Chicks, Cedars and Ribbons

Here are a few photos from yesterday (I didn't have time to post...)

Today, we had some special visitors. The classes in the open area outside or classroom has been hatching chicks and some of them came to say hello to our class today.

We let them explore our carpet for a while.

We loved watching them experience new things for the first time.

We have been talking and learning about Aboriginal people and their traditional ways of life. In doing so, we learned about the cedar tree and its importance. We learned that cedars were used to build homes, canoes, to make clothing, baskets, sleeping mats, and bowls. Cedar is used to carve totems and decorative items. 

We went on a cedar walk today, learning how to identify a cedar. We found several on and around our school grounds. First we looked at the bark and noticed that it is stringy.

Then we looked at the branches, we noticed that the foliage is flat and smooth and kind of shiny.

Then we looked through the forest to see if we could find any more cedars.

We know this isn't a cedar, but it was interesting for other reasons. We talked about what could have created these holes and patches. Some of us thought it might have been a beaver, others thought it was a woodpecker. Through lots of questioning and wondering, we came to the conclusion that it must have been a woodpecker or other similar bird. 

We also noticed fungi on the forest floor.

We found a "baby" cedar and rubbed the leaves and then smelled our fingers to see what a cedar smells like.

We found cones on a cedar tree and talked about the fact that they are not called pine cones when they are on a cedar tree, they are called cedar cones. We talked about why trees have cones, what their important job is....

We found this tree in Gerry's garden and noticed that the leaves look very much like a cedar's. We examined all of the other aspects of the tree (shape, bark, cones, smell) and decided that this is not a cedar.

Two viking ships!

We had our first Km Club ribbon ceremony today. Everyone in our class received a 10km ribbon! Sorry for the blurry picture, I was trying to be quick....maybe too quick!

Have a great weekend! Next Tuesday is class and school panorama photo day.