February has arrived and apparently we will have at least six more weeks of winter. The students are glad we will be able to skate for a few more weeks and maybe get to use the crazy carpets again.
Peter Derbowka was at the school Friday, Monday and Tuesday morning teaching CPR and first aid to the Grade 11 and 12 students who are in the life transitions 30 class. These are very useful skills to acquire.
Ashton Harris, Grade 7, and his hockey team played an exhibition game in the Maymont Arena Saturday. They played against the Saskatoon Kodiaks and won the game 8-1.
Ype Elgersma, Grade 6, plays on the peewee provincial team. He is a goalie. They will be playing an exhibition game Monday in the Maymont Arena.
Many of our younger students participated in the Radisson Oilers鈥� novice home tournament on the weekend. There were four teams in the tournament and the players had fun.
Mrs. Jean Anne Jackson is our school鈥檚 literacy coach. This is a new initiative from the school division this year. She is currently helping to introduce Grades 1-7 to 鈥淲ords Their Way.鈥� This is a developmental spelling approach that involves students looking closely at words to discover rules and conventions to assist them in their reading and spelling.
Each student works at his or her own level in spelling, starting with a teacher-guided exploration of a particular spelling pattern or rule. Students have approximately 15 minutes of practice daily, working with their words individually or with a partner. Students focus on the same rule or convention for a week at a time to help develop mastery of the concept.
Our service dog, Annie, is now four months old. She is starting to learn some of the service commands such as touch, heel and paw. The students really enjoy visiting her at recess and when she joins the elementary students for a morning walk.
Many of the elementary classes have been reading the Willow nominated books. The Willow Awards encourage reading by nominating a variety of Canadian titles. Young readers can participate in the reading of the books and then they can vote for their favourite book.
February 10 will mark the 100th day of school this year. The kindergarten and Grade 1 class plan to recognize this day by using one of the iPad apps to age their photo to see what they would look like if they were 100 years old. The Grades 2, 3, 4 and 5 classes plan to dress and move like they are 100 years old.
The Grade 2 and 3 class plans to make 100-day bottles. They will fill a plastic bottle with 100 objects, then give clues to see if their classmates can solve what is in the bottle.
The Grade 4 and 5 class have to hide an object in a bag, then write 100 words to describe the object. Their classmates will guess the hidden object based on the description.
The Grades 6/7 art class were busy last week creating their own version of The Three Little Pigs. They had to present the new play to the rest of their classmates.
Grades 2 to 5, in their music class, are preparing two songs for the Hafford Music Festival in March.
In Science 10, the students are currently studying chemical reactions. The first unit includes exploring a variety of chemical reactions including the ways in which people from various times and cultures have used chemical reactions. One of the activities was to read an excerpt from the book Buffalo Hunt by Russell Freedman. Part of this reading included the burning of 鈥渂uffalo chips.鈥�
A question that arose from the discussion of the book was, 鈥淲hat does a buffalo chip/cow patty smell like when it burns?鈥� The class is split on the results. Some believe it will smell really bad and the other group believes there will be little smell or it will smell like burned grass or hay. They will be doing some inquiry to solve this question. The Grade 10 class is searching for well-dried cow patties and then the blaze will begin.
Whoever said science isn't fun?
