Today I bid a fond farewell to the best teaching partner ever.

We will miss you Ms. M. 

We wish nothing but the best for you and your beautiful growing family. 

I also wish everyone a safe, restful and wonderful break.

See you all in January!

Today we worked on a beautiful tissue paper mitten craft. These will go up on our bulletin board for a while and then they will go home for your refrigerator gallery.

We received a wonderful surprise from Mr. Taweel's grade seven class. They made beautiful cards for each of us. Please look in backpacks to find the cards. Thank you Mr. Taweel's class!

Here are the grade sevens visiting us to deliver the cards.

Here is an example of the thoughtful cards.

We started the day spreading some kindness by creating notes of encouragement for another class in our school. Such beautiful messages from beautiful little people.

The sun was shining and the birds were happy to come and get food. We are getting better at standing still and quiet and so we all tried feeding the birds. A wonderful calming time in the forest. Look carefully at the pictures and you'll see the birds coming for a visit and a snack.

For Mindful Monday Ms. Babcock had us thinking about the things that warm our hearts. Things like hugs, family, food, sharing and kindness keep our hearts warm and keep us feeling good.

Ms. Babcock read the book The Mitten. We will be doing a variety of mitten related activities this week. 

 Ms. M, Ms. Babcock and I wanted to show our deep gratitude for having such wonderful young people to work with each day. Hopefully you received our gifts after school today. Many thanks for being such wonderful families to work with!

I wonder what amazing and beautiful art work this could be? Shhhhh... don't tell. Its's a secret gift for our families!

We had so much fun in the gym today!

Scooter boards!

"Basketball" sort of... but close!

Soccer!

Beanbag toss!

What a beautiful day for outdoor learning! We had our first (of many hopefully) try at feeding the birds. We learned that the chickadees need lots of food in the winter to help keep them warm. We fed them black sunflower seeds as they provide good fat for the birds. Not everyone was able to feed today - but we will go again and again through the winter to give everyone a try.

Here I am showing the children how to attract the birds. I never get tired of this - its so magical!

Waiting patiently...

Lucas meets a friend!

Coming in for a landing on Jerry's hand!

For Mindful Monday Ms. Babcock continued the conversation around how we can help ourselves if we are in the red or blue zone. She talked about thinking of a "Happy Place". It might be a place or it might be a person that helps us to feel better. Sometimes just thinking of our Happy Place helps us to feel better, we don't have to actually be there.

"My happy place is at Skyzone."

"My happy place is the beach."

"My happy place" Home.

Moraine Hills is working on two kindness projects in the month of December. A toy drive and a food drive. If you are able, you could donate non-perishable food items or new toys for those who could use some help this winter season.

In the spirit of Phyllis's Orange Shirt and discussion around residential schools, we each took time this week to think about something special that reminds us of home when we are not at home. Some beautiful thought went into this. A toy, a blanket, or a favourite meal (amongst so many other things!) can all connect us to home.

November (and some October) work went home today. Please look in backpacks to find a package of learning and celebrate all of the hard work!

Ms. M is not the only one having a baby in our class! Our spider plants are having all kinds of babies! It is so exciting. We are each going to grow our own baby plants.

Here is the mommy plant. You can see the babies growing on the right side of the picture.

We each cut off one baby plant. Don't worry- it doesn't hurt the mommy plant or the baby plant. It needs to be cut off to grow.

Here is the baby plant ready to grow on its own!

Here is our class plant nursery. The babies are not in soil yet - they are in water - we are waiting for the roots to grow. We will continue to observe and watch over our plants and when we see roots, we will plant them in soil. Stay tuned!

 A beautiful day for outdoor learning!

First we visited Sharkey. We observed that Sharkey has almost no leaves left at all.

The snow was amazing for packing into balls and rolling to make them bigger (but not for throwing of course!). We had an outdoor math lesson on comparing and ordering the snowballs by size.

For Mindful Monday we learned a calming technique called "Fist squeeze" When we are feeling in the red zone (or maybe yellow) you imagine all of your energy in your hands. Make your hands into a fist - real tight- then imagine that you release that energy as you release your hands from the fists. 

We also started a system of zones check-in each day. First thing in the morning, we find our personal clothespin and clip it to the zone colour that we are feeling as we start the day.

Ms. Babcock continued our learning about "home". She read Phyllis's Orange Shirt. We talked about how when we are not at home, we can have something special that reminds us of home. Like Phyllis's orange shirt that her Grandma bought for her. We are continuing this conversation this week - including thinking about what comfort object reminds us of home? and  thinking about what it might be like if someone took our special object of home away from us.

Zones week comes to a close, but we will continue to use the zones vocabulary to explain how we are feeling. I hope you will also consider mirroring this at home for consistency.

Quote of the day that made our hearts sing: " I was in the blue zone, but now I am in the green. I'm feeling better." ~ Ben

Earlier this week, Ms. Babcock did some graphing around the zones.

We played emotions Bingo - connecting each emotion to one of the zones.

Reminders: 

Library will be on Fridays until the winter break (and beyond)

Tuesday is picture day!

Zones week continues with our look at the red zone.

It is extremely difficult to learn or focus when we are in the red zone. We maybe feeling angry, very scared, or overly excited. 

Our ability to have a conversation or listen to others is hampered and we cannot think straight.

We can help ourselves when we are in the red zone by talking deep breaths, counting slowly to ten, going for a little walk or listening to calming music.

Here are our reflections after learning about the red zone:

 Zones Week continues with our look at the blue zone.

The blue zone is generally connected to low energy. We maybe feeling tired, sad, bored or sick. It is difficult to learn when we are feeling this way.

Here are some of our reflections after learning about the blue zone: