December 5 - 9

Excitement has been creeping in all week!  We started our school week with a really nice visit from the Calgary Police Service.  Officer Gary and Officer Melissa got to talk to us about all the different things that police officers do to help people.  They also did a craft with us as we talked about different ways we each could make our community a better place.

Another big feature of our week has been our class' practice for the Christmas concert.

Our class is singing 'Angels We Have Heard On High' and we spent some time listening to  different versions of the song, as well as singing it in music class.  On Friday we did our first full show practice.  It was long but with each run through it will be a little bit faster and more polished.  Have you heard the words kids in our class should be practicing for the show as well?  It's a rhyme and it goes like this:  

The children are sleepy,

The grown-ups are yawning,

The snowmen go home

Just as Christmas is dawning.

Hopefully everyone has their part memorized for the evening shows Tuesday and Thursday night, as well as for the Wednesday afternoon show that no one needs a ticket for.  Students should have dark shoes and dark pants for all the performances.  Something new that's being asked for now: could each kid bring their own toque to wear to the performance?  We are trying to make the chorus look as wintery as possible!  :)

Finally, just a little reminder that next week is our last school week before the holiday break.  We will be having a small party on the Friday morning.  Hopefully everyone will be there to enjoy a few treats and to have a fun "Pajama Party" morning.  

Have a terrific weekend.  Stay warm!

Science and Nutrition!

This week at school we did an experiment.  We were mixing different liquids together to see what would happen.  When we mixed juice and water, and when we mixed shampoos and water, we found that they both mixed easily.  When we tried to mix oil and water we discovered that they just will not mix!  The oil keeps floating on top of the water.  Do you know why they won't mix?  It's because water molecules are polarized and oil molecules are not.  That's another reason why water is "sticky" and has surface tension!

A big event in our week at school was the visit from Byblos Bakery.  They taught us about the Canada Food Guide and the different food groups.  Did you know that different food groups give us different super powers?  Fruits and Vegetables help us to see better and to be healthier.  Dairy help us to get calcium which is for strong bones and teeth.  The grain food group gives us energy that lasts a long time.  Finally, the meats and alternatives group give us the power to grow big and strong muscles!

Have a great weekend!

Nov. 7 - 10 (Plus a sneak a peek at next week!)

An amazing week for sure!  Our two biggest highlights this week were the walking trip to the cenotaph/Memorial Park Library and our school's Remembrance Day assembly.  A big thank you to the volunteers who joined us on our walk.  Your help is always appreciated and  make so much possible for the kids in our class!  Here are a few pictures from our walking trip.





As mentioned above, the Remembrance Day ceremony was another highlight of the week.  Lots of learning went into the performances as well as the understanding that made it such a special assembly.  All the kids deserve a big pat on the back for their hard work.

Finally, the sneak a peek at something for next week:

Earl Grey School is excited to announce that Byblos Bakery will be coming EG on Wednesday November 16th to share a short nutrition presentation.  The nutritionist will come into each class and give a presentation on healthy food choices and the 4 food groups.

At the end of the presentation each child will have the opportunity to make a stuffed pita sandwich.  All pitas will be supplied complimentary by Byblos Bakery.  This year WOWBUTTER has kindly given us product to use for the Byblos pitas (Wowbutter is also nut free, gluten free and dairy free). In addition, SPUD.ca are also donating organic produce (tomato, cucumber and lettuce) for the pitas  as a pilot test.

Children are expected to supply the remaining ingredients for stuffing their pita. Please help your child make healthy food choices when deciding what to bring in for their pita.  Examples of ingredients are listed below.

Possible ingredients;

pizza sauce, mustard, mayonnaise, sweet chili Tai, hot sauce, vegimite

turkey, chicken, roast beef, salami, tuna, salmon, pepperoni, bacon

carrots, lettuce, purple onions, bell peppers, tomato

cheddar, mozzarella, Monterey jack, Swiss, gouda, Havarti, cream cheese

jam, honey, bananas, apples, pineapple

The possibilities are endless!

***Please send food items pre-washed and cut up into bite size pieces. Sauces can be sent in small Tupperware containers labeled with the child’s name.

Thank you for your support;

Mr.Bridges

Miss.Dodd

Mrs.Helsen

Mrs.Maze

October 31 - November 4

What a week!  We started the week off with a lot of excitement surrounding Halloween.  What a fun Canadian tradition!  Lots of costumes and imagination on display.



We spent the rest of the week working very hard.  We are trying to become better writers and have been working with "juicy words" to try to make our writing more interesting.

To finish the week we continued on with our experimenting with water.  We've learned about surface tension and even got a chance to try and float a metal paper clip on top of the water.  It's not too hard to do if you set the paper clip onto the water carefully.  Just don't break that surface tension!  Check out the pictures below.  DO try this at home.

See what happens when even simple dish soap breaks the surface tension...

Heritage Park Field Trip

This week at school our highlight was definitely the field trip to Heritage Park.  It was a little bit chilly but the wood stove in the classroom really helped to heat things up.  Many of us found the chairs a little bit cold to sit on at the start of the day.  We had lots of opportunity to stand up though.  Just like students 100 years ago, we stood to answer questions and also when we had our hands and hair checked for cleanliness.  We all had a chance to write our names with a quill and ink and it sure is a lot different from using a pencil.

We got to check out Sam Livingston's house and see many old artifacts.  It was a surprise to us that pioneers could build houses that had two floors.  Did you know that Mr. and Mrs. Livingston had 14 children that lived with them?  That's a lot!!!

A lot of kids thought the best thing about the trip was eating bannock in the fur trading post.  Bannock is a bread like a scone and it came from Scotland.  All in all it was a great trip and part of a really good week at school.

Finally, an important reminder for Monday:  We will be having a Halloween celebration in the afternoon.  Please don't wear any costumes in the morning.  there will be lots of opportunity to dress up at lunch time.  Children are invited to join a Halloween parade around the inside of the school at about 12:45.  After that we will be having a class party that will have some activities and crafts.  If you have a disposable water bottle to use for the craft, please bring it.  It should be a fun afternoon!

Spooky Week

We had another awesome week at school.  One of the things that has been exciting this week is that there are now Halloween decorations starting to appear in class.  So far we have two bats, two cats, a hanging skeleton, a Happy Halloween sign, and a pumpkin in class.  Many kids in class are starting to get excited about Halloween.  We heard a Scooby Doo spooky story this week and after that we started to hear about how there might be a ghost janitor in our school.  Is it for real or just a prank?  All we know for sure is that there have been some weird things happening ever since some kids chanted "Ghost Janitor" three times in a whisper.

We also finished our Go Dogs Go craft.  Our pictures took a long time because there is so much detail in each one.  We think it was worth the time though because we did a great job and are happy with how it all finished up!


We had our regular spelling test this week, but there was one difference from other weeks.  This week we had two bonus words that fit with our "ick" word family.  Can you think of some "ick" words?  Ask me how I did on my test.

Have a great weekend!

Go Dogs Go!

We had a short week at school.  On Tuesday when we came back from Thanksgiving, our class had a visitor for the morning.  We had Leppy the leopard gecko in for a few hours.  We learned that a leopard gecko can drop its tail if it feels threatened by a predator.  The tail will keep wiggling and the gecko will try to escape.  The gecko will even be able to grow back a new tail.  How cool is that?

Another highlight of our week at school was our experiment on "Racing Liquids".  We learned that some liquids pour very slowly and some pour more quickly.  We learned that liquids with low viscosity, like cooking oil, pour out fast.  Liquids like corn syrup have high viscosity and pour out VERY slowly.

On Friday we started to do a "Go Dogs Go" craft and we are looking forward to finishing it next week.  Stay tuned!

Roctober begins!

The month of October has begun.  We are going to call it Roctober though, because we are going to enjoy different rock songs at the end of each day.  Moms and Dads can ask what music you heard when they see their children.  So far we have listened to The Boss, Sheryl Crow, and AC/DC.  Today we listened to The Tragically Hip.

This week we did a Thanksgiving turkey craft.  We wrote about things we are thankful for, we practiced our colouring and cutting, and we had to organize and glue our turkey together.  We did a legendary job of putting quality into our work.  We started our home reading program this past Tuesday and we will be trading in our books every Tuesday from now on.

At our Monday morning assembly two kids from our class were recognized for their work as leaders in the classroom and the school.  Way to go Penelope and Trenton.

September 26 - 30

This week at school was another busy one.  We did a science experiment that measured how much water evaporated.  We were excited to find out how our experiment went and how much water disappeared into the air.

The biggest event of the week was our Terry Fox run.  On average, students ran about 6 laps of the field in half an hour.  All together our school ran 1364 laps of the field.  We had a lot of parent volunteers help us out.   Thanks to all the great helpers.

Have an awesome weekend!

Sept. 19 - 22

This week has been interesting.  We practiced retelling stories and used art to help show the six most important parts.  We also started to investigate liquids in Science.  We even have an evaporation experiment that we will check when we come back from the weekend.  Our experiment is called disappearing water.  We are excited to find out what happens Monday.

We talked about the change in seasons.  Today is the first day of fall.  The leaves have been changing colours and they are falling from the trees.  It's getting colder outside.  Dress well for the weather!

Our whole school is invited back Thursday night for a bbq and to meet the teachers.  Hope to see you there!

Have a great weekend.  :)

Welcome to the Class Blog!

Hi and thank you for reading our class blog!  In our blog, we hope to give our readers an idea of what we have been doing in class and also what might be coming up.

This week in our classroom everyone was learning about patterns.  Grade ones learned that a pattern is something that repeats.  Grade twos learned that the thing that is repeated is called the pattern core.  Everyone got to travel around the school taking pictures of patterns that they could find.  Here are some of their pictures:




We also had our first spelling test of the year.  What was really important this week was to learn what we had to do during a test.  Some kids already knew, but for a lot of the grade ones it was the first test that they ever took in their whole entire life!  Congratulations everyone!

Have a great weekend.