Thursday, June 30, 2011

happy summer reading!

The Blair Library is closed for the summer!

Have a wonderful summer with your families and I can't wait to hear what great books you've read over the summer when I see you in September!
Ms Novakowski

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

butterflies!

Our little caterpillars made themselves chrysalids and within a week, emerged as butterflies! It's been an exciting process to observe.



The students have been representing the life cycle of the butterfly in diagrams and most recently, using drawing programs on the new iPads.




Today, most of the classes gathered on the back field to watch 10 of the butterflies be released.

Ms Novakowski

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

summer reading program

Today we had the children's librarian from the Brighouse branch of the Richmond Public library visit our Blair library to share information about the summer reading club. The students were shown this year's record-keeping book, bookmarks, stickers and posters with the theme Savour Every Word. There are lots of free programs at the library this summer and registration begins June 22nd.
Students in grades 6 and 7 can also register for the national Teen Reading Club online at www.teenrc.ca

I hope we have lots of Blair students reading this summer!
Ms Novakowski


Tuesday, June 7, 2011

creating recipes

Cookbooks have been very popular in circulation this year and I have ordered several new titles to keep up with the demand! The students have enjoyed the Roald Dahl and Star Wars cookbooks in particular.


 


Mr. Hoath is working with divisions 1 and 2 on creating healthy recipes as part of the Health and Career Education curriculum. The following websites are useful tools as you can enter the ingredients you would like to use to make dinner, for example, and a collection of possible recipes using those ingredients is shared.

www.allrecipes.com
For this website, go to the ingredient search on the top tab bar and enter multiple ingredients. You can also add ingredients you don't want to use which is great for families with food allergies or other necessary food omissions.

www.recipematcher.com
On this website, you can search by selecting one ingredient at a time at the bottom of the page and then once you have a list of ingredients compiled, you can search for recipes including those ingredients.

www.supercook.com
On this site, you can enter one key ingredient and see what recipes come up!

Following recipes is a specific type of reading that students need experience with and of course, there are all sorts of opportunities to use mathematical concepts and skills when cooking and baking!
Ms Novakowski

the caterpillars are growing!

25 little caterpillars were delivered to the Blair Library on May 26. When they arrived they were about 5 days old and were so tiny! By June 1 they had grown so much and the students from K-7 have been observing the changes and growth. Intermediate students have been reading for information about this life cycle and doing some note-taking while the primary students have been reading some stories about caterpillars and butterflies and comparing the stories to information/science books about these insects.


Come by for a visit!
Ms Novakowski