One Week Left Until Christmas Holidays!

It's almost the most wonderful time of the year... 

I think everyone is looking forward to Christmas holidays - it is such a busy 

time of the year... so much to do and so little time! That goes for in the classroom, too.

We have been working hard, although at times we are battling the build up of 

excitement that the season often brings.  Something else that comes during this 

time of year is cold/flu season. It's a great time to remind your child about proper hygiene - things like keeping their hands out of their mouths, noses, etc., proper hand-washing, covering their mouths when coughing - anything we can do to try and prevent the spread of those nasty germs!

Science Update

We continued to work on our Hearing and Sound unit this week. I introduced our unit by reading the book, "The Listening Walk" by Paul Showers. Check out the picture below to see our
class brainstorm efforts on the many different sounds that we hear.



We then took time to listen to the sounds in our classroom, and with the beautiful weather - we were able to take a listening walk around the schoolyard to investigate the sounds we hear outside.

Below are a couple pictures that I managed to take while trying to lead the walk!

We also explored the following concepts:

R how humans talk

R sound is energy  

R sound is created by vibrations

R pitch means how high or low the sound is

R volume means how loud or soft a sound is

Ask your child what we learned using balloons and tuning forks in science class? 

(They should tell you about the vibrations that they felt!)

It gives me such pleasure to watch the students when they are exploring a new concept - 

the excitement that they have is contagious! 

I feel so lucky to share in the learning of your child.

Social Studies Update

This week we continued to look at quality of life - however, this week we focused on a character from Tunisia. We started to learn about the day-to-day life of a student in Tunisia, 

making comparisons with what we previously learned about Maria in Peru, 

and what we know about our lives in Devon, AB.

There will be a letter coming home to explain how we will be celebrating each country that we are studying by having 4 cultural days throughout the school year - our first one, India Day, will be the first week back in January. It will give the students a chance to experience a number of aspects of each culture - from trying food, doing crafts, listening to the languages, etc - we hope to give your child an opportunity to really experience each country and its culture.

Enjoy your weekend - only 1 week left!