An Exciting Opportunity....FIGHTING ISLAND!

Our last field trip of the year is an exciting and amazing destination!  We have been accepted to visit Fighting Island with Mrs. Richardson's class.  Fighting Island is an island across from LaSalle. Your child will have an opportunity to experience nature first hand while:  studying animal tracks, bug exploration, hiking, discovering local wildlife and plants and even doing pond analysis.

Part of this amazing adventure includes a barge ride across to the island!  Safety is our first priority.  Both Mrs. Richardson and I have attended training sessions to be allowed to visit the island, and we have both taken students over to the island before.  In my years of experience, this is far and away the best and most valuable field trip my students have ever experienced.

Our date to visit the island is Thursday, May 19th.  We will leave the school at 9 a.m. and will return approximately around 3:00 p.m.  More information about the trip will be coming home next week.  Please mark this date on your calendar.  Would you like to experience Fighting Island with your child?  We need your help!  Please consider coming with us on the trip - you will never forget it!

To learn more about Fighting Island, please visit the following link:  About Fighting Island

Please take your seats...

Our drama centre has been a very busy place lately!  The students have been busy creating, producing and performing many different puppet plays.  What began as mostly retells of stories we've recently read, has blossomed into original creations.


Often, when a "show" is ready to begin, you will see students from other parts of the room make their way over to the puppet show.  Slowly but surely, a crowd gathers.  Last week, the students creating and performing the puppet show decided to make it more official.  They set up seats, walked around asking everyone to "sign up" so they could get into the show, and invited everyone to "take their seats" when the show was ready to begin.

The planning begins...

Checking to see if you are on the list... 

The audience taking their seats...(The "manager" informed them that they could read until the show started!)

Making sure everyone was in the right seat...

The play begins...

Our puppeteers...

As you can see, the audience really enjoyed the show!

We can't wait to see what happens next in our drama centre.  It is an amazing opportunity for students to develop oral language, cooperate with others, express creativity and learn to problem solve. Stay tuned for the next big show!

Exploring the Rain Forest

Over the past couple weeks, the students have been very interested in exploring books and information about the rain forest.  Our shared reading story hooked the students interest, and we've learned so much along the way.

One of the big books we have been exploring is Step Inside the Rain Forest by Meish Goldish. After we had read the story several times together, we started looking closely at the illustrations by Susan T. Hall.  The students were very interested in all the different animals found in the rain forest.  

Take a look at what happened when I left the big book, some pencils and sticky notes on the back table...

It was amazing to sit back and watch the collaboration, cooperation and teamwork that was displayed.  The students worked together identifying and labeling not only the animals from the story, but also the plants and trees.  In the above picture, you can see that one of the students labelled the "canopy" of the rain forest as well.

The students worked long and hard on this activity - at some points, there were 11 students working on the book together at the same time.  Take a look at all the things they found and labeled...

The next day, the students returned to the big book and realized there were some animals in the book that they couldn't identify.  In true problem solving form, they decided to look in the other books we had collected from the library to see if they could find the names of the animals...and they did!!

It was truly magical to see all the students working together in this student-driven, authentic, meaningful activity!

Storytelling on the Flannel Board

A literacy centre that has been very busy lately is our flannel board.  We have a collection of pieces that the students use to retell and create original stories.  This is a fantastic opportunity for the students to engage in discussions and the oral language possibilities are endless.

Over the past couple weeks, two of the boys in our class have been repeat visitors to the flannel board.  While working together, they have created many interesting stories and talked about everything from the sun's energy to comparing lengths and sizes.  It is so interesting to just sit back and listen.  Even more exciting was to see the way the boys worked together to create an interconnected story!

Be Cool - In Action

The students are enjoying their time with Mrs. Papak, learning more through the Be Cool program.  Students are learning how to handle difficult situations, how they can stay "cool" instead of getting angry or crying.

To practice some different scenarios, Mrs. Papak invited the class outside.  There were signs to represent each of the reaction choices (Hot, Cold, Cool) and the students had to try and figure out which choice was made.  They also had a lot of fun!