Winter Carnival

This past Wednesday all 5 grade 1/2 classes from our school went to The Fort Whyte Centre here in Winnipeg.  It’s an environmental, education, and recreation centre.  The large nature park is open year round and welcomes visitors to explore and see animals.  They welcome school groups for a variety of education programs.  I have never taken a class to Fort Whyte in winter.  I have to say, this was my favourite field trip in my 20 year teaching career!  We had such a great time!!!!!

The weather couldn’t have been better.  The end of January in Winnipeg can be REALLY cold, but we had a perfect day with temperatures of -10C and some light snow.  There were 5 stations that we cycled through.  We started our program, “Winter Carnival”, with our volunteer leader Ed.  He’s a retired man who enjoys volunteering his time at the Centre and was looking forward to spending his day with us. Our first activity was snowshoeing.  Only a couple of students had tired this before so we were excited to try.  Getting them on was hard, but thankfully we had our two parent volunteers there to help. We ventured out onto the trails and even down some hills in deeper snow.  We learned how to walk up slopes, how to get up when we fall, and even how to run in snowshoes.  We were snowshoeing for 45 minutes!

   

Snowshoeing video

We headed inside the centre for a scavenger hunt and lunch.  After lunch we got to roast marshmallows at the outdoor fire pit.  Many Super Kids had never had a roasted marshmallow before.  We got to have two!  It was a tasty treat!

     

We headed up the stairs to see the view from the look out before learning Inuit games at our next station.

 

Ed explained several traditional Inuit games that we enjoyed trying. We started with the blanket toss and learned that hunters would do this to spot caribou.  Each student got to be tossed up in the air twice!

 

We then had an epic battle of tug of war, had a seal race, pretended we were sled dogs, and much more.

   

Seal Race Video

Tug Of War Video

Lastly we headed to the toboggan run.  This was a great way to end our field trip. Throughout the whole day we were making connections to our science lessons.  We noticed that the marshmallows when heated up went through a physical change, we were using push and pull motions during the Inuit games, and even noticed that we were walking on ponds when we were snowshoeing.  What animals were alive under the ice?  What happened to the water when it got cold?  There were connections everywhere!  The toboggan run was no exception.  “It’s a giant incline plane Mrs. Didyk!”  yelled one Super Kids.  The higher the toboggan run the faster we would go.  I have a few kids that are pretty light so I went down with them screaming all the way!

Toboggan Run Video 1

Toboggan Run Video 2

We headed back to the school and almost every student fell asleep!  The fresh air, exercise, and fun wore all of us out.

   

If you have an opportunity to visit The Fort Whyte Centre this winter make sure you do.   We highly recommend it.

We have been busy continuing to learn about simple machines.  The class cycled through different centre exploring what a wheel is, how it works, and how we can use it in our own designs.

   

   

Wheel Centres Video

Juggling is a big part of the carnival and circus history that we’re learning about during our motion science unit.  As we learn more about these skills, we just had to try some scarf juggling.  We started with two and even tried three.

 

Scarf Juggling Video

Last weekend was Chinese New Year.  Many of the student’s families celebrate this holiday as part of their family traditions.  We took the day and explored what the differences between the two calendars are.   Why it’s called the Lunar calendar?  What traditions are associated with the holiday?  We even wrote in Chinese, learned a few words from friends, and create our own lion dance.

 

It’s hard to believe we’re starting a new month.  Stay tuned for our exciting adventures in February.

 

 

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