Summer holidays are almost here!  As you are planning long drives in the car, activities and games to play at the cabin, ideas to keep you busy during rainy days, or a list of fun for those “I’m bored” moments, keep these ideas in mind…

• Write a blog post!  Your blogs will be live over the summer, write to tell us about how your summer is going!
• Read!  Take a visit to your local library or bookstore and dig into a new book or better yet a new series!  Then, tell us all about it in a blog post 😉
• Create!  Write a story, paint a picture, draw the scenery you see around you, or draw a portrait of your family.
• Play math games!  Check out the links on our blog to play some fun math games online, or brush up on your addition and subtraction facts by playing the games featured below in this post…see the pictures for instructions on a few games you can play with just a deck of cards or dice!

Whatever you do to fill your days this summer, make sure to enjoy every minute as it will surely go fast.  Have fun, be safe, relax and enjoy this time with your family.  Happy summer!

It has been a whirlwind of field trips lately!  We took another one last week when we traveled to the U of S to meet up with some university students, studying agriculture and biology.  During our visit, they took us to three different university labs to share their knowledge and expertise with us.

First up was a lab to learn about plants.  We talked about the parts of plants and the life cycle of plants.  We also learned a lot about how plants are used.  Did you know that plants don’t just provide food for us, but also some clothing materials and medicines?!  While visiting this lab, we got to plant our very own plant!

Next we took a very smelly walk over to the dairy barn that’s on campus.  Over 100 females cows are kept in this barn!  They are milked, some of them have babies and some are being studied by scientists.  We learned all about the milking process and how milk travels from these cows, and finally ends up in grocery stores!  Did you know some of these cows get milked several times a day?

Lastly we went to a lab to learn about soil.  Our leaders taught us about the different layers of soil and what soil is made up of.  In this lab, we got to build our own soil sample out of edible treats!  Chocolate chips represented bedrock, vanilla cookie crumbs represented weathered rock, chocolate pudding was used to show subsoil, chocolate cookie crumbs (with gummy worms) represented the top soil and finally on top, green sprinkles represented the organic matter.  Our soil sample sure was delicious!

We are so grateful we have places like the U of S with experts who can teach us.  It was another fun afternoon of hands on learning!

Canola, wheat, potash oh my!  Our class learned about all of these things and more during our visit to the Food Farms last week!  This extremely fun trip is organized by Agriculture in the Classroom and allowed us to learn all about plants and agriculture in Saskatchewan with our very own hands!

We had to travel a little ways out of the city to a farm field.  We spent the whole morning at the field, going to 9 different learning station.  Each learning station focused on a different topic about agriculture including:

• potash and how it is mined and how it is used for fertilizer
• farm safety and being careful around machinery and chemicals
• dairy farming and how cows are taken care of
• uses of canola
• uses of wheat and how farmers protect their crops from disease
• planting herbs
• planting vegetables
• uses of soy beans

We got to do a lot of hands on planting of herbs and vegetables and we even got to to plant a row of vegetables that will be grown and harvested for the Saskatoon Food Bank.

It was a very fun field trip that helped us learn even more about plants and soil and the important role that agriculture plays in Saskatchewan!

Last week our class took a little trip to an area called the Northeast Swale.  Most of us had never even heard of this place before, but after spending a couple of hours exploring with our guide Kenton, we sure can tell you a lot!

The Northeast Swale is a large piece of prairie that contains wetland and grasslands located right here in Saskatoon!  As soon as we arrived, Kenton taught us how to use binoculars and we set out to discover what this area was all about.  We learned about many animal and bird species that make their home in the swale.  We saw geese, mallard ducks and avocets.  We watched the ducks tip their heads underwater to find food as the avocets swam around them in the pond.

Did you know many animals live in the swale?  As we followed a cut trail we were lucky enough to spot a couple of Richardson ground squirrels.  They were funny to watch as they kept popping their heads up out of their hole in the ground.  Speaking of holes, we had to walk really carefully so we didn’t trip on any of the holes those squirrels made!  Deer also live around the swale, but unfortunately we didn’t see any.

During our hike through the Northeast Swale, Kenton taught us a lot about the grasses and plants.  He showed us how to recognize sage, a spicy smelling plant, and lichen.  Some of the lichen growing in this area is 9500 years old!  We also learned about Kentucky Blu e Grass, which actually never used to live in the swale, but started growing there as homes and neighbourhoods grew closer to the area and people began planting their own yard grasses and plants.  This is one example of how humans can affect natural habitats.

As our city grows and gets even closer to the swale area, it has become even more important to protect this land and the plant life, animals, birds and creatures that make their home there.  One way we can help, is to teach others about the swale so that they understand what makes it such an important piece of nature.  

Have you ever wondered what’s actually in the ground under our feet?  In science, we have been studying soil and investigating what makes up soil, different kinds of soil and what the connection between plants and soil and soil and animals really is!

We have been getting our hands real dirty as we have explored soil samples taken from some mystery places.  We used our senses to describe the colour, texture and particles we found in soil.  In doing this, we found that soil is made up of organic and inorganic parts!  Organic parts are the components of soil that are, or were living, while the inorganic stuff has never been living, like rocks or sand for example.

Through some books we read from our school library, we found that the ground under us has different layers.  The deepest layer is the bedrock layer, made up of mostly rock and clay.  Next comes the subsoil layer and the topsoil layer.  Roots from plants and trees reach into these layers.  Finally on the top, is the humus, the layer with the most organic material in it!

To find out exactly what was in our three mystery soil samples, we added them to a jar of water and let them sit for three days.  Over the three days, our soil samples settled and the heavier parts of the soil (clay, rock, sand) sunk to the bottom of the jar, while the lighter parts of the soil (the organic parts) floated to the top!  It was neat to see how each sample was so different!  One sample had mostly heavy parts that sunk, while another sample had mostly light parts that all floated to the top!  One sample had a good mix of both heavy and lightweight parts so some of it sank and some of it floated.  We discovered that soil that has an equal mixof these components is called loams, and is actually the best growing soil for plants!  The heavy parts help hold in water, but the lighter parts help give nutrients and allow there to be air in the soil!

Did you know that soil is important for helping plants get all the nutrients they need to grow?  This is important for us as humans since so much of our food comes from plants!  Many animals also use soil to protect themselves, and for their homes.  Soil is important and we must do our part to keep it clean from litter and chemicals!

Our class joined up with our friends in Miss Winberg’s FLS class to decorate the school’s front entrance display case for the month of April.  When we think of April we think of spring (hopefully!) and Easter so we decided to create a display that incorporated both of these ideas.  Using a form of painting that was new to us, marble painting, we created some spring coloured marble Easter eggs to fill up the showcase.  Here’s how we did it…

First we filled a foil pan with shaving cream!  This part was super fun, but also super smelly!

Next we used acrylic paint and squirted dabs of spring colours all over the shaving cream.

Then we used coffee stir sticks to stretch the paint in lines all through the shaving cream.

We each took a piece of card stock paper and dipped it onto the coloured shaving cream.  We had to push down on the paper to make sure that the entire paper got coated in the coloured cream.

Our paper then had to sit and dry for almost an entire day!

Finally we scraped off the dried up shaving cream, that was now mostly powder and what was left was a beautiful marble paint pattern left on the paper.  We simply cut egg shapes out of the paper and voila, we had our decorations for the showcase!

Working on this art project allowed us to display some leadership as we helped and guided our friends in FLS through the painting process and gave us an opportunity to work with some new painting techniques and materials.  Be sure to swing by the front entrance of the school to check out our display before the arrival of May!

Did you know that February was Indigenous Storytelling Month in Saskatchewan?  Winter is a traditional time for storytelling in First Nations and Metis cultures when knowledge, traditions and culture have been passed down from generation to generation through oral storytelling.  Here at Hugh Cairns, we had the opportunity to have 2 different guests visit us to share their stories and culture.  First was Tim, a traditional knowledge keeper who came to share his Dakota language and stories with us.  Then Rita Bouvier made a visit to speak to all of the grade threes.  Rita is a Metis author and storyteller.  She began by teaching us some words in the Michif language.  Then she shared some stories about her family and Metis legends and about how we are all connected in this world.  She ended her presentation by reading us her book “Better That Way”.  We enjoyed listening to her and learning about Metis culture.  We were so lucky to have these opportunities to participate in Indigenous Storytelling Month!

Over the past two months, we have been studying graphic novels.  We have been reading graphic novels and closely examining how authors use pictures/images, speech bubbles, narration text, and sound effects to tell a story clearly.  We focused our learning on how to read a graphic novel (the order of panels, speech bubbles, etc.) and how make sense of these text features and gather clues from them.  Students then worked to plan their own story, and publish it in a graphic novel format.  The students’ work was impressive!  They came up with some interesting problems for their characters to face and work to solve!  Yesterday we spent some time sharing our work with our classroom friends, reading each others’ graphic novels and presenting our partner with 2 stars, or 2 aspects of graphic novel work that they did well!  Tonight, students are bringing home their graphic novel to share with family and friends.  I hope you enjoy your child’s work as much as we did!  We are excited to take our story telling to the next level and create even more complex problems/solutions for our characters to face in upcoming story writing projects!

Our class has been so busy with writing over the last month!  Up until now in grade three, we have been learning how to write a strong paragraph that has a brilliant beginning that catches the reader’s attention, includes interesting details and closes in a way that leaves the reader thinking, or with a feeling.

We have now begun talking about how to create longer pieces of writing by expanding our details about a topic and organizing them into multiple paragraphs.  The topic of our first multiple paragraph report focused on gorillas.  During our read aloud time we have been reading the novel “The One and Only Ivan”, which is about a gorilla who lives in a domain in a mall.  We had many questions about how his life in the mall compares to how a gorilla lives in the wild, and this lead us to do some research.

On their own, students did some guided research about gorillas using our school division databases.  They read the information and gathered their own jot notes.  After learning about how we can organize our information into subtopic paragraphs, students then got to work on writing a multiple paragraph report that included an introduction paragraph, detail/information paragraphs and a closing.  We also looked at how we can use transition/guide words like “first, next, also and lastly” to help guide our readers through our long piece of writing.  The students have worked on all steps of this first extended piece of writing and have shared them on their blogs!  Be sure to visit each student’s blog and check out their new knowledge about gorillas in the wild!

Ho! Ho! Ho!  Hugh Cairns School is once again participating in the “Be a Santa to a Senior” program organized by Home Instead.  Our class offered to put together gifts for one grandpa and one grandma this year.  Students went home and did chores around the house to earn $3-5 that they then brought in to donate for the gifts.  I am so pleased to announce that we collected $73.60!  Thanks to the hard work and generosity of our students we were able to purchase all of the suggested gift items for our adopted grandparents.  For our grandpa, we bought a fuzzy warm sweater and two boxes of delicious Christmas chocolates and for our grandma, we bought an undershirt, a fuzzy warm sweater and some unscented lotion.  To finish off the the gift bags, students added cards that they had created and decorated with beautiful messages for a Merry Christmas to each of our seniors.  Big thanks go out to all grade 3 students who helped make this Christmas a little brighter for our fellow community members!