Good morning everyone!!
What a lovely morning. The sky is blue and all the blossoms in my neighbourhood are in full bloom.
The whites of the plum trees, the pinks of the cherry blossom trees and the yellows of the Forsythia. It is absolutely stunning!
I wanted to write this blog early to send you some pictures of our owl visit.
Because I had a flash on my camera I could not take any of the actual owl...but I know that a few parents did so I will forward them once they are sent to me.
Our Owl presentation was AMAZING!
First off the children from both our class and Ms. Jung's class were soooo well behaved. They had to sit on the carpet for 90 minutes without wiggling (especially when we had the two birds in). Jen the presenter from OWL led us with a very engaging presentation for 60 minutes. She brought in different feathers, bones and pictures for the children to see. She was amazing and I think that all the children will now want to go to the Open house that will be held in April. I know I would like to see this area first hand myself. After her talk to us she first brought in a Falcon and then the Owl (and I totally cannot remember their names at all, but ask your child as their memory for details is incredible). The falcon was found 14 years ago in Hope. It was smuggled in from Mexico and then was released because of course it could not be cared for and then it got really sick. So Owl has been caring for him for the last 14 years. You should see the bond that he had with Jen. It was amazing. 
Then they brought in the Barred Owl. She was sooo beautiful ( I dont have her picture). She was rescued three years ago from an area in Maple Ridge. She was hit by a car and her wing was broken. Apparently it was soo damaged that they will never be able to release her into the wild kingdom again. What a beautiful specimen though. The children were enamored. AFter the presentation Jen said she has never worked or presented to a better audience than ours. So thank you boys and girls for being so wonderful!

Before I post the pictures some reminders:
1) This Wednesday is Anti-bullying day. We are encouraging everyone to wear PINK. If you have no pink, then if you are looking for an Anti-bullying teeshirt, they are selling them at London Drugs.

2) On Wednesday...busy Wednesday....We will have an author visit for the entire school in the morning 9 am till 10 am...(a notice was sent home). Then after recess there will be our Pink Day assembly...we will/should see a sea of pink. After lunch there will be a play ...it is called HAMELIN and it is an Axis Theatre presentation. It is a play about bullying. It is live theater and we are very lucky to have them coming to our school.

3) On Thursday it is our skating day. As per usual, please send all the gear for our afternoon skating. I think that I am short 3 spots for children if anyone can help out. Please let me know.

I think that is it for now.
Enjoy this stellar day!
Teri

A sea of children, look at their concentration.

This is an Eagle's wing.

An Eagle's skull

A talon.

A golden Eagle's egg.

Our beautiful Mexican falcon.

Ryan doing a captivating, amusing reading from Where the Sidewalk Ends, by Shel Silverstein

Good Morning Parents and children,
Today is a professional day, so hopefully everyone is still sleeping in and are prepared to have a great day together. I will be working on learning more about the roots of empathy program as well as the bucket filling program and see what extensions I can make and do to add more to these wonderful programs!

This is an early newsletter as I wanted to share some great pictures with you from our workshop yesterday. It was a fantastic owl pellet dissection workshop provided to us by a grad student from UBC named Andrew. He was excellent as I am sure my volunteer mamas (Michelle, Joanne and Sarah) will attest to. He started with a wonderful power point presentation...boy did our children know a lot...I was very proud of them..wow!!
Then he talked about the rules to dissection and then we partnered up and dissected this owl pellets. We found bones of moles, voles and birds. It was amazing.

 A big thank you to Andrew!
Here are the pics.
Teri

one of the skulls that we found

This is Andrew doing his power point.

Good Morning Everyone,
What a beautiful, sunny morning it is today!!
The fog seems to have burned off and sky is soooooo blue, time to get outside while the sun shines. We are off to Stanley Park...maybe see you there????
I hope everyone had a love filled Valentine's Day! The cards and treats that the children gave me were so sweet....thank you very much.
We had a great Valentine's Day party. The children kept saying how much fun they were having. The grade ones with the help of Ben's Grandma, and Leah's mom cut up all the fruit that the children brought (thankyou for sending such a nice selection for them to pick from). Then in the afternoon the children each made their own fruit salad and topped it with the whipped cream that they made as well. Ever soooo yummy!!

On Friday afternoon we also had a guest visitor in, Nikoo. Nikoo, from spec, came in to talk about food that we get from around the world and how important it is to try and purchase food that is grown more locally and she also talked about the carbon footprint that we make. The children were very excited to draw and show what they learned about how we get our food. Thank you to Nikoo.

This last week we spent a lot of time talking about love, friendship and things that are important to us. We wrote about how much we love our parents...even more than "hedgehogs" or "skiing in Whistler". The writing is on the wall as to how much they love their moms and dads, come in and take a look.

Baby Dahlia and Ebony also came in for our monthly visit. My how she is growing!!!

Next week:
1) I need four volunteers to help out on Wednesday afternoon. We have a special guest coming in from UBC, who will be bringing in owl pellets for us to look at and dissect. It would be great to have one parent per group to help with this fun activity.

2) Also on Friday, we will be having OWL coming in with some live owls and birds of prey. Ms. Jung's class will be joining us for this special visit. They will be coming in from recess till lunch thus our cooking with the grade 2's will be postponed till the following week. We will pay for this presentation with the money given to us by the PAC. It will be a very exciting presentation!

3) There will be no school next Thursday as it is a Professional Day.

Finally:
Thank you for all the parents and grandparents who have driven for skating. It has been so much fun and it could not happen without all of our parents who drive and supervise for us!

Thank you to all the parents who have sent in chocolate or something for our chocolate box. We will be taking donations till next Friday. All of this will be for the gala auction. Our box is looking quite lovely, I might add!!

And with that,
Enjoy your day and enjoy the pictures!!
Teri

Baby Dahlia and Ebony. Dahlia is 6 and a half months old.

Ben reading a very very funny book!

Happy February Parents and Children,
So, will the Groundhog see his shadow tomorrow??? Make sure you listen to the radio tomorrow so we can find out. We have all made a prediction. It was almost fifty fifty. Twelve children said No the groundhog would not see his shadow and eleven said it would. I am hoping he does not as I am truly ready for Spring, not that we have had a terrible winter, but the sound of Spring does have a sweet sound.

We have been busy in the class, learning about worms and their benefits and the parts of their anatomy (as we have our own worm bin now).
We have continued talking about Jan Brett and read The Mitten...and even tried to push in another animal into the mitten....and we wrote clues to figure out what animal tried to climb in.
The grade twos wrote stories about going Owling...based on the story Owl Moon by Jane Yolen...wow are they ever great story writers meanwhile the grade ones baked delish bran yogurt muffins...yummy!!
We have had a visit from Kaycie...she is our roots of empathy leader and she talked about feeling proud. The children all had to think of a time that they felt proud and I was simply proud of the fact that they did such amazing writing and pictures.
In buddies we made some love bugs, which will be surrounding our February boards.
In art we started our love banners that we will be finishing up on Monday.
This is only a snapshot of what we did this week....we were very busy!!

Next week:
1. Our first skating session is this Thursday. I think at this time we are just just perfect for drivers. I will do a plea if anyone cancels...please dont!! Got my fingers crossed. As a driver you need to fill out the driver insurance forms that are in the office...if you have this year already, you do not need to, but if you havent filled out a form for this school year yet, then you must pick one up in the office and fill it out before Thursday.
On Thursday the children NEED to bring in their carseat, a helmet and their skates (if they are not renting). Please have them dressed appropriately with mittens etc in their pockets or a carry bag. All drivers please be in the classroom by 1255 for instructions and for getting their group. Just as a reminder we are skating at KERRISDALE...not Kits. Please review appropriate behaviors with your child....in the car behaviours and appropriate skating behaviours. Our motto always is Be Fair, Be SAFE and Be kind!!!
Thank you in advance to all of our parent volunteers. WE could not make it happen without you!!
xoxo

Thank you to all the parents at Bayview who contributed delicious food for our Staff Appreciation luncheon. I did not have to eat dinner that night...all the food was fantastic. You are all so kind to us and we very much appreciate your thoughtfulness.

Finally our Platter has been fired and it looks lovely. Michelle sent me a picture but in true fashion I do not know how to load it onto our blog...maybe she will send everyone a picture of it. The platter is very coveted and will be auctioned off at the Bayview Gala night. If you are not able to go the gala you can give me your highest bid and I will bid for you (or get someone who is louder than me) to do it, so that you may also have an opportunity to get this platter. It really is gorgeous and will be displayed in the hallway by the library shortly, so you can see it live!

And with that enjoy the few pictures that are coming up.
I have my grade two readers reading to the class. Do we ever enjoy their leadership!

Samara reads Owl Babies to the class.

Will the groundhog see his shadow??

Matthew reads the giving tree to the class.

sophia reads the easter egg by jan brett to the class