Thank you for your understanding and patiences since the announcement regarding student classes being cancelled this past Sunday afternoon. Staff have been meeting since Monday in regards to what the days, weeks and months to come will look like.

I miss seeing the students faces and listening to their laughter. The classroom is eerily quiet at this time. I do hope you were able to come into the school today, during your scheduled time, to collect your personal belongings.

We are all working plans for learning after Spring Break. For the time being, please refer to the Learning from Home document that is housed on the CBE website.

https://cbe.ab.ca/programs/curriculum/learning-at-home/Pages/default.aspx

Take care of each other during this time. Enjoy the extra family time!

Students in Room 4 had an amazing time on Tuesday during our morning Central Library Tour and afternoon East Village scavenger hunt. We collected data in our visual journals so that we could do more of a comparative study back at school with our field study at Fish Creek Hull's Wood. Students took the time to look for evidence of how man made systems and human systems are interrelated AND the difference in waste found in East Village compared with Fish Creek Park.





The students will be coming home with an Aggie Days Field Study form today. This field study takes place on Wednesday, April 1st. These forms are due back prior to Spring Break. We currently have 2 volunteers for this trip. Please let me know if you can volunteer for this experience.

Parent Conferences will be taking place next Thursday from 3:30-7:30pm and Friday from 8:00-12:00pm. Please sign-up online when you have the opportunity. These conferences will be 15 minutes in length, with a focus on the students showcasing their learning to this date.

Spring Break begins for students on Friday, March 20th and runs until Monday, March 30th. Classes resume for students on Tuesday, March 31st.

We also had a whole class discussion about the current virus that has been in the news lately. We spoke about the importance of hand washing, coughing/sneezing into your elbow and staying home sick when necessary. Please continue to have these conversations with your child at home.

Today we had our third session with Ms. Sarah our Artist in Residence. If you recall from last week, the students of Maple Ridge School are working on developing their photography skills through multi mini lessons. We had an amazing session this afternoon where the students became the teachers. Please ask your son/daughter about the Elements of Photography that they needed to include in their images.

We are looking for a surplus of volunteers for our Central Library/Downtown scavenger hunt field study next Tuesday, March 10th. Please let me know if you can volunteer. It would be great to see you!

We will also be heading to Aggie Days on Wednesday, April 1st for the day. This would be another field study that we would like to have a surplus of volunteers as smaller groups work best as we navigate the Stampede Grounds. Please let me know if you can offer your services this day.

On Thursday, March 5th, Evergreen Theatre will be coming to our school. The title of the production is Wicked Witch of the Wetlands.

The Grade 1 Celebration of Learning will be taking place on Friday, March 6th. Our class will be taking a look at the learning of the students in Room 10 this morning.

Reminder to all families that this weekend we Spring Ahead with our clocks-are you ready to lose an hour of sleep!!!

Student-Led Conferences will take place Thursday, March 19th and Friday, March 20th. Spring Break for students occurs all of the next week.

I wonder....
*if in the future that people will have to have their own landfills in their backyards (J)
*if Calgary will solve the problem of being able to decompose the garbage in the landfills (E)
*if we will solve the problem of leachate in the ground water (C)
*if landfills will get smaller over the years (A)
*why there are only 3 landfills in Calgary (B)
*where we will put our waste in the future (A)
*if leachate will get into Calgary's water system (Z)
*if Calgary will become as clean as Singapore (K)
*if one day the black, blue, and green bins will become 1 (B)
*how much garbage Calgary produces in 1 day (A)
*what the first landfill looked like (L)
*when the first landfill was constructed (T)
*if the people of Calgary will ever stop littering (M)
*what happens when there is no more space for waste (M)
*if they will put a dome over the landfills (D)
*if the students will start to be more aware of what they put in their bins (C)
*if there will be the need for landfills in the future (D)

Today was Pink Shirt Day at Maple Ridge School. The students and I read a story titled Only One You and discussed the importance of being unique and standing out from the crowd when appropriate. We also spoke about acceptance and showing kindness to all that surround us, even though we may not necessarily agree with everything that is said or implied.

It would be greatly appreciated that a further discussion at home over dinner about kindness and acceptance be had by all families. I also spoke to the students about how one should be kind to others everyday and that waiting for Pink Shirt Day is necessary.

Please ask your son/daughter about the kindness task we did with the rocks this afternoon that I asked students to bring in. My request for rocks will hopefully be clear to you then after their explanation. Students are encouraged to bring in more rocks to paint on tomorrow!

Students have been working on constructing and interpreting both bar graphs and pictographs. We can spoken a great deal on the criteria required for a bar graph, weather is is vertical or horizontal. Please ask your child the criteria necessary for a graph (ie. title, legend, scale, labels). Today students gave each other feedback on their first attempt of creating a pictograph.

We have also taken our data collected from our Fish Creek field study and constructed a large Venn Diagram, visible to all! From there, we created a bar graph to illustrate the benefits to humans, nature, and both of having a park located in an urban area.

Tomorrow is Pink Shirt Day! Please wear pink (or related hue) to support the day. We will be looking at how to spread kindness among our classroom peers and school community. If possible, could your son/daughter please bring a rock to school tomorrow afternoon.

Please ask your child to tell you about our Artist in Residence and the topic of focus (photography).

All grade 4 students also had a presentation from Green Calgary. Please ask your child about their experience during the presentation. Students completed a writing task this afternoon for me as I wasn't in attendance for the presentation. They were asked to include at least 5 scientific words that were discussed during the presentation.

Our next field study is Tuesday, March 10th - we are heading to the Central Library in the morning and the students will be completing a downtown scavenger hunt in the afternoon. If you can volunteer, please let me know. Please email me at tdgiffen@cbe.ab.ca.