Owl Pellet Dissection

Today in class we explored the world of the owl pellet.  Ask your child where owl pellets come from, and which body parts they were able to identify from the owl pellets they took apart.  By analyzing bones the students were able to reconstruct their specimens and identify the genus, or even species in many cases.

Reflections on grade 6

The start of June means the beginning of some reflective work on our time at Churchill, and our time in Room 308.  We will spend a lot of time writing and talking about our experiences.  To get things started we used items from our "museum of curious objects" to help us explain a bit of what this year has been like.  Each student was asked to choose an object from the table and make a connection between it, and the experiences they had in grade 6 this year.  Ask your child what item they chose, and what their reasoning was...

Upcoming Events

Monday, June 01, 2015

Dear Room 308 Families,

Yes, we are now into June, which, as I explained to the class today, means the beginning of their last month at ChurchillL  On the bright side, there are a ton of events on the horizon which are going to make this a fun filled month!

Two field trip forms are going home today, attached to a paper copy of this message.

The first is on June 9^th.  We will be traveling to Crystal Bay to visit our Pen Pals.  They have provided us with the bus to travel to their school (free of charge).  While there we will tour the facility, to see where and how they implement their special education programs for the students who attend the school.  We will also perform a couple of songs on Ukulele for their students, and then have some group snack and outdoor play time on their yard.  For anyone who was in attendance during the visit when the Crystal Bay students came to Churchill last month, it can easily be described as a magical experience.  Our class was so excited, and willing to connect with their pen pals, despite the variety of issues that makes each of these students ‘different abled’ that for that hour long visit it was obvious that there were a lot of barriers that disappeared.  We took away from that a different perspective on people who are ‘different abled’ and an understanding of how small acts can have great impacts on others. 

The second form you are receiving today is for a trip to Rogers Communication, in Westboro.  I have been working with the people at Rogers to set this trip up for a long time, so this is really exciting for me.  We will be traveling to the studio for a bit of a tour, some background learning on how a show is put together, to view the taping of a show, and to help with the production of a TV show.  It will be an action packed day, as we will start the day with our planetarium event at Churchill before we leave.  The overview is as follows:

8:15 – 9:45 – Planetarium Workshop @ Churchill

9:45 – Students depart Churchill on foot to walk along Byron Path to Rogers Communications building on Richmond, just west of Golden Avenue

10:00 – Studio tour, and programming starts

11:30 – Lunch break for 20 min

2:10 – Day’s programming ends at studio and students walk back to Churchill for a 2:30pm dismissal

Important dates to remember in the coming weeks are;

- June 9^th – Trip to Crystal Bay

- June 11^th – Alternative Schools Activity Day at Summit (more information to come)

- June 12^th – Rogers Trip

- the morning of Monday, June 22 – the grade 6 Honouring Ceremony (more information to come – including an afternoon trip to Dovercourt for field games)

- Thursday, June 25^th – the last day of school

                                                Hold on Tight, it is going to be a busy month!

Regards, Ray

Memories of MacSkimming...

Memories of MacSkimming…

These are a few fun, and random, memories that we will carry with us, from our time on the MacSkimming grade 6 overnight…

-My favourite experience from the MacSkimming trip was when I was able to sleep in until 6:30am, without any crying kids waking me up!  Ray

- One experience I will never forget is when we did predator and prey and Ray missed me with the ball :P - Yaro

-One of my memories is when I convinced Ray not to get me when we were playing Predator and Prey, by telling him that Yaro went “that way” when he hadn’t and Ray let me go!!!! -Miranda ;)

-One of my memories was all of the BUGS!😨-Cayley

- One of my memories was when I actually got away from Owen when he was chasing me during Predator and Prey. - Miranda

-One of my memories was failing so bad at the Fur Trade game that my team got a pitty beaver pelt from Owen. - Miranda

-One of my unforgettable experiences was during the fur trader game we found 9 boxes and none of them had are cards and the 10th box we found we had the things but there were no furs left.We passed by Owen and we told him our story and he gave us a pitty beaver.-Cayley

- One of my favorite memories of MacSkimming was on the second day and it was raining a lot. Another one of my favorite memories was the “chain of people when we were getting the bags off the bus

-Anna-

One of my memories at MacSkimming was when we were all 😎playing the Fur Trade game, and me and my friends were running away from teachers and parent volunteers were chasing us and we were carrying trade goods and we all had to get to this certain point where we could trade goods and such, then, we would have to do it all over again!

• Ben V.     

-(Jaidon) My favorite memory was when I played ‘predator and pray’ and sleeping in the cabins and I have a little condition with the woods from my old house in Quebec. not finished

- My favourite memory is the midnight walk, when I got all zen in the dark, and started to see in the dark and watch the rest of them

-One of my favourite memories from macskimming was when we played the fur trade game, it was really fun and we did well.

-My most memorable experience at macskimming was the campfire! I had an amazing time singing and dancing with all my friends! I really loved that we were all involved and everyone was into it! We were all moving and dancing and I really loved how some people got to lead some songs, it made it feel more of something we were running, not just an structured activity! I got lots of bug bites from my left hand being out there in the open for so long with my guitar, but it was still an amazing time to be with friends and make some more! - Vickie

-One of my favorite experiences from MacSkimming is when everyone was playing the Fur Trade game, the game was really fun and a little bit challenging! At one point my group found a fur but forgot where we got it. As we tried make it to the building we “got lost” and couldn't find the building where we could trade. We then ran into Owan and he made us rap Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. When we finished “rapping” we ended up releasing we had been walking (or running) in circles. When we finally got to the building to trade, the line was really, really long. We waited for a little bit then finally got in. We had to explain we didn't know where we got the fur. When we did we had to sing Let It Go from Frozen, the banker said that it was okay we didn't remember, and he appreciated our honesty, he then gave us more money.  - Gabby    

One of my memories is when…

• we played the Fur Trading game
• Also Predator and Prey

~Jacob~

- (Kasper) My favourite memory from MacSkimming. I loved the fur trading game. My team got caught a lot, but all we had to do was sing. In the end I wanted to play for longer but the time was up. I could have played the game ALL day.

-(Kasper) I loved the game Predator and Prey. I liked it because I was in the forest running so much. It was hard because I was always stuck in the mud and running away from other people (predator).

-my favourite part of macskimming was catching tadpoles and seeing what we could find in the pond  

-my favourite part  

-my favourite part was playing these two games fur trade and predator and prey.

-Kailee

-my favorite part of the trip was when we played the   

• My favorite part was playing fur trade and trying to run away from the teacher/parent volunteers. I also enjoyed playing pretaro and pray and getting the chance to run away. I had lot’s of fun.

-My favorite part about going to Macskimming was looking for birds and drinking tea at 6:00 in the morning.  I also liked playing the piano and talking to my friends at breakfast time. I hated a few of the campfire activities and being bitten by mosquitos~Kenny

-One of my memories

~ One word:BUGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!~Oceanna

Last Week's Photo Challenge

Last week our class took Rick Mercer's Photo Challenge, and here is some of what we created our of the photo he provided...

MacSkimming Overnight Trip!!!

My apologies for the lateness of this information getting to you "officially", but we were delayed with the processing of the paperwork for this trip due to labour issues.  That being said, things are full steam ahead, and the date for our adventure is next Wednesday, May 27, to Thursday, May 28th.

A package of information and forms is coming home today.
Please note that there is additional paperwork that needs to be returned, that differs from any other trip your child has taken to date.  You should be signing, and returning:
 1 - a field trip permission form, 
2 - an overnight permission form, 
3 - a sports/athletic activities information package.
This means that five pages of paper will be returned to the school, along with a cheque for $30.
The information package includes important details such as the times/dates, meal outlines, a map to the site, and information on food donations.  

Children will bring a litter-less lunch on the first day.  Morning snack, afternoon snack, dinner and night snack on the first day will be arranged, as well as breakfast, morning snack, lunch and afternoon snack on the second day.  All meals will be nutritious (ie.  Dinner will be salad, bread, meat and vegetarian lasagna, fruit, and juice.)  In keeping with the community approach of the school, and in an effort to keep costs as low as possible, we are asking for donations of food by each family to cover the items on our shopping list.  A website sign up, for food items you are willing to supply, can be found at this web address    

www.SignUpGenius.com/go/20F054DAEAD2EA7F94-food

Please return the forms ASAP so we can confirm numbers, and visit the site above.

The Mock Trial

Yesterday our class learned about how to put on a real trial or a mock trial, today we will be doing a mock trial. There are a lot of different roles in trials, like the Jude or the Witnesses. Each person in our class has their own special role or part. 

At this mock trial a alien community has recently decided that they and earth should become friends, so earth and them decided that some family's from earth and some family's from the alien planet should switch places and see how life on the other planet is. An alien family comes to earth with a son, Quirky and a daughter, Zirky. The sister decided the two should go to the mall. The boy alien goes into a electronic store and steals an iPod, the store owner see this and demands that he should go to jail. They soon all go on a Trial. 

There are something's that are important in this story...

- On the alien plant they do not use money

- The alien did not have known that he is not allowed to steal

And that is the story.

Some people have "bigger" parts then others, but all parts are very important.

Nat is Quirky, Vickie is Zirky, Cayley is Mrs. Jones, Ben is Mr. Smith, Jacob is Constable Chen, Anna is Mrs. Noodles, Ethan, Miranda and Jake are Prosecutors, Hunter, Katey and Jaidon are Lawyers, Sadie is a Court Clerk, Cohen, Aidan, Taylor, Felix, OC, Gavin and Kenny are the Jury, Gabby and Yaro are the Press, Leigha is the Bailiff and Kasper is the artist.