February 18th, 2013,
We are halfway through February, hard to believe.
We have been very busy this month doing many activities. In fact this last week was a crazy week (only three days for me) and we did so much.

On Wednesday we had Catriona come in and do a mushroom talk. We identified the different parts of a mushroom and their "jobs", we then looked up close at a button mushroom and drew our own sketch of one. Then together we created our own Oyster Mushroom growing kit. Yes we will be growing mushrooms in our classroom. We are watering them daily (through a funnel) and we are waiting till we see some little "buttons" pop through the hole, at which point we will then be having to spray them to keep them very moist...and hopefully within a couple of weeks we should have our own Oyster Mushrooms to harvest and put on to our Pizzas when we begin our cooking with Project Chef.

On Thursday we had Solar Sandy join our class and talk about physics. She talked about Sir Isaac Newton who was the guru of motion. She then had the children do experiments that showed what "force" was. She taught them basic lows of movement....1. Objects in motion, stay in motion. Objects at rest stay at rest
 2. The bigger the force the faster the motion.3. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. For each law that she taught them, they all went and did a hands on experiment to prove that her law actually worked. Afterwards the children rotated through many experiments to further reinforce the laws.
The children were all very well behaved, asked amazing questions and were eager participants in the High Tech High Touch experience.

On Friday we celebrated our Valentine's Day. Andrea came in and baked with a grade two group. They made focaccia for us all to share, meanwhile the rest of the children worked on making some delish Apple sos for everyone to share as well. We feasted on many yummy things that were sent in (thank you) and enjoyed making our Splat art and writing some love messages to our mamas (make sure you read them, they are adorable), and then finally opening and reading our lovely valentines. We ended our day with a cute video called the Marriage of White Bear and Brown Bear ( so cute).

Next week will be equally busy:
Monday: Catriona is in to do a food miles project. How far away does our food come from? How important is it for our environment to try to get food that is closer to us. The children will be getting spelling today as well!
Weds, Thurs- we will continue to work on our magnet unit and begin talking about project chef and begin our new unit on FOOD.
Friday: We are off to Purdy's. I will be sending you home a note to let you know if i need you to drive or not. Because they can only take so many adults on our tour, I may not need everyone to drive this time around. But thank you if you have offered.

With that thank you so much for supporting your child. They are doing soooo well.
I hope to see you at the Gala on Friday (get your tickets!!!)
Enjoy the pictures.
Teri

Montaganews--February 5, 2013

Wow...February already!  Time flies when you're having fun...(hey, wait...didn't Ms. Taylor say this in her blog recently too?)

Today was a wonderful day.  Our Reader's Theatre group performed Caps for Sale and they were fantastic!  They even went down by themselves (without me or their classmates) to Ms. Kochan's kindergarten class and performed it there. Ms. Kochan and the class apparently loved it and can hardly wait for the next performance. So fabulous job to:

Naomi, Thomas, Annie, Nils, Simon & Ellen.

 These reader's theatre activities are helping them with their reading skills, oral reading, voice and confidence. 

Today we also:
-learned about "GO", "SLOW" and "WHOA" foods.  Would an apple be go, slow or whoa? How about a chocolate bar? The questions can get trickier..for example, pancakes...is that with fruit or syrup? So GO foods are the healthy foods that you can eat everyday, SLOW foods are healthy but we shouldn't really eat it every day and WHOA are the treat foods to eat maybe once a week. 

We are having lots of discussion about food & healthy eating these days as you know.  Some students are telling me how they are trying foods they'd never tried before or had tried but decided they didn't like and now they like it. I celebrate this. If you want me to encourage a specific food for your kid to try...feel free to slip me a note. :)  I feel like I have so much power when it comes to this.  But with great power comes great responsibility (I'm quoting someone but I can't remember who) so I'm careful.  I don't tell them all to start eating broccoli or salmon for example because everybody is different and then there are allergies/intolerances, etc. I always tell them to talk to you/have conversations with their parents about healthy eating.  So if you need MY help, I'd be happy to try.

***I also sent home a BREAKFAST chart to keep track of what your little angel is eating for breakfast.  I'm hoping these will come back next Tuesday. Again...the purpose is just to get your child to be mindful and initiate conversations about healthy eating.

-continued working in our Shapes Booklet...OVAL was the shape today
-had computer time with Mr. A's guest teacher....computers didn't behave as well as the students apparently so the substitute teacher thanks the class for their patience & positive attitude.
-wrote in Journals. Grade 1s are working on writing more (more detail) with periods and capitals.  They also all now have a list of commonly used words glued to the front inside cover to refer to for spelling.
-made birthday card for Nicole-Happy 7th Birthday!

See you next Tuesday! Enjoy FAMILY WEEKEND
Ebru Montagano