we are finally ready to venture off the playground for our second week. What new adventures will we find.
Our painted lady chrysalis had started to open when we arrived at school today. Since it was so cold and windy outside it didn't seem like a good idea to take the newly hatching butterflies outside so we spent the morning inside making our own painted ladies and watching the chrysalis opening. It was pretty exciting. Shortly after recess we got to watch Dean Gunnerson wow the school with some escape artist acts.
We did go outside to eat our lunches and then stayed out for the rest of the day. We had another chapter of Charlotte's Web and wrote about our week outdoors. Mrs. Tomoniko came out with her class and taught us a French game. Then, later they helped us make whistles with tongue depressors and a piece of paper. It was hard for some of us to blow into the whistle without getting too much saliva on the paper. The wet paper did not work. It was interesting to see how the children took more notice of things like the rapidly changing cloud shapes today. When we played a math game but realized we hadn't brought out any game pieces, the children quickly found a few stones to use. I think we are finally ready to venture off the playground for our second week. What new adventures will we find.
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With clouds and drizzle looming we knew we needed to put up our shelters again. We combined them so that our roof had walls. It was pretty close to perfect and most of the students worked together so well that it went up really fast. During our morning sharing time Shayden and Rhyanne showed some cool rocks so we read a book called If you Find a Rock. About the time we finished our stories we noticed that the downspout of the school was starting to drip rain even though it was barely a drizzle. We all got measuring scoops and made mud recipes. Once we were happy with our creations we wrote down the recipes as best as we could remember. When the sun came out we were surprised by how hot it felt. The rain stayed away for the rest of the day and our jackets came off. In the afternoon we used the same scoops to measure volume of different sized containers. I was amazed at how everyone spread out to their own space and measured carefully. I have take classes out to the sandbox each year for the volume section of our math but have never had such accurate measuring take place. I owe it to the fact that we have been doing activities outdoors all week so it is less of a novelty and children are more focussed on the task. After last recess we measured out sand, cornstarch and water to make sand castles. While Mrs. MacPhee cooked the sand mixture, Rhyanne read Sand Castle Contest by Robert Munsch. What a reader she is! We were a bit rushed in making our sand castles because clouds were threatening and we had to dismantle our shelters before they got wet. But it was fun anyway! Our third day outside started off much cooler than the other two. Our thermometer said 15 degrees so with a cool wind we kept our jackets on until recess. After stories about getting soaked at soccer last night we were curious to see what the rain gauge would show. One drop was all we found! We read worm and insect books for a while to see what facts we could glean. These young readers can locate some pretty mind-boggling facts! After recess we spent a big chunk of time studying our vermicomposters (worms). The sun kept us warm but we needed to shade the worms from the sun. We were fascinated by how they moved and wanted to hide Next was bus evacuation practice. We were reminded about what good bus safety looks like because we will soon have a few bus trips. Since we probably will never need to use the emergency exits, the most important reminders for us were to stay seated with our legs out of the aisle and to be quiet when we get to railroad crossings. After lunch we talked about the worms again, about their life cycle, and giant 3 meter long earthworms in Australia. We sequenced an earth worm life cycle and decorated the cover of our scrapbooks. We finished drawing while reading another chapter of Charlotte’s Web. After last recess we dug for worms and dandelions, or bird watched. Today John Paul dug a dandelion whose root was 25 centimeters long, Lauren found what she thinks might be an ant egg, and Brooklyn found some clay when she dug down deep, and Shayden found a peanut! Now how did that get there? Today we switched shelter building groups. Working together on a task is not an easy thing to do. We took some time to read by ourselves and then read another chapter of Charlotte's Web. Again, the birds gave us lots to talk about. We tried out some new tools like cloud finders, binoculars and bug houses. For math we used sticks to see how many triangles we could make with 9 sticks. Then we combined with another group to see how many 18 sticks would make. The counting got even trickier when we tried squares and rectangles. This afternoon when our buddies arrived we had just spotted a tiny butterfly so we popped open the bug house and then studied the little creature. We tried to find the spotted wing pattern in our field guide but it wasn't easy. Eventually he settled and opened his wings. The tops were blue! We could then identify him as one of the Lycaenidae family. We thought it looked most like a Cranberry Blue but after reading about how uncommon it is, it was more likely a Silvery Blue. We ended the day with planting. We planted some flowers in the alpha planters beside the school doors. Mrs. MacPhee couldn't help giving us a shower with the garden hose. We began our two weeks of outdoor learning by writing some of our ideas down and then sharing them. After recess our first task was to start meeting our needs. Snacks gave us energy for the big task of creating a shelter. Instead of shelter from the rain we needed shelter from the sun. We needed lots of reminders to keep our hats on. One of the shelters required lots of creativity. The wind helped to create a parachute type of shelter. Inside the breeze kept us comfortable. The other structure required us to follow more step by step directions. It was hard to say which was easier. It was fun to have story time in the shelter. Later we went for a nature hunt. We saw a bee buzzing in the apple tree. We studied the clouds. We admired the flowers. Then we saw a robin in the middle of the road. We sat down and waited. It had a worm in its mouth. Our stillness was rewarded when the robin flew up to the nest and fed its young. We counted four hungry babies. With a few trees left over from the Grade Five "Johnny Appleseed" Program, the kindergartens and grade one classes were able to plant two apple trees along the west side of the school. While we were out there we also dug some of the dandelions. We tried to see who could get the longest root. We think Lorenz won the dandelion competition but Paige had the longest worm.
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Mrs. MacPhee
I've been teaching for over 20 years in three different provinces. Most of those years have been in the primary grades. I love teaching grade one because of the dramatic change I get to see in the children from the beginning of the year to the end of June. It truly is amazing! Archives
June 2017
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