Division 10's News of the Week

Good Morning Parents,
We are half way through November, I am thinking this is going rather quickly dont you think?? Before you know it it will be the Winter Holidays....wow! We have been lucky that the rain hasnt been keeping us away from going outdoors too much. In fact we spent Wednesday afternoon exploring Cedar trees. We took some rubbings of the trees, we touched bark from a Cedar tree versus the bark of Deciduous trees, we read a first nations story about the Cedar tree and how the first nation's people call it the Tree of Life. On Thursday, Deana came in to do a power point presentation and read another story about how the First Nation's used the Cedar trees and how they always respected the trees, how they asked for permission to the trees to use them and how they always thanked them afterwards. Deana really introduced the subject of respect to the children around how the First Nation's people used things from nature. After these activities we did some writings and drawings to show our learning. I am very impressed by how much the children retain and how much they are capable of writing and doing their independent activities.

Did the children tell you that we had another team from UBC that came in? This time it was a group of Student Nurses. This team of student nurses came in to talk about washing our hands and how washing our hands helps us stay healthy during cold and flu season.
The team of student nurses were very impressed by how much the children participated and how much they knew already about keeping themselves healthy. Washing our hands is a key factor in staying healthy as well as NOT putting our fingers into our mouths!!

This Tuesday we will be having another guest come in. This presenter is from the Northwest Wildlife Preservation Society. I made a mistake and said that our presenter is coming in in the afternoon, when she will be coming in after recess. To help cover the costs each student is asked to pay $6. Because the process for collecting money has changed each family member must go online to pay for the presentation. If you do not know how to do this, please call the office as I am not too clear on it myself. I sent you a link on Friday but here it is again: 

 https://vsb.schoolcashonline.com

This presentation will be all about squirrels. We have seen many squirrels on our adventures outside and I know how excited the children get when we see squirrels so this will front end load us for when we go on our next nature walk.

This Wednesday afternoon, we will also be having a school performance. The cost for the performance has been paid for by the PAC, which means all of you! Thank you, I hear the performance is supposed to be very exciting!!

Speaking of which I am still trying to get two parents to sign up for Popcorn Sales. We are allotted two days for doing this. If you can sign up, let me know and we will try to find two days. All money raised from the popcorn sales will go to the classroom for guest speakers, or fund other exciting activities.

With that, I hope you are all having a great day and a great weekend. I will see you all on Monday. Enjoy the pictures.
teri

Looking at Cedar Trees.

Hmm, a deciduous tree doesnt quite feel like the Cedar tree.

Deana reads us a story about the Cedar tree.

The UBC nurses give the children a presentation about Handwashing.

The children do a word search.

They wash their hands.

They look at the germs left on their hands with a special flashlight.

On Friday we invited our buddy class to play cards with us. We played a card game called, Make Ten.

Playing card games together is such a wonderful way to engage your child in math. They all had so much fun!

We started our stars of the week. Congratulations to all the children in the class as you are all stars!

The grade twos did some writing while the grade ones baked. We learned about the main character of a story, the setting, the problem and how to briefly state the beginning, middle and end of a story. Then of course our dessert was to do some art!

On Fridays we do art and free play in the afternoon. The children worked on their Starling art. We see tons of starlings and crows in our school yard, so I thought this would be a fun project.

The story that we read to help us with our art!

The cedar trees!