Friday, January 27, 2012

Family Literacy Day

January 27th is Family Literacy Day. Division 2 celebrated with a day of storytelling!

First, we took a walk downtown to attend a book-reading. Cree Author, Beth Cuthand, read us a story called "The Little Duck". Her book is written in English and Cree, her family's language.


In her story, little duck sees the people preparing for a pow-wow. He decides to join them, so he dresses up in his own regalia. But, when he gets to the pow-wow, he can't communicate with the people there because he can't speak the human languages.


After Beth read her picture book to us, she told us another story. She hasn't made this one into a book yet! In the story, a little girl finds a woodpecker outside her house in the early morning. Her older sister wakes up from the woodpecker's noise, too, and goes outside to see the her little sister trying to crawl after the woodpecker. Then, their dad wakes up, too! He is not happy about being awake so early, and he rushes outside with his shotgun to scare away the woodpecker. But, dad is in too much of a hurry and he falls down "whomp!" on his bum! The girls (and the woodpecker!) get a good laugh! 


















In the afternoon, we did some storytelling in our classroom. Some families came to join us and share their favourite stories with our class. We had a fantastic time!

Ebony and her mom, Serena, read us Smelly Socks by Robert Munsch. Smelly Socks is about a little girl who refuses to wash her socks. Ebony did an excellent job of reading and her story was hilarious!


Rain and her mom, Jocelyn, read us a book called Caramba, by Marie-Louise Gay. Caramba is a cat who can't fly! It had an exciting ending, because Caramba discovered that he could do something else better than the other cats.


Then, Preston read us The Three Little Pigs with the help of his little brother, David. Preston did a great job of reading this classic picture book about three little pigs trying to get away from a wolf. The pictures in Preston's copy of the book were really neat, too!


Miss. OC shared a story that her mom and dad used to read to her at bedtime. Because she had a sore throat, she showed a video of Robert Munsch reading his story, Love You Forever. The story Love You Forever is about a mom who watches her little boy grow up. Even though he sometimes drives her crazy - like when he flushes her watch down the toilet! - she still loves him forever. At the end of the story, the boy is all grown up, and has a little girl of his own to love!


Riannon's mom, Holly, told us some stories, too! She read us a book called Raven: A Trickster Tale from the Pacific Northwest, by Gerald McDermott. Holly told us that Riannon's dad was from the Pacific Northwest, so this story was one of many special stories from her ancestors. In the story, the whole world is dark and Raven is the one who discovers the light. He uses a trick to get into the sky chief's house, and then he finds the light trapped in a box.


After sharing a picture book with us, Holly told us another one of Riannon's favourite stories. This N'lkapamuk story was about Coyote, another famous trickster. In the story, Coyote is walking by the river near Lytton, and he is all alone. He starts to sing a song to himself. He wishes he had a friend, but there is no one around for him to play with. Coyote finally gets his wish ... but, it's not what we expected! A girl Coyote is watching him from across the river! At the end, we all sang Coyote's song together. We had so much fun listening to Holly's storytelling!


Thank-you to all the families who joined us for storytelling today. We loved sharing books and stories with you!


Leave us a comment: 


You heard a lot of different stories today! Which story did you like the best, and why? 


Do you have a favourite book that you like to read before bed? 

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Hatched!

A few months ago, our class received a large fish tank. Inside our fish tank, the BC Fisheries staff put a few dozen salmon eggs. The salmon eggs were all eyed - that means that they had tiny salmon growing inside them.

Over the weeks, our salmon have been changing, and now we can see what was going on inside those eggs. Our salmon have hatched!

The alveins hang out on the bottom of the tank.
That orange blob on its belly side is called a yolk sac.


Small salmon who have just hatched from their eggs are called Alveins. Alveins have eyes, a mouth, and a tail like a fish, but they don't have fully grown fins yet and they can't swim. Instead, Alveins wiggle around on the bottom of the tank.


Alveins are easy to spot because they have a bright orange yolk sac still attached to their bellies. The yolk sac is like a tank full of food and energy that the Alveins will use to grow and change into a young salmon! As the Alveins grow, their yolk sac will slowly disappear.




Leave us a comment: 

What did you observe when we looked at our Alveins in class on Wednesday?

Have you ever raised an animal from an egg before? What kind of animal was it? How did it grow and change? 

Monday, January 16, 2012

New Students

This month we got two new students in our classroom! (And they're not salmon - they're people!)



Please welcome these new friends to our blog and our classroom.

Leave us a comment: 

What advice do you have for our new friends? 

What questions do you have for our new friends?

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

You are my Sunshine

This week in Science we are learning all about the Sun! What makes the sun shine? Why is the Sun so hot? What would it be like on Earth without the Sun? How big is the Sun?

Watch this very informative (and very funny) music video to learn all about the star we depend on: our Sun!


Leave us a comment: 

What is one new thing you learned about the Sun this week? 

What are you still wondering about the Sun? 

Can you think of anything you wouldn't be able to do if there was no more Sun? 

Out of this World!

Division 2 is back from a relaxing break and we are ready to learn something new! In Science we are starting a new unit all about Space. Our planet, Earth, shares space with the other planets in our solar system. We are learning the names of all of the planets in the solar system, and what makes each of them special.

During our Art class last week we dreamed up our own planets. Check out the new planets we created:

We used chalk, oil pastels, and paint to create the surface of our planets.
We created planets with warm or cool colour palates.



Just like in our solar system, no two planets are the same!
Some planets have large blotches that are storms, craters, or lakes and oceans. 



Our planets have very detailed surfaces. 

What would it be like to visit this planet? 














































































Leave us a comment: 


What features did you create on your planet's surface? 


What facts do you know about our solar system?