Happy Easter!

We hope you all had a wonderful Easter.  We were so lucky in our classroom because the Easter Bunny paid us a visit and left us some clues! We read the messages as a class and tried to solve the riddles that the Easter Bunny had provided to help us find the next clue.  After we read all the clues, we found a bag of treats for each of us.

Shape Structures

We continue to notice and discuss the properties of different shapes and solids.  The students have been doing an amazing job building with different shape manipulatives.

Planting Inquiry continued....

Well, our growing experiment has not turned out the way we had hoped!  The grass was growing in some of our bags, but most of our bags and our pots have dried out or rotted.  Still, we have had a lot of great conversations about why!!

 We have also started growing beans in our class.  We are hoping for better luck with this!

Planting Inquiry

Mrs. Powell was substituting for Miss Mammarella one day and brought in some seeds.  She asked the students what the seeds might be, giving them the clue they are food that farm animals eat.  The students figured out they were grass, apple, and carrot seeds.  We talked about what things seeds need to grow (soil, sun, water).

Mrs. Versteeg asked the students for help in solving a problem she encountered last summer.  She was trying to grow lettuce but the wild rabbits in her backyard kept eating it. One student suggested she put a cage around the lettuce plant, another student suggested she put it inside a greenhouse.  Wow - some amazing problem solvers!  We held up a plastic bag and asked the students how it was similar to a greenhouse.  The students decided that it was clear so the sunlight could get through and it would protect the seeds.

This led to the students making a prediction about which seeds would grow faster - the seeds that were planted in a pot or seeds that were planted in a plastic bag.  We made a chart - "I predict the seeds will grow faster in a pot OR a bag" and the students wrote their name under their prediction.

Then, students had the opportunity to plant their own grass seeds.  We are going to monitor their growth over the next few weeks as well as our grass, apple, and carrot seeds.  We will keep you posted!

Down on the Farm

We recently changed our Dramatic Play area into a farm.  The students helped to paint a barn for our cupboard doors. Check out the finished product in the pictures below.

Miss Mammarella picked up some masks and puppets and the students have been acting out different farm animals.

We also made a graph of our favourite farm animals.  Horses won by a significant amount!

Some students were busy planting one day in the farm's garden.

Buddy Time

The students enjoy having Reading and Computer Buddies with the Grade 4 class once every 2 weeks. They spend half of their time on the mini-computers and the other half reading.  The ELP students are now reading to the books out of their Book Bags to their Buddies!