Dear Parents,
I hope you all had a nice week!
Here is a quick snapshot of the past 2 weeks in our class:
The Visual Arts workshop was fabulous ! We successfully built ''different houses of our community'' project out of recycled material and we will display it at the Eco-fair on April 28th. Thank you to Ms Chris for helping us with this project! Here are some pictures of our finished work:
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Big thanks to Ms Adler for the 2 Pilate sessions provided: students enjoyed it a lot and learnt new things for sure!
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The Science topic about Liquids and Solids was finished with its last project: building a floating boat. here are some pics :
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This coming week....
The Measuring Math project is due tomorrow, Monday, the 11th. This is the final project for the Measuring unit, and we are moving to Data management and Probability. Please stay updated to some suggested at home support to be sent via red homework duotang.
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The
International Day of Pink Committee has put together a great week of activities for our students.
We encourage everyone at Humewood to wear pink on
Wednesday, April 13th in support of diversity.
A series of activities will take place in our school, as follows:
1. In Mr. Singbeil's class, students will look at a variety of media texts produced that explore "The Day
of Pink" and look at the messages in the texts. They will examine Public Service Announcements,
School-made videos, as well as the Day of Pink websites. In addition they will create posters to promote
the "Day of Pink" and build awareness of the issues surrounding the Day of Pink.
2. During Library periods with Mr. McNamara, students will share some picture books. The
kindergarten students will be learning about and discussing how at Humewood CS we accept and
celebrate differences.
3. Mme Cumbaa and Mr. McNamara will be be hosting workshops for students in grades 5-8.
4. Mme Clark and Mr. Singbeil will be creating a large outline of a shirt on top of the water fountain by
the washrooms on the main floor (by the back doors). Each class will be given pink pieces of papers
and each student can write a pledge and/or a reflection on the paper.
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Nurture Through Nature Accepting Schools Grant:
Our school would like to help our students find additional outlets for expression and
mindfulness. We put forward a grant request and we were successful in receiving
some funding for this initiative. Last year we introduced mindfulness, visual arts and
music as forms of expression and this year we would like extend our awareness by
introducing a “nurture through nature” theme.
We already emphasize walking and
biking to school as healthy outlets and we want to enhance our garden and
connections to the outdoors with an overall “green care” set of strategies to promote
wellness.
We will be creating a sensory garden with indigenous plants that invite
butterflies, healing and sacred plants such as sage used in First Nations communities
and additional aromatic plants. We will also be creating a wish tree that will be a
collaborative outdoor art installation.
We are working in partnership with the Suzuki
Foundation to host assemblies about planting seeds and growing seedlings and every
student will plant and grow at least one seedling that they will plant in the garden.
Prior to outdoor planting, the seedlings will grow indoors in our library or in
greenhouses that were made by students.
Steps to build our well-being sensory garden include:
Step 1: Tuesday, April 12th
– Suzuki Foundation Assemblies
Step 2: During the week of April 18th, classes will be invited to the library to have
each student start the seedling growth process. Students will be provided with
starter soil, seeds and a little container. They can grow on any windowsill or in
some of the greenhouses being made by students.
Step 3: During the week of April 25th, classes are invited to come out and help
rehabilitate the soil in the bed area. We will stake out the bed so it is clear which
area will house the plants. We hope to have triple mix and compost on hand.
Step 4: On the evening and day of April 28th and beyond, classes are invited to
come and plant their seedlings in the designated area.
Step 5: Classes and families are also invited to plant established plants and we
will share a list of preferred species.
Step 6: We will be creating a wish tree and you are invited to have students draft
wishes in class and then place them on our wish tree.
Our hope is that this sensory garden will evolve over time based on your
involvement, input and student ideas.
Step 7: During the week of May 9th, Martha Toulouse, our Ojibwe language
teacher, will host workshops on the 4 medicines: sage, tobacco, sweet grass
and cedar.
Please note some updates added to April`s Calendar.
Blue Jays tickets will be sent home tomorrow, Monday, April 11.
Please email me if you have any questions.
Have a nice week!
Mme Paraschiv
