Final Day of 5 Days For Freedom

What a week! Our students have learned so much about others around the world who have much much less than they do. We looked at Freedom From Disease and Freedom to Act today. We learned that we have the power to help change the world. Of course, this was seen already by our class and Room 188 in our Pennies For Peace project. In addition, we each wore a band-aid with a health word written on it to symbolize and acknowledge all the health related issues in our less fortunate communities worldwide.

Because it is Earth Day on Sunday, April 22, we also went outside with Room 188 and cleaned our playground. We estimate we collected over 1000 pieces of garbage in about 20 minutes! Way to go!!

I think what we learned most of all this week is that, by lending a hand and taking action in both small or big ways, we can all help change the world!

Freedom From Poverty

We studied poverty today and at snack today we could only eat one thing because some people in other countries have nothing to eat. We found out that in 3 1/2 seconds, someone in the world dies from poverty related causes. We're having a pizza lunch as a fundraiser for 5 Days For Freedom. We are also trying to can the principal by bringing in lots of food. We want to fill her door up with food so she can't out. The food is going to the local food bank. - Bethany and Mrs. Robinson

Today we read "One Hen" about a kid named Kojo who saved to buy one hen. A year later he had enough money that he had saved from selling the chicken's eggs to buy 25 hens. He eventually bought land to have his own chicken farm, and he helped other families by giving them loans to start their own businesses. This way he helped the people of Ghana to get out of poverty and live a better life. - Carter and Mrs. Robinson

Freedom From Exploitation

Wow! What a powerful lesson we had today about exploitation! The students had to sort rice by colour for 10 minutes as an awareness activity.They were not allowed to speak, the room was hot, and the lights were dimmed. A few students who didn't follow the rules as laid out by the boss - Mrs. Robinson - were given more rice to sort, while two "workers" who were doing their job got their piles lessened and given to the ones not complying with the rules. The boss supervised over the shoulders and took pictures of the workers as they were sorting. Then, as an additional activity, once 10 minutes had passed, the workers had to take their largest pile and count it. We documented on the SMARTBoard the workers' total amounts, and the boss got very upset when one worker had not finished counting her pile in the given time, and made others explain why they had not sorted as many grains as their co-workers in the given time. Once the activity was completed, we all met at the carpet and discussed our feelings before, during, and after the activity, as well as their feelings toward their co-workers and toward their boss. It led to some excellent dialogue. Please take time to go through the photocopy of the comments made during this time and to discuss exploitation with your child/ren. This was REALLY a super activity, and I am so proud of all of the students for taking the activity so seriously and for generating such great discussion afterward. What an amazing group :) Way to go!



Sorting rice before counting our largest pile

5 Days For Freedom begins!

What a busy day!

Yuck!

Today we kicked off the 5 Days For Freedom awareness campaign with an assembly, where our class sang "All I Really Need". We did an amazing job! We also explored "Freedom From Thirst" by watching a video and by doing an activity with a jar of water and a story about a small village that grew, and with that growth came all kinds of pollution, land erosion and so on. Each time a change occurred in the village, we added something to the jar. As you can see, the clean jar of water was really gross by the time the story ended! It taught us that humans leave a huge footprint of pollution and that we are also the ones who can help solve the problem.

We also learned that it is mostly women and children who go to get water for their families in many parts of the world. Some walk as much as 15 km each day to get water. We are SO fortunate to have such easy access to water in our community.

We tracked our water footprint in school today, too. We each got a paper droplet of water to record how many times we used water, and at the end of the day, we tallied our class usage. We had 170 uses of water today as a class.

We also met with Room 188 in our Buddy Reading time to receive a certificate and picture from the Central Asia Institute for our contribution to Pennies For Peace. We are all really proud of ourselves and know that kids CAN make a difference! Thanks again to all families who helped us in our penny drive to make this such a success!

Stickbug Escape!!

River discovered a stickug on our ceiling today!!! We were all wondering how it might have gotten there. Since we are doing some mapping, Mrs. Robinson thought we should map how we think it got up there!

It lifted up the stickbug cage, jumped on the Easter Bunny, then it jumped on the Beautiful Stuff cart, then he jumped as high as he could and got on the roof. - Bethany

I think the stickbug got out of the school, onto the diving board at the pool, sprang off the diving board onto the roof of the school, then came down through the roof onto our ceiling! - Eve

He got out of his cage, got onto the Beautiful Stuff cart, climbed up the Peace hanging onto the ceiling. - Chavi

I thought the stickbug went from his cage down to the floor and onto the bookshelves and onto the roof. - Aynslie

He lifted the lid, crawled down to the floor, up to the table, and down the other side, onto the bookshelves, onto the wall, climbed on the wall for the bit, jumped onto the roof, beside the light, then he stopped over by the vent. - Kade

He got out of the cage, jumped on the floor, up the Beautiful Stuff cart, jumped onto the wall, climbed up the side of the wall and onto the roof. - Carter

He got out of the cage, climbed up the Beautiful Stuff pole, over the basket, onto the bricks and onto the roof. - Ryan L.

He got out of a hole in the stickbug cage, down to the floor, climbed up the Beautiful Stuff cart, jumped onto the bricks and climbed in between the sound system and onto the roof. - Derrick

He climbed out of the stickbug cage, onto the crayon melt table, then he climbed up the Beautiful Stuff cart and jumped onto the roof from the highest baskets. - Paige

Sadly, our fish Dynamite died today......

It is really sad, but that's the way it is. We had to flush it down the toilet. - Hailey

He was just sitting there in the tank, so then when we looked at the tank he wasn't moving, so we knew it was time to flush him. - Natasha

Today we read "The Gas We Pass" and it was super funny. It had facts about farts. We also read a fact book about scabs. Scabs form with dried blood. Scabs help your skin from bugs getting in. - Bethany
Today in Math we played "101 and Out" and we lost, but then we played "201 and Out" and we got to 176, so we won. - River
Today in Art we painted eggs with watercolour paint. - Eve
We wrote in our journals today. I wrote about an Easter dinner I went to and I found a whole bunch of eggs. - Natasha
I brought in my skull and we found out it was a deer skull when we googled "skulls". - Mark
Today I blew a big bubble in Art and it went all over my face, and a moment later Mark did the same thing...we had to go to the washroom to wash our faces off! - Carter
Today we went to Gym and we played a running game called "4 Corners" and if you get hit by a ball you have to go in the middle. - Andrew
In Music we did the "Bunny Hop" dance and we also did some actions with it where the bunny goes in the hole. We sang "It's Doe It's Doe". - Ryan P.

Back at school!

It's great to be back! - Bethany
It's fun to be at school! - Kaden
We went to Jungle Gym this morning and we got to climb the ropes! - Mark and Ryan L.
It's great to be back for reading because I like reading! - Leann
Chavi says she likes writing.
We are in an inspiring class! - Carter
We learned a new Math game called 101 And Out today. I liked it because we counted and we had to use strategy. - Eve
It was great to see all our friends and even teachers again. - Katlyne
We are a caring class. - Carter
We are having a great day today. - EVERYONE

Pennies For Peace

In December, our classroom joined Room 188 in collecting pennies for the organization Pennies For Peace. We read the book "Listen To The Wind", and at the back of the book the website was mentioned. A penny is virtually worthless to us here in Canada, but in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it can buy a pencil for a student, and a dollar pays a teacher's salary for a month. The students all agreed to collect pennies. At the end of January, we counted our money, rolled it, and took it to the bank. We were all so proud to receive a cheque for the organization for $164.80!! Then, more excitement followed. Just before Spring Break, two huge boxes arrived for us at the school. Inside were gifts for US! Each student received the junior version of "Three Cups of Tea", a calendar, and a CD. Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Wielgosh received "Stones Into Schools", and a class CD version of the book "Three Cups of Tea". We were so excited to get these unexpected gifts from the Central Asia Institute and are so proud of ourselves. Kids giving to kids.

Welcome Back!

I hope everyone had a restful Spring Break! I look forward to everyone sharing a little bit about their exciting holiday. Thank you to the Ramsden family for looking after Speckles, to the Sobetskis for taking care of the salamanders, and to the Mroz family for caring for our fish. You are awesome for doing that for us!