Happy Friday Families!

What an exciting week for Room 51 this week with lots of festive activities taking place.  Monday was made much more interesting by “Music Monday”, the world’s largest single event dedicated to raising awareness for music education.  Each year, hundreds of thousands of students, educators, and music makers participate in a simultaneous nationwide concert performance of an original song written by a Canadian artist.  Students participated by gathering together in the gym to sing the many special songs they have been practicing in music the past few weeks.

On Wednesday we all wore hats for “Mental Health Day”.  Each May, Albertans are invited to wear a hat to raise awareness of the importance of good mental health. Participating schools will relax their hat rules and encourage students and teachers to build understanding by wearing hats to school. Students will also participate in a coordinated lesson on understanding mental health and the importance of removing the stigma associated with mental illnesses.  Students watched a few kid videos about what mental health means and how we can help others that may be suffering.  This was followed up by questions and discussion with the student.

Of course, and long time coming, “Arbor Day” was held yesterday, on May 4^th – yes – “May the 4^th Be With You”.  Arbor Day celebrates the importance of our trees and green spaces. It's an annual event held in the United States, Canada and in many other countries that all share a common vision of greener communities.  It is the longest running civic greening project in Calgary and is celebrated on the first Thursday in May. On this day, each grade 1 student in Calgary's schools receives a tree seedling to take home and plant on private property.  Students had the opportunity to visit all of the other classrooms to view student tree projects and ask them about their research and presentations.  In the afternoon we had a special assembly with many special guests from all over Calgary, including musicians and the choir from the local Catholic school.  Our students also performed, special “tree songs” that they learned in music class.  Following, the entire school met out on the front lawn for the tree planting ceremony, golden shovels included.  Your child should be busy planting this weekend as seedlings (Gr. 1’s) and beans were sent home with all of the students with planting and care instructions for the seedlings.

In Math, both classes continued their investigation of measurement with some outdoor fun measuring how far they could jump with non-standard measuring tools such as their visual journals and their feet.  Ask your child to show you how tall they are using their popsicle stick measurement tool.  Group A also worked as a group on some word math problems, while Group B continued solving some measurement problems on the topic of calendars.

As we near the end of the year, the students continue to work on all of the fine details that push their writing beyond the basics, such as presentation, punctuation, purpose, descriptive words and cohesiveness. Those that are working on their puppet theatre, from their written story, continue to figure out how to make their scenes match their setting.

We continued our exploration of hot and cold with discussion and writing activities about sources of heat and hot and cold safety.  Ask your child what they have learned.  In social studies, students learned about the different aspects of the Alberta and Saskatchewan flags and began creating their own personal flag, after they artfully coloured their other 2 provincial flag templates.

NOTE:  It has come to our attention that many students have not been keeping up with home reading.  Please help us by reminding your child in the morning to switch their home reading book as soon as they get into the classroom.

REMINDER - spring photos are due Monday May 8^th.

ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND!!! - Don't put away your snow shovels yet - or so I've heard.