Culture Week and Farewell to a Friend

 Has only one week gone by since spring break!?! With all of the events and activities for Culture Week it feels like it’s been much longer than that as we have done so much in only five days!

To kick things off, on Monday we had a couple guest teachers join us to make some Poi! In New Zealand, Poi are used for traditional Māori dances and Stacey and her friend Jo came to class to make some with grade two and we also did a little dancing! It was so much fun! Thank you Stacey and Jo.

We also started our fifth unit of the year, under the transdisciplinary theme of Sharing the Planet, we are inquiring into extinction and our central idea is: Learning about extinction helps prevent the loss of things we value.

The students began by discussing some images of animals and learnt that the 10 animals on the wall have all recently gone extinct.

Our project for the start of the unit was to read about and research one of the ten animals together with a partner and do make either a non-fiction book or an informative video about the animal. Most students worked with a partner, and we will finish the projects next week.

On Tuesday, we enjoyed playing and learning about some games from different cultures. Thank you to all the parents who volunteered to prepare and run the games. It was a lot fun! The students also wore their silly hats and socks!

On Wednesday, we dressed up as art or artists! The students continued with their research on their animals and we began practicing for the upcoming Sports Day on April 19th! 

Thursday was hero, or notable person day and everyone came dressed as their favourite characters! We also had a lot of fun learning three types of cultural dances from Ms J, Ms R and Ms H (also known as Ms Harris!)

And finally, today! With everyone in their amazing national costumes (or if you’re Canadian like me - my everyday clothes!) and we had a wonderful Hanami-less hanami picnic! It was nice seeing so many families there! Thank you for the delicious culinary treats as well!

We also celebrated a birthday but sadly had to say farewell to a friend…and with his one last request we played a fun game of Kahoot together during the fun Friday time!