Holiday post

Dear Parents,

Just a quick update before I close up shop for the holidays.

First, thank you for your contributions to our party and your kind gifts to me. I hope you enjoy the ornaments students sewed and decorated, with more or less help as needed and that the letters to Santa regarding employment as an elf are enjoyed by all.

Here are three students with their ornaments.

A variety of stars and gingerbread men. Students sewed around the edges and stuffed them, then decorated with jewels and stars.

A more detailed look at some of the bling.

Here are the elves hanging on our clothesline.

"I can help drive the sleigh"

"I will be nice every day"

"I would bring the presents to the houses"

"I like delivering presents"

"I can share at the workshop"

I'd also like to share this photo of our science projects. You can see some elastic planes, some marble ramps, so wind powered toys and a solar powered car.

Finally, I've heard that my letter about mime costumes was over-ambitious and the goal is NOT uniformity, so pick and choose from the mime accoutrements as you're able. Low pressure.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday and a great New Years.
Sincerely,

Ms. Goegan

It's been a minute...

Dear Parents,

It's been tremendously busy these past few weeks, both in and out of the classroom. In good news, I've found my final volunteer for tomorrow's Scientist in Schools. Many thanks to Adriano's mum, Cameron's dad, Lauren's dad, and Lila's grandmum, for their help tomorrow afternoon!

Science projects have been a big hit between kids this week. On Tuesday, students did mini-presentations to each other and we've been doling out the more formal presentations in small chunks. I'll do my best to take some photos of projects before the end of the week, so you can get a sense of the range students have come up with. It's always a delight.

Speaking of photos, it's been a busy couple of weeks. Here's a random collection of bits and bobs from the last few weeks in the class:

Our Field trip to High Park Nature Centre, where we learned about the habits of squirrels

The Taiko Drumming Performance

Afterwards, we were excited to discover this big book in the library.

Then I managed to take a whole series of photos, documenting our beginnings of Data Management, where students sorted buttons by a variety of criteria:

Holes vs. No holes

Big vs. Little

Light vs. Dark

2 holes vs. 4 holes

No holes vs. 2 holes vs. 4 holes

Colour

Pattern vs. No pattern

Some are still finishing up our final piece from the patterning unit, but the evaluations should be coming home soon. Meanwhile, graphing and surveying are big hits in the classroom. 

In the new year, we've got a Winter Concert to gather costumes for and two more trips to the High Park Nature Centre planned. Please look for a newsletter coming home soon to outline what student costumes might look like. 

Sincerely, 

Ms. Goegan