Thursday, June 25, 2026

Reader Rock Garden


Yesterday, we walked to Reader Rock Garden. It is SO beautiful there! We took time to do scientific sketches of some of the flowers. There were so many different types of flowers; you could take two steps and see ten different kinds. We saw a big variety of flower colours, a huge bee, and a caterpillar. The caterpillar was on its way to become a beautiful moth. Everyone should visit the Reader Rock Garden this summer!





"It was impossible to not see one flower colour." ~ Oliver
"My Grade Three teacher Ms Harris said that nature is never just one colour and I believe it!" ~ Cora
"More than half the garden is just flowers." ~ HC
"We had a lot of fun and I noticed that the caterpillar was soft and smooth." ~ Ekagra
"I observed that none of the flowers looked the same. Some had jagged leaves, some had smooth leaves, some had simple petals and some had compound petals." ~ Wynn
"Everywhere I walked, there was flowers everywhere. You couldn't walk anywhere without seeing so many different kinds." ~ Effie
"Everywhere you go, there was wildlife: mosquitos, bees, and more." ~ AA
"The caterpillar that we found had fluff that makes you itchy and it's supposed to protect the caterpillar." ~ Gillian
"I had so much fun looking at the flowers but I got like 20 mosquito bites and now I'm very itchy." ~ EF
"I noticed that an ant crawled out of a small hole so I'm guessing there was an ant colony." ~ Viaan
"My favourite part was the waterfall." ~ Davyd

Back at school today, we sorted our visual journal sketches into different categories based on the features of the plants. For example, we came up with sorting rules like: petal colour, smooth and jagged leaves, value of the colour of the leaves, simple and compound leaves or flowers, and thorns/no thorns.




In all, this was a great final Community Walk!

Tuesday, June 16, 2026

Optional Homework



Today, we discussed the parts of the plant. We identified examples of parts of plants we eat (ex: asparagus are stems, kidney beans are seeds). 

Our Optional Homework Challenge (for fun) is to try to eat one of each of these plant parts before next Wednesday: seed, root, leaf, flower, stem, fruit

Students are also encouraged to retell the story we read in class, Tops and Bottoms.

Tuesday, June 9, 2026

Poetry and Earth Day

 Poetry

Another belated blog entry. Better late than never?

1. Poetry is very different from other types of writing. What was interesting about it?

  • I liked that there werent any rules it was free - Jackson
  • there are so many different types of poetry its a lot of fun to explore them all. - EF
  • I liked that there wasn't a strict way to write. - Wynn


2. Together, we did a writing workshop to revise and put together parts of our poem into our Earth Day poem "Sometimes we feel like the earth and all it's creatures." What did you like about this?

  • The workshop thing was cool because i got to listen to other peoples work and that was kinda cool. - CL

3. Explain why you chose the animal you chose to represent you.

  • Why i choose a lion is because it gets angry and hungry hangry and it represent a few other things - Fatima

4. We all made art to represent our poems. What did you like about the art project?

  • I liked the art we did with our poem because it showed our animal and what it is, it also gave a hint on what our poem is about. - GH

5. Why is Earth day important?

  • Earth day reminds us about  what we have done to the earth and it teaches us what to do to help the earth - Oliver 
  • Earth day is important because we live on the earth so we need to understand the importants of helping and cleaning the place we live on - Wynn

  • Earth day is important  to me because it is a day to thank the EARTH for what it has done for us for a trillion years! And so on earth day every body should give something back to nature that it would like so like cleaning up. - Effie




Each line in our class poem came from a line in a students' individual poem.

Sometimes we feel like the earth and all of its creatures.

We eat like animals.

Tigers can be ferocious when they eat, just like we eagerly gobble up pizza, cheese smearing all over our faces, pepperoni all over the walls. 

We have skills like animals.

We quickly slide the puck down the slippery ice and slap it into the net, like a beaver smacks their cool designed tails across the water, cheering us on.

Like a cat lurking in the night with its glimmering eyes, our eyes navigate and peer through the blackness of our deep dark basements.

We communicate like animals.

For the sake of our family, we love shouting so loud, scaring our siblings out of our rooms, like a tiger roaring to keep others off its territory.

Bees buzz loudly like us. We love to engage but are shy when it comes to new people. Weaving through the grass, we cautiously approach the new Queen Bee.

We protect like animals.

As lions are protective of their cubs, we hover over our stuffies and books, claws out, never letting anyone touch or go near them.

We use our deadly spikes to scare enemies and protect our friends. As we grow up, our spikes get sharper, learning more about how to resolve conflict.

We learn like animals.

Our minds are as long as a rat's tail, there is always room to grow. We're always expanding until our thoughts reach from head to toe, full of knowledge. 

We rest like animals.

When the sun shimmers above, we are lazy. We like to sit back and relax, as a cheetah lies down in the grass, sheltered in the shade of a tree.

We are extremely idle when it’s winter, cuddling in our den of blankets, recharging, just like a lion sleeping for 20 hours a day after a big long hunt.

We love nature like animals.

Green anacondas love the color green like us! So, they must love nature, warming up in its heat, while we’re enjoying the warmth of melting snow, the smell of flowers blooming in the spring.

We frolic like animals.

We are as playful as a tiger cub. Just how a tiger cub wrestles with its siblings, scratching and pouncing, rolling around, we like to tackle as we play football.

Dolphins are playful like us. We're silly and creative like them when they do stunts. We dive under the water, not scared of what’s underneath.

We’re resilient like animals.

Our hearts can grow as big and fierce as a cougar in our little bodies. They reach up to 5 meters, always getting us up when things get hard. We shred the uncomfortable  feelings that come with not doing well on a test.

Tardigrades can survive ferocious environments without water, so they can conquer anything earth throws at ‘em. We are also small but very tough.  When people tear us down, we roll up into a protective ball and get back up.

We’re caring like animals

Just like dogs we are warm blooded, but even when our heart becomes closed, the warmth of friendship seeps in for life’s warm hug, reviving us.

Sloths climb trees but for me, I don't climb trees like so many would expect. We are the trees, strong and embracing many animals like the sloth. We surround our friends, but most importantly our roots reach down grounding us.

That’s why we feel like the earth and all of its fuzzy, smooth, scaly, feathery creatures.








Thursday, June 4, 2026

Homework: Prepare for Division Quiz

Hi Students,

This is a friendly remind that you have a Division Quiz on: Thursday, June 11

On the quiz, you may be asked to: 

  • Represent a division equation using a picture

  • Write a division equation to match a given picture

  • Solve division equations up to 3-digit by 1-digit using strategies, such as "Drawing Groups", "Long Algorithm", or "Short Algorithm" 

  • Solve a division word problem in pictures, numbers, and words (a sentence answer)

  • Create a division word problem

  • Solve questions that include remainders

The "Drawing Groups" strategy

Since this strategy is unfamiliar to many parents, I am going to describe it here using the language we used in class: 

  1. Think about the problem. An example of what 48 / 4 means is that you have 48 of something, and you are sharing that out equally between 4 people.

  2. Draw circles or stick people to represent the number of the divisor (4).

  3. Use a number you can skip count by easily (like, 100, 10, 5, 2...). Share out the same amount to each person/group. For example, in the picture below, the student started by giving each person 3. 

  4. Calculate how many you just gave out in total (3 + 3 + 3 + 3 = 12).

  5. Subtract 12 from your dividend to see how much you have left to give (48-12 = 36).

  6. Do steps 3 & 4 again until you have shared out all that you have. 

Count up how many you have in one of the groups. This is your quotient (answer). If you have any leftover, write that as your remainder (R = ___).

Reader Rock Garden

Yesterday, we walked to Reader Rock Garden. It is SO beautiful there! We took time to do scientific sketches of some of the flowers. There w...