SSES Food Drive 2013

Food Drive 2013 from Lisa Michaluk on Vimeo.

written by Mitchell & Haley ~ Grade 3

At the start of December, our classroom started a food drive.  We each went around to classrooms to collect food for the food drive.  Each day we collected different items.  We had can day, pasta & sauce day, breakfast day, soup day and dessert day.  The families at SSES were very generous.  Our school collected 686 pounds of food!!!

Next, we boxed up all of the food and put it into a car.  The food went to Evergreen Basic Needs to provide food for families that needed a little extra food at Christmas.

We were very proud of our school!

A special thank to Mrs. Poloski's grade 3/4 class!  What a wonderful initiative ~ a true celebration of the spirit of giving!  

Thank you to our SSES families for giving so generously.....your generosity will share Christmas warmth and love with others throughout the holidays!

Our Kindergarten Friends ~ New Pet Frogs!!!!

 written by Mr. Welch's Kindergarten class

 

Our class has 2 frogs.  They are brown with black dots.  Their names are Freddie and Finellopi.  Frog starts with the letter f!  They have spikey feet that are webbed.  These help them swim.  We feed our frogs frog food.  It looks like our fish food that we give to Bernie.  We read "Froggy Goes to School" when Mr. Welch brought our frogs to school.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

written by Mrs. Mill's Kindergarten class

 

Our frogs jump and swim.  Their names are Bongo and Joe.  The frogs came from the store.  Our frogs are greenish brown with a little bit of black.  They live in water in a little glass box.  Whenever the frogs see the black fish they look at each other.  We think they are friends!  If the frogs were making a wish for Christmas, they would wish for food, water, a seashell and a little frog house!

 

 

A very "cool" science experiment!

written by Erik (Grade 1) and David (Grade 2)

 

Patrick came to Room 114 and Room 130 on Friday.  He did a dry ice experiment.  You can't touch dry ice or your hand and fingers will freeze off!  Patrick used gloves!
When Patrick poured dry ice, warm water and soap into a container it made bubbles and steam.  When you clapped the bubbles, they would turn into steam.  It looked cool!  Thank you for showing us a Science experiment!

 

 

written by Danalee (Grade 4)

 

On Friday, Patrick brought in dry ice to our class.  We learned that if you put dish soap in it, it bubbles.  An orange and dry ice makes the orange freeze.  Dry ice and water make smoke.  We were following the scientific process.  It rocked!

 

 

 

written by Matthew (Grade 3)

 

Today we got dry ice.  Patrick brought it in.  We had to follow a "Scientific Process."  It was difficult.  We had to follow this ~ facts, question, hypothesis, materials, procedure, observations and conclusion.

We made smoke and bubbles!  It was fun!!!!

 

 

Jerry Sereda visits SSES

written by Maria and Ava M ~ Grade 1

 

Last week, a country singer and songwriter came to our school.  His name is Jerry Sereda.  We liked his singing because he had really nice songs.  He was wearing a cowboy hat!  He played the guitar in the gym.  We sat in a big circle.  We danced together!  He played a big show.  He is on the TV and on the radio.

 

He talked about believing in himself.  He said we should believe in ourselves too.  We can do anything!!!!

 



A celebration....

I am... from Lisa Michaluk on Vimeo.

Our Crop Gardens 2013

Crop Gardens 2013 from Lisa Michaluk on Vimeo.

written by Anika and Keenan

The grade 2s and 3s planted the grain in the spring.  We used a grid system to make sure the seeds had room to grow.  As the seasons changed, the crop went from lime green to golden brown.  Now we are in grade 3 and 4!  In the fall, we cut the wheat heads off with our scissors.  We collected the wheat heads in the bottom half of a milk jug.    We used a stone to thresh the wheat heads.  Next we winnowed the grain.  This helps remove the chaff from the grain.  When we were done winnowing, we were left with grain.  It takes 2 and 1/2 cups of grain to make 4 cups of flour.  This makes one loaf of bread and it took 4 hours to bake.  We used all of our own whole wheat flour and a little bit of white flour from the store.  It smelled delicious!  We had honey and margarine on our bread.

We enjoyed harvesting the crop.  We learned about the stages of growing wheat ~ the wheat life cycle. We had never done anything like this before.  It was very fun!  We had to work together through each of the stages.

Thank you Mrs. Chapnick for doing this project with us.

Documenting with iPads!

 

written by Mrs. Michaluk's class

 

Our school is so lucky!!!  Each class at SSES now has an iPad mini!  We are very excited!

 

We are using the iPads to document our learning and thinking.  We document what we are doing during Explorations, Literacy time and Math Explorations.  We do this by using the video camera and by taking photos.  We are also using an app that lets us write about our photos and record our voice. 

We use the iPad to figure out what we need to do next or what we need to change.  The iPad saves the things we build and create.  We would run out of space in our classroom if we saved everything we created or designed!  Sometimes it takes us a few times to get just the right video or photo.  When we watch the video we can make changes to our story or our design and then try again.  We are using the iPads with our documentation books!

 

Documenting the stages of a design at nature building

 

 

Storytelling

 

Working together to create a "how-to create plastecine figures" video

 

Storytelling using plastecine figures

 

We are very appreciative to our school division ~ our iPads were purchased through an Evergreen ICT Innovative Project Grant and our Technology Budget.  The iPads are being used as a tool to foster and build our documentation culture at SSES.  Documentation is a process that "makes thinking and learning visible."  It is a very important process that not only encourages the collaboration and reflection process, but enables students to create and develop a deeper understanding of their learning.

Happy Fall!

 

Wishing all of our SSES families a wonderful holiday weekend filled with warm memories, family and friends!

Our Community Walk ~ Grade 1/2

 

written by Ellery, Nolan, Owen, Olivia and Brody  Grade 1/2

 

Our classes went for a community walk.  We brought our cameras, sketch boards and pencils.  We sketched what we saw and our teachers took lots of pictures.  There are many interesting things to see in our community!

 

I saw the fountain by the boats.  A boat got lifted!  The Subway restaurant was my fav!

 

We walked by Super A.  We stopped at a lot of benches.  I liked seeing a boat.

 

I saw the Rec Center.  We also saw the Red Apple.  I saw houses.

 

I saw the police station.  I saw Red Apple.  I saw the post office and the beach.  The waves were flowing from the water.  The wind was blowing so hard, it made me feel like I was going to fall down!

 

We wondered what made these tiny footprints on the new boardwalk.

 

 

We went on a community walk.  I saw leaves and Super A.  We had to go back early because it started to rain.

 

 

 

SSES Terry Fox Walk 2013

Our Terry Fox Walk

written by Arika and Tanner ~ Kindergarten

 

Last week we went to the gym for our Terry Fox walk.  We walked a lot and we listened to music.  We walked with our class.  We had the walk because Terry Fox died.  He couldn't go across Canada in time.  We brought in money.  Terry Fox couldn't get enough money in time because he was so sick.  Our money will help other people that are sick.
 

 

 

Terry Fox Walk

written by Morgan and Emmalee ~ Grade 1/2

 

On Thursday, we had our Terry Fox walk.  We brought in a Toonie for Terry!  We walked through Vesturland, past the high school and back through Vesturland.  It is important to walk because we are walking for Terry Fox and to raise money.

 

 

Our Terry Fox Walk and Shoreline Clean-Up

written by Owen and Breyden ~ Grade 3/4

 

The Grade 3/4s went on a shoreline clean-up last week.  It was a part of our Terry Fox walk.  We cleaned up on the streets and at the beach.  We found lots of garbage!  It was awesome!

 

It is important to take care of our town and each other!

 



Our Flower Gardens

 

written by Patrick   Grade 4

 

I was part of the Garden Club last spring when I was in Grade 3.  I helped Mrs. Korolyk take the bags of dirt to the flower beds from the green house.  The bags were pretty heavy so we used a wheeler to move them.  We worked a lot!  I took the compost from our compost bin to the flower beds.  We worked up the soil.  We all planted flowers with Mrs. Korolyk and Mrs. Gergatz.  The flowers looked really nice over the summer.

 

 

A special thank you to Mrs. Marion Korolyk, Mrs. Ellen Gergatz, Mrs. Sarah Chapnick, the 2013 SSES Garden Club and the many volunteers who looked after our gardens over the summer ~ you created beautiful flower gardens to welcome everyone back to school!