Theatre Presentation

The "Little Red Theatre" from Toronto paid us a visit today. We were very excited to watch Goose Girl, a Norwegian folktale. It was very entertaining with a message of the importance of being yourself, as well as having quality characteristics. A huge thank you to our hardworking school council who contributes towards the cost of bringing a theatre troupe to our school...a valuable experience!

Victoria LOVED the puppet named Astrid!

Changes in Schedule

There have been some recent changes in our regular schedule that you should be aware of.

 There was a hot dog originally scheduled for Friday, April 1. Hot dog has been changed to Friday, April 8. 

As some of you know, many of the older students in our school are busy preparing for an amazing musical this Spring. During the first week of May, The Lion King will be on at our school. We have been recently told that a very large "Pride Rock" will be on the stage a couple of weeks prior to the performance, making it impossible for our Kindergarten concert to go ahead as scheduled on April 21. We will let you know once a new date has been chosen, likely in May. 

Yaki, a children's performer, was to visit Stonecrest last Thursday, the day of the ice storm and cancelled buses. He is rescheduled for a visit on April 22. The Little Red Theatre was to present earlier in February, coincidentally another snow day. They will be here this Thursday. It is not too late to send in the $2 fee if you have not already done so.

Making Maple Taffy

In the last two days, we have attempted to make maple taffy. I must admit, I am not very good at it, and it hasn't looked like the sugar camp special treats, but the students claimed that it still tasted delicious!

Uncovering and gathering clean snow.

Yum!

One of the teachers tapped a tree on the school grounds. We were amazed by how much sap had ran this afternoon!

We'd love to make some pancakes with syrup next week (or the following week), is there anyone who'd like to volunteer to help us? Please email me if this interests you. Thank you.

CORRECTION

The concert for all Kindergarten French Immersion students will be at 6:30 on Wednesday, April 20 (not April 21 as previously reported). Sorry for the mix up!

The Sugar bush experience

Just before the break, the green group had read a story about visiting a sugar bush.

The students were quite fascinated. Many of them have very different experiences when it comes to maple syrup production. Many remembered Chief Top Leaf speaking about how the first native Canadians discovered maple sap, gathered and boiled it producing the amber coloured goodness. Today, we tried to replicate the maple syrup production experience in class. We "tapped" our own trees.

Drilling the hole.

Tapping the spile in.

Hanging the bucket.

Audrey decided our maple sugar camp should be named "The Sugar Den".

Gabe and friends made a menu.

We learned that the sap travels up and down the trunk of the tree depending on the temperature and that the optimal temperature for the sap to run is plus 5 during the day and minus 5 at night. Many students had fun fluctuating the temperature with the thermometer.

Some students were busy making "pancakes and sausages" to complete the experience.

When we returned to the classroom we discovered that the sap had run...and there was sap in our bucket (special thanks to the Findlay family). Owen H. Showed how we could taste test it! We looked in the bucket and noticed that it contained dirt in it. Sidney remembered that when we melted snow, we had filtered it, so he suggested that we use a filter to clean the sap! It was quite amazing how much dirt was filtered out.

Everyone got a chance to taste a bit of maple sap. In the following days, we will continue to play and learn in our own "sugar den"! A huge thank you to Jack, Calahan and their family who kindly provided us with the materials and donated some sap and syrup! Yum!

The King of "ing"

We are trying to encourage our young readers to break up longer words into shorter sounds or words they might be familiar with. Thus, we have taught the students that whenever they see  i-n-g  we know it is the "ing" sound. In class, when the students find and identify that sound, they get to wear a crown since they are the "King of ing".

What do kindergarten teachers do on the March break?

Prepare for the next big event...Ms Byrne and I spent the afternoon preparing our props for our spring concert. 

Be sure to circle Thursday April 21 on your calendar for what will no doubt be a great show! 

**A big shout out to the Home Depot in Carleton Place who donated all the wood for our project.

Evaporation...continued

LThe blue group has continued their investigation about evaporation. Today, we watched a video and then discussed that for evaporation to occur, we need the water and a source of heat (which explained why the water in our aquarium had evaporated as we have a light on). We then did 2 different experiments, demonstrating how the water evaporates when the air is warm. If your child is in the blue class, be sure to ask him or her about it!

The ice which represents the cold air in the clouds when the water evaporates.

Looking at the condensation that occurred on the side of the container.

Drawing a scientific diagram of what happened. 

The blue is water, when we put the upside down glass in it, there was very little water inside the glass.

We put a candle down and discussed how the burning candle would heat the air inside the glass.

Eventually, the burning candle useful all the air and the candle blew out. In doing so, the water was soaked up inside the glass, but we could also see where "clouds" had formed on the side of the glass as the water had evaporated.

Young scientists in the making!