Today is:

Water Day!

You have ONE TASK for the day. That task is to HAVE FUN!!! As the weather promises to be lovely, try to get outside and enjoy the sunshine and a little bit of water. Some of you have swimming pools in your backyards.  If so, great! Have a family swim. Maybe you have a wading pool. Fill it with fresh water and splash around in it for a while. Others have sprinklers that can be set up. Turn it on and run through it. Perhaps you have some squirt guns, super soakers or even clean, plastic spray bottles. Fill them up and cool yourselves off with a spray or two. Take care and enjoy the afternoon together as a family. Take a picture and send it to Miss P. or myself on REMIND. We LOVE hearing from you and we get a real kick out of seeing the fun you and your family are having together. 

Boys and girls, always make sure that a parent or adult is present when you are playing around open water. We want you to BE SAFE as you are having fun today. 

We look forward to seeing and hearing about all of your 'water adventures.'

Our Final Day

Good morning! Can you believe that it is finally upon us--the last day of the 2019-20 school year? And what a year it has been. I am so very proud of each of you boys and girls and all that you have accomplished over these past ten months. You have had to face some interesting obstacles along the way. You persevered when things became challenging and you managed to surpass all of our expectations. Parents, this could not have happened without your hard work, diligence and dedication. You have been on the 'frontline' these past three and a half months. You receive top marks for all of your efforts in making sure that the learning continued while we were unable to come back together following March Break as a result of the need for social distancing. Bravo!!!

Next year promises to be equally as unique as the year that is now behind us. We are all awaiting guidance and direction from the Ministry of Education, Public Health and the DSBN as we anticipate what September is going to look like in our public schools. Stay connected by logging onto the DSBN website (www.dsbn.org) for the most up-to-date information and direction throughout the summer.

I wish for each and everyone of you a most happy, healthy and blessed summer. We ALL deserve a break. Take this time to relax, recharge and ponder the journey that has brought us to this moment. Take a moment to pat yourselves on the back. You have done a wonderful job. Celebrate that. Know that I will be there to support you when we return to Parnall in the fall, regardless of what that may look like. 

Happy summer, everyone. You are on my heart and in my thoughts always.

See you in September!

Mr. Pickett

Today is

BUBBLE DAY!

Either today or sometime this week, I hope that you will have a chance to get outside and have some fun with bubbles.

Here are a few activities to try while enjoying 'Bubble Day.'

1.  Start your bubble exploration by learning a bit about bubbles. Here is a quick video on YouTube that will help you  understand a bit about the make up and shape of bubbles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxU_QenIO54 

2.   Here is a fun activity that you might want to try. YOU WILL NEED AN ADULT'S HELP IN SETTING THIS UP. Try this activity outside with a brother, sister or friend. You will need a plastic, disposable water bottle for each person, dish soap (Dawn works really well), water, a spoon, a cutting tool (Exacto Knife) and a little bit of glycerin to help your bubbles maintain their shape. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJqPHI8z2hk

Try having a bubble race with a friend.

3.   While enjoying your bubbles, play your favourite music. 

a.     Make the biggest bubble imaginable.

b.    Count the number of bubbles one swipe or blow of the wand will make. Can you swipe or blow and make more than that?

How to Make Homemade Bubbles 

You can find lots of recipes on the web on how to make homemade bubbles. But don’t be fooled. Even if the ingredients list calls for “dish soap,” what it means is liquid dish detergent. Don’t bother trying to simply substitute real dish soap for dish detergent (or “dish liquid”) in a recipe. If you are using soap, you will need to use more dish soap and/or less water to get a soap solution you can blow bubbles with. You may want to try making my Homemade Dish Soap.

Dish soap does make bubbles, but they are modest, ephemeral things compared to the bodacious, sturdy, chemically-enhanced bubbles that dish detergents like Dawn or Joy produce. Bubble solution made from real soap is never going to produce bubbles the size of your VW Bug or bubbles that land, glistening, on the lawn and persist for 15 minutes before popping. But if lots of happy, healthy little bubbles will do you, then read on to learn how to make homemade bubbles!

Adding glycerin and/or sugar improves the quality of soap-based bubble solution a little, and, with soap, every little bit helps. Glycerin is a natural product you can buy in most drug stores. It’s generally considered to be reasonably safe and is used in foods, cosmetics, lubricants and many other consumer products. We’re not big fans of refined sugar, but adding a bit of granulated sugar (organic, please) to soap bubble solution is OK. An easy recipe detailing how to make homemade bubbles is available at the end of this article.

Helpful Hints on How to Make Homemade Bubbles

• Every brand of liquid dish soap is different, in both concentration and bubble quality. So you may have to experiment a bit to find one that works well for you. As you’re experimenting with how to make homemade bubbles, mix up a small batch and try it yourself before making a huge batch. You can save any batches that don’t work for refilling hand-washing soap dispensers.
• Sometimes a soap bubble solution works better if allowed to sit for a few hours or overnight.
• Soap bubbles sting if they pop in your face and the tiny droplets get in your eyes.
• Real soap bubbles leave very soapy spots when they pop, so save them for outdoor play or bathtub fun … or for when you are about to mop the floor anyway (and skip the soap in the mop bucket).
• Grated, unscented bar soap or soap flakes can be dissolved in hot water and substituted for the liquid dish soap in the recipe. You’ll have to experiment to find out how much to use. And be prepared for surprises. Depending on what oils or fats were used to make the soap — and how concentrated a solution you make — your bubble solution may solidify overnight into a gel. That’s good for cleaning, but not for making bubbles!

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Making Your Own Bubble Wands

Once you have perfected the bubble solution, then you need a magic wand to turn it into bubbles! You can use wands that came in bottles of commercial bubble solution or make your own. To make a bubble wand:

• Cut a length of uncoated wire about 12 inches long
• Make a three-quarter-inch to one-inch loop at one end (like a lollypop shape).
• Twist the ends firmly around the main section of the wire so no sharp ends protrude.
• Make a smaller loop at the other end, to help hang onto it when it gets all soapy-slippery.
• If your wire is too flimsy to hold firm when dipping and blowing, twist two or even three 14-inch lengths together first to make a stiffer cable. Then shape that into the proper shape.
• Multi-stranded twisted wire also provides nooks and crannies in the business end to hold more bubble solution than a bare wire or plastic loop.
• To blow clusters of bubbles, twist about 10 inches of two or three 14-inch strands of wire together. Make the big loop out of the untwisted section. Then slide the loops apart a bit so they overlap.

Pipe cleaners are often touted as an easy and readily-available wand material. But the cheap, brightly-colored “chenille stems” sold at dollar stores or chain craft stores are flimsy and loaded with nasty dyes and other toxins you don’t want tiny hands clutching. Plus, in our experience, they seem to interact with soap solution to make it less bubbly. You may have better luck with natural cotton pipe cleaners. These are great for all sorts of other kid-friendly crafts as well.

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Tips on Blowing Soap Bubbles

Now that you know how to make homemade bubbles, here are some tips on how to enjoy them!

• Dip the business end of your bubble wand into the bubble solution.
• Hold the loop in front of your face. Blow gently, but firmly, at the film of soap stretched across the loop.
• Once a bubble takes shape on the loop it may detach itself. Plus you can often launch a few small bubbles from a single dip.
• For larger bubbles, you need to blow just a little less firmly to slowly fill a bubble. Then give a gentle sideways movement or flick with the wand to seal the bubble and set it free.

It takes some trial and error to figure out how hard you need to blow to fill a bubble, but not pop it, and how to launch a large bubble. But that’s part of the fun!

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A Note on Making Giant Bubbles

With a bit of practice, you can blow lots of 4-inch and even a few 6-inch bubbles with soap bubble solution, but that’s about the upper size limit with soap bubble solution. Giant bubble aficionados rely on the most concentrated, bubbliest dish detergent (not soap) they can find. Then they add a polymer of some sort to make the bubbles even more durable. One polymer that works well with detergents is the all-natural product guar gum. But don’t get too excited. Unfortunately, when mixed with real soap, guar gum seems to have exactly the opposite effect on bubbles. The solution is, indeed, thicker. But it is useless for blowing even the tiniest bubble. So, if you want to make thicker, all-natural hand soap, guar gum is your friend, but forget it for homemade bubble solution when using dish soap.

Our Last Week Together

This will be our last week together for the 2019-2020 school year. For the next few days, we will celebrate with a special theme each day. You may opt in to do as much or as little as you like with the activities listed below. 

Today is: 

ICE CREAM DAY!

1. Plan to have a special ice cream treat with your family sometime today, if possible. You may wish to have a cone, a cup, a sundae or you might even want to create an amazing 'ice cream creation.' 

2. Have you ever wondered how ice cream is made? Check out this video on YouTube. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2egyyEOYg5w

3. What ice cream flavour is your favourite?  Do a survey. Ask 10 people the question: "What is your favourite ice cream flavour?" Write all of your data onto a piece of paper as you collect the responses that people give you. You might want to survey the people who live with you in your home or you could call your grandparents, aunts and uncles, neighbours and even...teachers. By the way, my favourite flavour is coffee flavoured ice cream. 😋
Once you have collected all ten responses, what did you learn? Can you show your data in a different way? Of the people whom you asked, what was the most popular flavour of ice cream? What was the least favourite? 

4. PROBLEM TO SOLVE...
Mr. Pickett, Miss Pietrobon and Mrs. Disher all went to the Ice Cream Parlour together. They each bought an ice cream cone. Mr. Pickett had 3 scoops, Miss Pietrobon had 2 scoops and Mrs. Disher had 2 scoops. How many scoops of ice cream did they have in all? 

😋 ENJOY ICE CREAM DAY!!! 😋

Weekly Blog Post

June 17-24, 2020

Happy Father’s Week! This week we will be celebrating our dads, or that significant male figure in your life. Father’s Day is June 24th, this upcoming Sunday. The activities contained in this post are intended to inspire your creativity and offer a few suggestions on how to celebrate your ‘Dad’ or that special someone who has come to mean so much to you over the past several years.

Belonging and Contributing:

- Go for a bike ride with dad. Be sure and wear your helmet.

- Play an outdoor game like catch, ring toss or lawn bowling.

- Prepare a simple breakfast for dad and serve it to him in bed. You could prepare cereal, peanut butter on bread and jam or a bagel with cream cheese. Serve him a glass of juice with breakfast. Remember, it is the thought that counts.

- Make dad a bow tie or a windsor knot tie out of construction paper or special coloured paper. Ask mom to create an outline of the tie for you. Cut it out and decorate it with markers and stickers. Don’t forget to include his favourite colour. Write a special message on it such as Best Dad Ever, Number 1 Pop or World’s Greatest Dad. He can tape it to the front of his shirt and wear it throughout the day on Sunday. Don’t forget to take some pictures of Dad in his new tie.

Self-Regulation and Well-Being:

- Make special plans to go on a fishing trip together. 

- Cook a meal together.

- Make something together. Try putting together a kite or assembling a puzzle together. 

- Make dad a crown and print on it ‘KING FOR A DAY!’

Demonstrates Literacy and Mathematics Behaviours:

- Listen to The Night Before Father’s Day, by Amy Wummer. Use the URL to access this book on YouTube.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqu0MwLvy8o

- Did you get any great deas about ways that you could surprise Dad on his special day?

- Make Dad a Father’s Day card. 

- Write Dad a special Father’s Day Book. Staple four pieces of clean paper together to make the book. Think of a ‘title’ that you’d like to use for the book. Write that on the front page. Don’t forget to draw pictures with lots of detail. Make it special. Dad will want to keep this special gift.

Using this sentence starter. . .

My dad is great because _________________. 

complete the book by adding pictures on each page and words which match what you have drawn. Practice reading it until you are comfortable sharing it with your dad. On Father’s Day morning, read the book to him. Be sure to give Dad lots of hugs and kisses.

Problem Solving and Innovation:

- Solve this problem:

Dad has three blue golf balls and six yellow golf balls in his golf bag. How many golf balls does he have in all?

- How can you be sure you solved the problem correctly? Which problem solving strategy did you use?  Draw a picture, Make a Model, Act it Out, Use Thinking Tools (manipulatives)?

How can you use the golf balls mentioned in the problem above to make a pattern? Can you make more than one pattern? What is the core for each pattern that you made?

Happy Father’s Day, Dad!!!

June is Brimming

 With Learning

Check out what some of our K-1 friends are busy learning this month.

GI gave the Firefighter Boot Problem a try. How did she do? How does your answer compare with GI's?

LS and LS set up a Water Cycle Experiment. Now, they are waiting to see what happens. Scientists do a lot of waiting.

Both LS and LS put together a puzzle.

MM loves to work alongside Mommy. She is enjoying a new app, Math Story Time, where she gets to listen to all sorts of math related books. 

Check it out!

PM created a new headband for her doll.

WM creates constellations out of Marshmallows.

BB builds his own marble maze.

BB designs a Jungle Monopoly game.

Blog Post Activities

June 10-17

Belonging and Contributing

This week, we are going to be focusing on Fire Safety and the work which our firefighters do in our community. Firefighters are FIRST RESPONDERS. These are the men and women who arrive on the scene first when there is a medical emergency or a fire in our city. 

- If you are out on a walk with your family and you happen to pass by a fire station, stop in and thank the firefighters who are on duty for all that they do to keep us safe and protected.

- Make cards or write a letter to thank firefighters for all that they do for us in our community. Either mail the letter or drop it off at the fire station personally.

Self-Regulation and Well-Being

- Create a ’Family Escape Plan’ with your parents. Rehearse the plan with everyone who lives in your house. For information on how to create a ‘Family Escape Plan,’ watch this short YouTube video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pFZHthhfa0

- Here are some fire safety rules for kids to know and respect.

1. Have a Family Escape Plan
2. Stay LOW and GO
3. Have a family meeting place away from your house
4. Call 911

Watch this YouTube video to learn more about Fire Safety Rules

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJlSJokQE4g

Demonstrates Literacy and Mathematics Behaviours

Literacy:

- Write a book about fire safety. Include some of the things you have learned so far.

- Make a Stop, Drop, and Roll poster to remind yourself and others what to do in case your clothing might catch on fire. For more information on Stop, Drop and Roll, watch this YouTube video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_Z6XFLEHkA

- Listen to The Fire Station, by Robert Munsch. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BruBEDQhoos

After enjoying the book, think about the answers to some of these questions.

- Who were the characters in the story?

- What happened at the ‘beginning of the story?’

- Was there a problem in the story? If so, what?

- What was Michael’s mother’s response when he came home and knocked on the door?

- What was Sheila’s father’s response when she came home and knocked on the door?

- How did the story end?

- How are Michael and Sheila different in the way that they think and what they want to do?

- What prediction do you have for what might happen next?

Mathematics:

Problem:  There are four firefighters working at the fire station. Each firefighter has 1 pair of boots at the station. How many boots are there in all at the station? How can you solve this problem? Don’t forget to explain what a ‘pair’ is. 

A Virtual Field Trip to PUMP 2, Linwell Road Fire Station in St. Catharines

Mrs. O’Neil from K-2 hosts this wonderful Virtual Fire Station Field Trip. Firefighter Cory and Firefighter Zach take you on a tour of Pump 2 Station on Linwell Road. 

- Where do firefighters get water to put out fires?

- What do firefighters wear when they go to a fire?

- Why do firefighters wear a tank on their backs when they fight a fire?

- Other than fighting fires, what are some other emergencies which firefighters help take care of?

- What is something that you need to have in your home to keep you and your family safe if a fire should break out?

https://youtu.be/K8E7L-iKT3M

A big ‘THANK YOU’ to Mrs. O’Neil for taking us on this wonderful learning adventure.