We read two very special books this Remembrance Day, A Poppy is to Remember by Heather Patterson and Ron Lightburn and The Peace Book by Todd Parr.

We read A Poppy is to Remember on Tuesday, before we headed off to our Remembrance Day Assembly.  It’s a gorgeous book, beautifully illustrated and an excellent jumping off point for our young students.

One of the art projects we worked on for Remembrance Day was to make a poppy using a block print made from an acorn squash.  The acorn squash had been hanging out in the classroom for a few days, along with a few other gourds.  Each time we passed them as we were lining up, two or three children were always touching them, feeling the deep grooves and ribs and bumps of these fascinating vegetables.

The children watched us cut it open (you don’t often get to see your teacher doing food prep) and a few children excitedly scooped out the seeds.  Then we cut the potato and we were ready to begin.

We painted the acorn squash red and printed it onto grey construction paper.

Then we painted the potato black and printed the centre of our poppy. Gorgeous!

Most of you know that we are huge Todd Parr fans and the The Peace Book is one of our favourites.

We introduced the book earlier this week, and started with a discussion about the topic of peace.  Here are some of the children’s thoughts:

And the work they completed for our class big book.

With our Grade 7 Buddies we made our peace doves.  It’s been really fun with our Buddies over the past number of years because Christy and I taught these very children when they were either in Grade One or Kindergarten as that was the time of our job-share.  We can have a bit of a laugh with the Big Buddies as they remember the crafts from when they were little (and many of them still have their Kindergarten work) and we can all share some stories about their Kindergarten class.

This Week in Our Room:  November 8-13, 2015

Please ensure that everyday your child comes with a full kit of clothing for the wet, cold weather.  A warm jacket, hat, gloves and boots are necessities.  If your child wishes to have an addition fleece layer, we think that’s a great idea.

Some of the children have asked us if they can stay inside for the rainy recess times.  Unfortunately, we do not have enough staff for supervision of individual students.  If your child is not feeling well, and cannot manage all aspects of the full day of school, it’s probably best to stay home for a few days, rest and come back to school ready to play.

We’re still collecting wrapping paper, ribbon and clean, tissue-free paper rolls for our Christmas Cracker project.  Thank you for your donations.