Showing Our Appreciation

The last days of school are a fitting time to show our appreciation to a number of people that contribute to our school.  We chose five special recipients and made posters of some appropriate quotes.  The fun part was using a straw to blow drops of thin paint across the posters.  We think they turned out great!

Candy Wanless was instrumental for the last 6 years to get our playground created from bare dirt.  She, along with a dedicated committee, organized fundraisers, planned which equipment to buy, and installed it.

Manitoba Hydro recently gave a grant to Reston School to purchase 40 mature trees for our playground.  We plan to keep track of their growth and hope they quickly give shade and shelter from the wind at our school.  Mrs. MacKenzie helped get the grant and she will make sure they get the poster.

West Souris River Conservation District looked after securing the Hydro Grants for us and then they (Dean, Tim and Amber) delivered the trees here and planted them.  Staff will take turns watering them in the summer.

Murray and Keri Vinck donated a row of willow trees and dug them in north of the playground a couple of years ago.  Several had to be replaced but we hope this time they will thrive.

Lastly, we want to thank our principal, Mr. Lochhead and wish him a terrific retirement.  We hope to see him around town and maybe he'll even come back for a visit!

The Summer Slide!

Today Ms. Simms was telling us about the Summer Slide that teachers talk about.  We thought it was

•  a mountain? a hill?  a roller coaster? a waterslide?

We had no idea what she was talking about!

Then she told us that is really means when kids forget things they learned at school this year over the summer.
Use this link for more information about Summer Slide. 

After all our hard work in Grade 2 and 3 this year, we really don't want to Summer Slide too much!    We thought of a huge list of ideas to keep this from happening.  But don't forget - everyone needs some time to relax, including our teacher!

• go on the internet and go to Mathletics, Happy Numbers, Teach Your Monster to Read, ABC YA, Raz-Kids,  Storybird, Storyline Online, Sand Castle Spelling, and lots more learning websites
• read a book -go to the library, look in your room, trade with a friend, shop yard sales
• practice math facts - flashcards, calculator, card games, dice games, board games
• writing - practice cursive, write and illustrate a book,write a diary, use up old scribblers
• art - drawing, colouring, plasticine or playdough, sidewalk chalk
• science - experiments with ice cubes, plants, balloons, build structures
• social studies - research a special place, read maps
• gym - bike, play tag, swim, mini sticks, skip, soccer, catch, run, exercises, trampoline, swing, baseball, football, volleyball, basketball,treadmill, dance , just dance
• music - karaoke, play instrument, sing, 
• french - read the cereal box, read the French captions on DVD
• agendas - French, trouble words, internet passwords, shapes, math facts
• There are lots more ideas on the internet!  Try Pinterest or a Google Search.

Don't let Summer Slide happen to you!  See you in September!

Field Trip to Souris!

  What a fantastic day for a field trip!  This morning we loaded the bus driven by Mrs. Barb Elliott and headed to Souris.  Mrs. Gray came along to help Ms. Simms with supervising the 18 students.  We started the day with a trip over the swinging bridge where we saw a turtle sunning itself and some Canada geese and ducks.

Next we went to the Bird Sanctuary in Victoria Park and then headed to Subway to pick up our lunch.  We ate in Victoria Park and had time for a play at the neat playground there.

Then we went to the Rock Shop where we learned about the different types of rock that we might find.  Next stop was the rock pile outside of town where everyone filled their bags and identified agate, jasper, petrified wood and even some fossils.

We had just enough time for a treat before we took the bus back home to Reston.  We had such a fun day and we will never look at rocks the same way again!

Soil and Plants

The months of May and June have been dedicated to the study of Soils and Plants in the Grade 2-3 Science class.

We began by bringing soil samples from home and looking at them under a magnifying glass.  We were looking for organic matter, clay, sand, and humus.

We found out from reading and from videos that the more humus in the soil, the more fertile it is.  Soil also needs to have air pockets in it so plants can grow.

We planted some seeds and onions in a Root View garden box.  To our surprise, the roots were visible after 2 days and the green shoots were above the soil in 5 days. 

During our literacy rotations, we read books about plants and answered comprehension questions.  We learned about the seed coat, anthers, stamen and stigma.  We also found out that the food for plants is made in the leaves and to do so, they need water, sunlight, and carbon dioxide.

 

We went to the Stoney Creek Greenhouse in Reston and Mrs Connie McQuiston patiently answered all out questions about soil, plants and her greenhouse business.

Another interesting activity was when we got white carnations and then added food colouring to the water that we put them in.  Later the same day, we noticed that the colour had traveled up the stem and was beginning to colour the petals of the flowers.  Even the flower stem that we split and put into 2 different colour dyes was working the way we thought it might.  One side of the flower was red and the other was blue.
Below is the picture of our Root View Garden today, 19 days after we planted it.  Wow, has it ever grown!

Burrowing Owls

We had a special visitor today, a burrowing owl named Koko!

To prepare for the visit, we made a list of things that we think we know about burrowing owls.  Then when we were listening to the presentation, we could confirm what we thought or change our thinking.  Our teacher made a list too.

You can find out more about the Manitoba Burrowing Owl Recovery Program and Koko by visiting their website by following this link.

Photo Booths

Our teacher was walking to school one day and she saw a pile of boxes out behind the rink.  They had bought some new chairs and the boxes must be great for something, but what?  Then it hit her - photo booths!

 The first step was brainstorming with our table groups, what could we have the people doing?  Since it was almost summer, there were lots of great ideas like playing outside, sitting on the beach, and playing sports.

 Sketching out the idea was next.  Most of us had done big people Art before by tracing ourselves on long rolls of paper but this was a new experience - to draw this big!

 Deciding on paint colours was next and trying to paint the whole box.  Including the background scene was important too so it looked real.

 The liquid paint worked great for this project.  Kids were pretty careful and cleaned up their own messes!

 We put them out in the hallway and so many kids stopped to admire them!

The last step was when our teacher used a knife to cut out the oval for the face and a door to get in.  We are so proud that we have permission to put our photo boxes at the Reston Park this Sunday for the Family Fun Day!  We hope you will be there and have your photo taken in one of our boxes!

Barbara Reid Plasticene Art

The art of Barbara Reid in books like The New Baby Calf, Picture a Tree, and the Subway Mouse have always been some of our teacher's favourites.  She challenged us to use Plasticine to create pictures of a garden scene for fit with our Science units on Soil and Plants. 
 

The first step was to soften up some brown and blue Plasticine and smear it over a bakery tray to be the sky and the soil. You need to use your thumb and spread it out really well as a base.

The next step was using examples from Barbara Reid's books to plan a sketch of how it will look.

Some of us changed our plan as we went along but Barbara Reid says she does that sometimes too.  We watched the videos on her website a few times and practiced the techniques and then we were off!

We were so proud of the results!

They turned out so great that we even displayed some of them in the Reston Art Show on the weekend!

Each one was unique but showed that we learned a new medium and techniques.