Are you up for the Earth Hour Challenge?

Today between 8:30pm and 9:30pm, try turning off EVERYTHING in your home that uses power. That means . . . NO lights, tv, computers, radios and everything else that we use on a daily basis that uses electricity. (Welllllllll, you might just have to keep that fridge and freezer running . . . but try not to open them within the hour!)

Cities across the world are taking up the challenge of Earth Hour.

Are you up for it?!

Leave a comment and share how you and your family managed during the Earth Hour Challenge!

Decorah Eagles

I found this live stream of the Decorah Eagles. It's really neat to see the adult eagle adjust the nest and take care of the 3 eggs; which are expected to hatch anytime! Be sure to check back often!

Live stream by Ustream

Month in Review!

Robbie volunteered to share his Month in Review on the blog. Wow! This is an impressive amount of writing! Hope you're up for reading about our busy month of March!

Month in Review

March 23, 2012

This month was pretty busy. We did a lot of Art: Leprechaun faces, which are when we got a template of a circle, trace it, we cut a line into the middle, and glued it together for a nose. Then we got coloured paper and decorated it. We could put eyes, a hat, mouth, a small beard, eyebrows, and hair. Some people used glasses. We also did something called the shamrock art, which is when we colour in some paper shamrocks with all of our shades of greens, cut it out, and glued it on to a black piece of construction paper. We also did the longest line art, (my favourite!) which is when we take our sharpies, and draw a long line with crazy movements without taking it off the paper. Then we trace different shapes on to it. Then we colour in only the shapes. We also did an art where we did funky birds for spring. We coloured it with watercolour paint. In Math, we started a new booklet about money. We are going to start multiplication after spring break. We worked on our portfolios because we had a parent teacher conference. My parents were proud of my report card. We had hot lunch yesterday! It was hot dogs and hamburgers. We organized our classroom library. It looks much neater now. In social studies we are doing another research project! The grade 4s are doing a region in Manitoba. I am doing the Northern region. The grade 3s are doing a country around the world. We also had Village groups! We started at our village group leaders room, then we rotated to different classrooms. My group leader is Ms. Dent Scarcello but she is away so it was Ms. Dodds.  Her classroom activity is musical hoola hoops. Next we switched to Mr. Oliphant’s class. His was dancing. The songs that we danced to are Macarena, and Chicken Dance. We looked at another song called “The Duck Song” Next we went to Mrs. Dowhan’s class. It was cup stacking. Next was Ms. Wasney’s. It was in the hallway. We had some scooters and a rope, and we tried to make it to the other mat as a team. The goal was to get the whole team to the other mat. It was a lot of fun. It was my favourite one! Next we went to Mr. Kusics class. It was where we roll a tennis ball and it jumps up when it hits a hockey stick, and if I lands one of the cups, you get a point. That’s when we had to stop. One day the grade 4s went to Robert Andrews! We played AAA activities and made crafts. It was pretty fun. We also presented our play of Nanabosho and the Porcupine. We also saw other ones. My favourite was Ms. Dyck’s class. We also went to a music festival at West Minister United Church. The songs we sang are “Walking in the Air” and “Hine ma Tov”. We started playing Hand Ball in Gym. This month we started Cursive Writing! I enjoyed doing the Village Group activity, Hand ball and of course, all of the Art.

By Robbie J



AAA Story Telling

This afternoon, the entire school was busy presenting and watching Aboriginal stories. We worked very hard with Mrs. Kulyk to create the characters and backdrop for our story, "Nanabosho and Porcupine". Yesterday, we were invited to watch Mrs. Tresoor's class and today, we watched Mrs. Dent Scarcello & Ms. Dodd's, Mrs. Dyck's, and Mrs. Kohut's classes present their stories. We then had the chance to share our story to classes later this afternoon. It was fun to present to several different audiences! Here's a video of us:

AAA Story Telling from Krista Wasney on Vimeo.

Funky Spring Birds

We made some adorable and very colourful spring birds in the style of artist James Rizzi. We used black oil pastels for the outline and liquid watercolours for painting the fun colours. You can see all of the artwork on Artsonia by clicking HERE.

TWAS

For a short week, we've had a busy one! We have been preparing for the Student-Led Conferences that take place tonight and tomorrow. I'm sure the students will be proud to show their parents all the neat things we have been doing in Room 5.

Faith volunteered to share her TWAS on the blog this week.

T.W.A.S    March 15 2012

In math we are doing coin math. It is math with coins like pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, loonies and twonies. We also started handwriting. In S.S we are doing travel fair research. The grade 4’s are doing Manitoba regions and the grade 3’s are doing country research. I am doing the eastern region of Manitoba. We are doing a play called Nanabosho and the porcupine. We are doing portfolios, we made pages with pictures and captions. and we got our report cards. My goal is to print neater. In gym we started hand ball.it is very fun. We got a unicef certificate. We were one of the top 5 schools in Manitoba.

                                                By Faith J        

Special Delivery from UNICEF!

Today, we received some important mail! It was a framed certificate from UNICEF congratulating Bird's Hill School for being one of the top 5 schools in Manitoba for the October fundraising campaign! Room 5 is super excited about this accomplishment!

The 'Longest Line' Art

Last week, we did a fun art job that had us working with Sharpies and markers. First, we had to draw a line over the entire page. The tricky part was that we could not lift the Sharpie off of the paper! Then, we traced geometric shapes at random over the paper. Finally, we coloured in the shapes . . . trying our best to stay in the lines! This was a difficult task because there was a wide variety of designs and sizes all over our paper! Be sure to check out this unique artwork during Student-Led Conferences this week! You can also take a closer look at this art on Artsonia by clicking here.

The students of Room 5 have "the luck o' the Irish"!

We have been working on some St. Patrick's Day art over the past few days. This bulletin board is on display just outside of the gym. I saw the idea for the 3D leprechauns on pinterest and thought that they were hilarious! The leprechauns sure look like they're up to something! The shamrocks have unique designs made with pencil crayons. You can see more of this artwork during student-led conferences this week!

TWAS

We've had a very quiet morning today! The Grade 4s are at Robert Andrews School for an AAA activity. So, I have really enjoyed the time with just the Grade 3s. We were able to get lots of country research done, as well, we worked on TWAS. Emily volunteered to put her writing up on our blog!

Twas March9/2012

This week at school we shared are final novel study projects. I did a diorama. This week at school we started a money booklet in math. This week at school we started are country research. I am doing Mexico.  The grade 4s did Manitoba regions. This week at school we did leprechaun art and shamrock art. This week at school we sung are music festival songs at a assembly. For are country research we went to the library to get some books today.

By Emily

Novel Study Final Projects!

Today, we finished sharing our novel study final projects for Owls in the Family. The students had the choice of 7 different projects that included; dioramas, movie posters, scene re-enactments, board games, a newspaper article, an interview show, or Owls in the Family . . . Part 2. The most popular project choices were creating dioramas or movie posters. The students worked really hard on these projects, either by themselves or with others of their choice. I hope you appreciate all their creativity as you watch the video!

Here's a video of Emmy, Haley, and Renee performing their scene re-enactment:

Novel Study Final Project from Krista Wasney on Vimeo.

Aboriginal Story Telling + Art = A FUN way to spend Friday afternoon!

Bird's Hill School has been lucky to receive a grant for AAA (Aboriginal Academic Achievement). Over the past few weeks, we have had a focus on Aboriginal story telling. We had Elder Jules and Mr. Cyr in to do a sharing circle and listened to a story about wolves. Recently, we worked with Ms. Qua on an Aboriginal story called 'Nanabosho & Porcupine', written by Joe McLellan & Matrine McLellan. The book shares the Aboriginal story of how the porcupine got its quills. And today . . . we worked with Mrs. Kulyk to make the characters for that story. We will be acting out the story for other classes in a few weeks. It was amazing to see the characters literally appear out of cardboard. I love the creativity of the students in Room 5!

Marvelous Music Festival!

Today, we went to Westminster United Church for the Music Festival. The Grade 3 & 4 Choir performed in the morning and they received a bronze! The Grade 3 Choir stayed for the afternoon, and received a silver for their performance! Way to go!