Pink Day

The lead up to Pink Day spurred on important discussions about friendship and anti bullying. Messages of friendship quickly emerged that were worthy of sharing with our peers at the assembly. Children selected messages that were meaningful to them and we helped to write them on their hands to symbolize 'using their words' and saying 'stop' to bullying. Please visit your child's Seesaw portfolio to view the slideshow that was created and shared.

Initially when asked what they knew about Pink Day this is what they shared...

• reminds us to not be a bully - Derick
• a day to be really nice - Hawken
• you wear pink - Violet
• you can wear red or pink - Maisy
• or purple - Eli
• it's a day to have fun, sing and play with friends - Octavia
• be healthy and strong and take care of each other - Markus

With more discussion we focussed our attention to messages of friendship. They set off to write their ideas on post it notes and before coming together to share our thinking with the group and choosing a message that spoke to us. The slideshow was well received at the assembly and the messages were powerful reminders to choose love, accept each other and celebrate diversity. Here are a few...

Be kind.

Choose love.

Don't bully.

Find your voice.

Say stop.

Friends first.

Be sweet.

Speak out.

Be a friend.

100th Day of School

What a big week at school it has been. We celebrated our one hundredth day in first grade on Tuesday. This is a big deal, trust me. We've been counting daily and watching the groups of ten grow and grow. Each time we add the tenth stick to our 'ones' jar and it's time to regroup and make a bundle of ten we sing our bundle song. "Bundle bundle bundle bundle bundle." It's definitely worth the request, to hear this tune from your little one. We sing that little verse for each group, or bundle of ten, and each time we add a bundle the octave goes up a notch. I'm surprised the windows didn't crack when we sang our bundle song this week...ten groups of ten. Can you say high pitched?  We used a giant elastic to make one group of one hundred. Exciting stuff. Really. Exciting. Stuff. Seriously.

The kids had fun working on different 100 day activities, but the highlight was probably the 100 kisses challenge. This frightened them at first, I get it. Until I explained that the kisses were Hershey's kisses (insert huge sigh of relief). When they returned to class after recess their mission was to find 100 hidden kisses around the classroom, each of which was numbered on the bottom from one to one hundred. They could only find one at a time and had to return it to the 100 chart in the middle of the carpet, matching the corresponding number on the bottom to the chart. This way...we could track which ones were missing. Sure enough, one was missing, but don't despair, Ms. Sandra spied it after not too long. We found you after all #32. 

This week the kids have been bringing in bags filled with one hundred items. Here's a peek at what 100 looks like so far...

Very excited to see what the coming days and months bring with this exceptional group of kids. We've had such an awesome term of learning together. I'm so proud of their ability to question, ponder, and contemplate their way through new learning experiences. I'm looking forward to them having the opportunity to share their work with you during student led conferences coming up. 

Rain Clouds

This experiment was a lot of fun…raincloud in a jar. We may have added a little too much cloud, aka shaving cream, which in turn required more drops of water than anticipated. Kids didn't seem to mind, as it meant more drops for them. I wanted to share a few more photos than you got to see on their Seesaw posts last week.

It's finally raining!