It’s been a few weeks since our last post and boy have we been busy! The Super Kids have been diving into our insect inquiry, creating art projects, visiting our local Sobeys, and participating in outdoor events with our school. I know…I don’t think we could get and busier. This is a warning. This post has A LOT of pictures because I just had to capture every moment with my kiddos.
“Dancing In The Park” is an annual divisional event where students who are in grade 1-3 learn folk dances in music class and then get together with kids from other schools at St. Vital Park here in Winnipeg. Imagine kids from all of those school all together dancing. The weather for the day was HOT! It was 34 degrees Celsius with the humidity! Despite the heat, the kids dancing and enjoyed spending time outside. Once the dancing was complete we headed over to some trees to get some shade.
We extending our insect learning by making stain glass butterflies with tissue paper that you can see from both sides of our windows.
We were inspired by the book “The Imaginary Garden” by Andrew Larsen. In the book a girl and her grandpa paint an imaginary garden on canvas for the balcony of their new apartment in the city since they no longer have a garden. After discussing what a zoomed in garden may look like, we got to work making grass and bugs with our fingerprints.
Our “Jump Rope For Heart” fundraiser was re-scheduled for this past week due to rain. Our school raised over $15,000 for heart research! It made us the top fundraising school in the province. Activities involved many outdoor stations including skipping, limbo, and even an obstacle course. We were paired up with a grade 8 class in our school for the activities. It was great to see the older kids jump in and join us! Pun intended! I just had to race our Educational Assistant, Mme. Coutts in the obstacle race! I won. 🙂
Our community grocery store is Sobeys and it’s just a short walk from our school. On Friday, we took a walk down to visit Cheryl one of the managers. They welcomed us and showed us around the store. We stopped at the different departments and talked about the jobs that each person had and focussed on the food groups. We even got to go into the freezers, go into the back of the store and startle people when they reached in for milk! Students got to run the check out and have a healthy snack. Thank you Sobeys for welcoming us and teaching us about our community.
On our way back to the school we noticed two stores that didn’t have businesses in them yet. We stopped and brainstormed what our community has and what we need. What should go into those empty store fronts? We came up with a toy store, a doctor’s office, an ice cream shop, and an M +M meat shop. Lots of great ideas! We’ll have to wait and see. As we walked back we noticed the big community map by the side of the road.
The Super Kids located the school, used the legend to find the parks, and even found their streets!
Our final stop on our way back to the school was the fossil wall that is part of the exterior of our school. The kids enjoyed finding lots of different types and sharing them with each other.
Not only did we go on our walking field trip on Friday, but many of our butterflies hatched! We had 7 by the time the school day was done.
Before I moved them into the butterfly habitat, one chrysalis was shaking and I had to record it. Check it out below.
One of my Super Kids brought this book for me to look at. She got it as a gift for her birthday from her family. She told me that it was all about girls in science and she thought I would like it because I like science and we are all scientists. Ok, so that warmed my heart! After looking through it I found an entry about Maria Sibylla Merian, who was one of the first entomologists in the 1600s. She combined her love of art with her fascination of insects. She especially loved butterflies. We just had to learn more about her and look up her artwork! I love when connections are made out of the blue and learning opportunities develop. We just dropped everything and went on a journey learning about Maria.
This is a painting of Maria.
Here are a few examples of Maria’s artwork. The kids were fascinated by them. Especially since we had just watched butterflies hatching right before our eyes.
Just a few more weeks of school to go. It may be June, but we’re still learning and growing together. Stay tuned!
