Strathcona Community Gardens

To wrap up our unit on Community we went on a neighbourhood field trip to visit the Strathcona Community Gardens.  It's just a ten minute walk from our school, right in the hustle and bustle of the big city.  On the walk there, we were looking for signs of spring and people growing food in their own front yards.  We saw homes, with small green spaces, growing food in beds and in containers.  When we arrived at the gardens Jody greeted us and took us on a wonderful tour of the gardens.  We learned a lot about growing food in the city.  Thanks Jody!  We'll definitely be back later this spring to see the gardens in bloom.  Click on the photos to view them larger!

Arriving at the gardens...

We tasted purple broccoli that Jody grew.
It was yummy! 

Walking through the gardens.

We learned about composting food scraps.

Dhakin helped empty scraps into the compost bin. 

Jody let us each plant one snap pea!

Alexandra planting her pea seed.

Heading into the greenhouse for cover!  Snack time.

New plants growing in the greenhouse.

Vienna biting into her apple.  After a healthy snack we put our apple cores, banana peels and orange peels into the compost bin!

They even have a composting toilet.
The compost is cleaned out and used to fertilize the apple trees.

Spinach grown through winter.

Check out the Strathcona Community Gardens website to learn more about growing food in your community, composting and gardening.

http://www.strathconagardens.ca

Our Community - This is Strathcona

In Social Studies the class has been learning about Community and Mapping.  Look at this great map of the Strathcona neighbourhood that our student teacher, Ms. Robinson, made with the class.  Our Strathcona school code of conduct is...

We take of ourselves. 

We take care of each other.

We take care of our community. 

 

Let's Make Rabbits

After reading Leo Lionni's book, Let's Make Rabbits we decided to make our very own rabbits. The story begins with a pencil and a pair of scissors discussing what they're going to do with their day.  Upon deciding to make rabbits, the pencil quickly draws a rabbit and the scissors cuts one out of paper.  The two rabbits are immediately best of friends.  They quickly become hungry and are in search of food.  Luckily the pencil and scissors are still there to make them carrots!  

Using cardboard templates, the kids traced the bunny body parts onto patterned scrapbook paper.  Then, they cut out the shapes and assembled their rabbits.  They made paper carrots so their rabbits wouldn't go hungry.  Happy Easter!

Mice by Lois Ehlert

This week we read Mice, another beautifully illustrated book by Lois Ehlert.  The children are starting to recognize her signature collage style from all of the read alouds we've enjoyed.  We recreated the red cardinals in her book, Snowballs, in the fall.  Mice is a simple story that asks the reader, "Do you think mice are nice?" I asked the class that very question and we graphed our answers on the board.  Most students do not think mice are nice!  We read the story and marvelled at the clever ways Ehlert incorporates real objects in her work.  The kids were excited to see real crackers and ziplock baggies on her photographed pages.  After seeing what mischief the mice were up to, the class recreated scenes from the book.

Everyone started with the same supplies.  First they chose a body colour from pre-cut rhombus shaped papers in red and brown.  We looked at a wooden rhombus from our tub of pattern blocks and discussed the 'diamond' shape.  They cut their rhombus' in half to make two triangles for the body and head.  Then, they those chose different coloured paper to cut out ears, eyes, teeth and tail.  We used twine to replicate the arms and legs.  The exciting bit was deciding what object to add to their page.  They chose between a cupcake liner, a ziplock snack baggie with cheerios, a variety of crackers, and a paper ruler.  I think these mice are nice, do you?