Dec 19

Students worked very hard today to finish their work in time for the break, while we still have a little bit to do, I am very proud of their effort today. 

I set up a scholastic account and flyers have been sent home today with students. Parents pick a FREE Book (worth $7 or less) when they spend $30 or more online! Share Coupon Code: CLIFFORD

Our GOTD was the classic love story of Eurydice and Orpheus.

In the afternoon we watched The Secret Garden and some festive Mr. Bean.

Thank you all so much for the cards and gifts, I feel very spoilt! 

Wishing you all a wonder winter break.

Mr Richardson

18 Dec

We are trying to get our work finished before the break. Today we worked on our Science posters on decibels and some of us worked on our English work " If I lived in a snow globe".  While researching for our posters we found out the sperm whale is the loudest animal on earth!

We read another chapter of Granny which left us on a real cliffhanger - Joe was rescued from the Grannymatic Enzyme Extractor by a mystery savior. Who could it be!?

We visited our reading buddies in Kindergarten and then had a dance party.

We watched some more of the Neverending Story while we ate our lunch.

Our GOTD was the Queens Corgis. We found out that dogs have been a part of The Royal Family for at least 150 years. We learned how Susan, the corgi who bit the police officer and the Royal Clock Winder, was a gift from the Queen's father King George VI. We looked at how Corgis come from Wales which lead to a brief talk about the nations that make up United Kingdom. We learnt that the word corgi is a combination of the Welsh words for 'dwarf' and 'dog'.


Tomorrow's clue is :  Where did Orpheus go to rescue his bride? Oh the power of music!

17 Dec

Today's GOTD was The Great Fire of London.

Tomorrows clue: The Queen has several. Susan even bit the royal clock winder and a police officer!

Today we did a reading comprehension text about gardens that we will continue to work on tomorrow.

In PE we continued to practise our skiing and snowboarding skills and Madame Moreau popped in to do some daily maths.

We read some more of Granny. Granny has taken Joe to The Golden Granny Awards and we left on a real cliffhanger- Joe got captured in a net.

We continued on our letters from yesterday and in science we had a review quiz using a really cool app that scans our responses using answer cards called plickers.

We were also visited by Madame Jenn and her baby Beckett which was a lovely end to the day.

Dec 16

Today we got some very exciting news from the UK. As you may remember a few weeks ago, we listened to a silly song about crumble. Well, as students keep requesting to listen to the song, I decided to write to the singer to see if we could write some letters to her to practise how to write formal correspondence. She was over the moon to hear how Varsity Acres students loved her song and she sent us as festive version of her song translated into French. She also sent us signed copies of her CD and book, and has asked students to try and rewrite a section of her chorus (which we will do in the new year). She is going to judge the entries and issue a video greeting and a prize certificate to the winner.

Our GOTD was the plague. It led to an interesting talk about how science and medicine has evolved greatly. Although the bubonic plague is still around, it is very treatable with modern medicine.

The clue for tomorrow is: Now we know about the bubonic plague outbreak of 1665, just wait until you find out what happened on Pudding Lane the following year. What an unlucky time to be alive!

In PE we were very lucky to be visited by Canadian paralympian John Leslie. He helped us practice our skiing and snowboarding skills. He spoke about his cancer, showed us how his prosthetics work and thanked us for our hard work during the Terry Fox run which benefitted people like him.

We had music with Madame Zdrill and in French students were given their choice of writing task :

1. To write to Santa in French - because he speaks all languages, right?
2. To write a letter to Mr. Richardson explaining their plans for the winter break.

We will continue these tomorrow and I am very eager to read them.

We read a little bit more of Granny and watched a little bit more of the Neverending Story during lunchtime.  (For those familiar with the film, I gave plenty of notice to students about the horse in the Swamp of Sadness - it still gets me to this day).

We had Math with Madame Moreau and then we went to visit our reading buddies where we played some French games.

We are still collecting for the Calgary food bank until we break up for the holidays. Any donations are hugely appreciated.


Ask me : why did doctors treating the plague look like giant birds?
How does John Leslie technically have 3 feet?

Dec 13

Today seemed to go by so quickly, we ran out of time to do all the things we had planned!

We started the morning watching a short animation about a lonely hedgehog who was having a hard time at school. His friends surprised him with a package full of packing foam which they attached to his quills so they could hug him and play safely with him. As part of our virtue of the month, we have been looking at 'bucket filling'. This is when we imagine everyone have an imaginary bucket. When we do nice things to people, their bucket fills up and can sometimes overflow with love, happiness and kindness. If we are mean, rude or disrespectful we can dip into someone's bucket that can make them feel sad, lonely or disrespected. We are aiming to fill each others buckets each day through kind actions and words.

We read some more of Granny in which Granny met up with some of her wicked granny friends. After speaking with some students, I'd like to reassure parents that some students are making the book sound a lot worse than it is. I don't want to spoil the ending of the book, but there is certainly no blood or violence in the story at all. Granny is just a mean, grumpy grandma who is scheming something... we just don't know what yet.

We did our journals but we unfortunately ran out of time to discuss our GOTD which we will do on Monday. While we ate our snack today, we watched a little bit of The Neverending Story before we went out to play.

We are still collecting donations for the food bank. We are missing some library books so please keep an eye on your inbox to see if your child has outstanding books.

Have a lovely weekend,



Mr. Richardson

Dec 12

Tomorrow we will have carolling in the gym. Families are welcome. Wear a festive hat or headband if you have one.

Today's GOTD was the Tasmanian devil. Tomorrow's clue is " Why might you want to avoid England in the year 1665?"

We discussed how to stay healthy:

" You need to reduce your amount of sodium and you need to eat lots of iron" - Ryan.

There were some shocking revelations today when we continued to read 'Granny'.
In science we asked ourselves : How do we measure volume? We learnt about decibels and something called ' The Pain Zone'.

In English we imagined what life would be like if we lived in a snowglobe.



Ask me : Why are Tasmanian devils in danger of extinction?
What did Granny do to Mrs Jinks?
What will Granny do to Mr Lampy the gardener?
How can I stay fit and healthy?
What would life be like if I lived inside a snowglobe?

Dec 11

Today's GOTD was the super cute Quokka. Tomorrow's clue is : " I share my name with an island.  I keep fighting with my kind and it's putting us in danger of going the way of the dodo"

Dec 10

Today we looked at the giant heads of Easter Island as part of our GOTD. The clue for tomorrow is more open ended. I am curious to see your answers for this:

" I am possibly the cutest and happiest marsupial in the world."


Today we started to read Granny by Anthony Horowitz. Some of us are divided as to whether or not the titular character is really mean.

Due to a late fun lunch, we had a shorter than usual science lesson in which we revisited rocks and minerals to discuss the events in New Zealand recently.

We did practised doing reading comprehension as a class by reading an article about igloos in French.
Afterwards we did a listening comprehension involving a dog.

We then had PE in which Monsieur Trevor had set up different different stations for us to practise our skiing and snowboarding skills. We even had some visitors from C.O.P. who showed us how to put on our boots and carry our skis safely.

We also visited the library today and instead of getting new books, we were given the choice to read library books or spend some time reading on Epic! We read stories about surfers, mummies and even tigers. As a class, we have now read over 500 books on Epic! Fantastic work!

Ask me: Do I think Granny is really evil? Why?
What did I enjoy most about PE? Am I going to be skiing or snowboarding at COP?
What did I read about on Epic! ?

Dec 9

Today's GOTD was Beethoven.
Tomorrow's clue is " What do you mean there's no giant chocolate eggs there?"

Today in Math we did a Math Pacman and we worked on la ligne numérique. In science we had a visit from a doctor who talked to us about how doctors can use sound to diagnose patients. He showed us how to use a stethoscope and we listened to our hearts and lungs. We learnt how doctors can use sound to see babies, the inside of hearts and can tap on people's bodies to listen to trapped air or fluids. We also learned about our reflexes in our knees and we tested Hannah.

We played some phonics spelling and math games and we started to read:  Mes Voisins les pirates.

We worked on finishing off any unfinished worked including our social studies hearts, our letter and our phonics stories. We used our checklists to ensure we had adjectives and adverbs and that our verbs were a bit more exciting.

Tomorrow is a library day. As mentioned in the last blog post the library technicians are eager to get all books returned before christmas. Please ensure books are brought back in your plastic bags that were handed out last week. Please let me know if this plastic bag has not made it's way home. This bag is to try and help reduce some of the damage we have seen to our reading books lately.

6 December

Today's GOTD was the dodo. Monday's clue is :
'A famous St. Bernard dog shared my name in the movies... now that's music to my ears. '

Today we had choice and curiosity day in which students signed up to have teachers read a story of their choice.  We had a math assessment with Madame Moreau and we practised using our editing checklist to enhance a story that we wrote on the board. We then reread the story and chose more exciting adjectives, verbs and adverbs.

We played a quick round of a spelling game using our whiteboards and wrote in our journals.

If you have still not brought in your red reading folder, please bring it in on Monday.

Mr. Richardson is going to be running a Spanish class every week between 12-12:40 (approximately) every Friday. Siblings are welcome to attend but students must have a way to get home as the busses will have already left. I am flexible on the ending time, but students must be picked up before 1pm due to a weekly staff meeting. Anyone interested is asked to email: parichardson@cbe.ab.ca so that I can track attendance numbers etc. We will be starting in the new year.


The library has requested that no more library books be checked out past December 11th to ensure all library books are returned before we break up.

Dec 5

Today's GOTD was Geisha. We learned that Geisha can take years to practise their skills that include: tea making, conversation, dance and playing musical instruments. We also learned that the first geisha were men. In the 1920's there were around 80,000 geisha but the art form is dying out with approximately 1,00-5000 left today. We discovered that some geisha paint their teeth black as this was considered beautiful in the past.

The clue for tomorrow's GOTD is...

" I lived on Mauritius but sailors ate me. I guess you could say I am as dead as a _ _ _ _ ."

Tomorrow is PJ day (again) for the whole school. Also, please do not forget to pack your red reading folders as Mr. Richardson would like to see them.

In science we looked at Foley artists who use objects to make sounds in TV shows and films. We decided we are going to make our own short videos and add in Foley afterwards. We picked a partner and began to discuss some ideas and play around making different sounds with things in the classroom.
Penny discovered that two metal rulers together can sound like a sword fight.
Levi and Paasha snapped popsicle sticks to simulate a crackling campfire.
Sage found out that crumpled paper can sound like someone walking across snow or crunch leaves.

In English we made a short text to practise the -CK sound. We are going to continue to edit this together as a class and look at adding some more verbs and adjectives to make our work exciting.
For example:

'He washed his socks' might become: 'He scrubbed his stinky brown socks in a rusty metal bucket.'

We looked at an editing checklist that we are going to be using with our writing in French and English which includes tips such as:

- Have I reread my work?
- Did I circle any words I am not sure how to spell?
- Did I tell the who, where, when, why and how?

In French we did a listening comprehension activity. Mr Richardson read a short passage and students had to listen and draw the correct image based on what they heard.

Ask me : What is Foley?
What ideas do I have for my foley project? Can I make any unusual noises using things found at home? ( Sorry Parents!)
What do Geisha look like? What did I learn about Geisha?

Dec 4

GOTD has rolled over as we did not get time to work on it today.

In science we looked at parts of the ear using a giant plastic model ear. in P.E. we played Scarecrow tag, Pacman and Zombie tag before playing Reine des Skittles. 

We had music with Madame Zdrill and Maths with Madame Moreau. Madame Moreau was particularly proud of how well the whole class worked in Math today.

We used our laminated letters to the soldiers to highlight the verbs in our work in both languages. We will continue to use these letters to help us practise nouns, adjectives and to work on editing and correcting skills.

In Social studies we started to read ' If the world were a village'. The book imagines a village of 100 people, wherein each person represents 70 million people.

We looked at populations and languages, we found that with our various language backgrounds at home, some students in our class would have been able to communicate with 30 people in the village ( in the real world that is over 2 billion people).

Dec 3

Today's GOTD was Anne Frank. This linked in really well with what we had been learning about in social studies regarding why people might have to leave a country. We had looked at how people can be in danger because of their religious beliefs in some countries and Anne was a concrete example of this. We did a virtual tour of her annexe and talked about how her Dad published her story for the world to see. Here are some quotes from Anne that really struck us:

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."

"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart."

" What a wonderful thought it is that some of the best days of our lives haven't even happened yet"

Tomorrow's clue: 芸者

We had our AM reading buddies with Kindergarten today and in science we made telephones using paper cups. We have already learnt that sound is just vibrations so we used different thickness of string and thread to see if the differences would affect the sound quality. Bennett thought that a thicker nylon thread produced the best sound. We discovered that the string had to be kept tight to best allow the vibrations to pass along and carry our message effectively.

We then learnt about earwax ( to many eeewwws from the class) and we discovered that having it is good for us. It helps to keep bugs and germs out of our ear canal and away from the inner ear. If you would like to re-watch, it can be found here.

We had our reading centres and Madame Moreau popped in to do some Math with us. We looked at the sound 'sh' in our phonics today and corrected Monsieur Richardson's terrible spelling in a story about Sharon the sheep who told a shark, shrimp and fish to shush because they were fighting over a brush that had fallen from a ship.

We chose our books for choice and curiosity day on Friday - which is also a PJ day.

Our lunchtime film is now the original 1988 BFG film. Mr Richardson would watch this every Sunday at his Grandma's house when he was young as is very excited to share it with the class.

                                                           Conference call

                                             Aidymn wishing he had gone with a different provider.

Dec 2

Today we helped our reading buddies in kindergarten. We had Math with Madam Moreau and PE with M. Trevor. In Music we listened to ' I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas'. We all loved the song and it stuck in our heads for the rest of the day.

In social studies we read a book called 'C'est quoi un refugié?'
We talked about the reasons people have for becoming refugees such as religious, social or political persecution, natural disasters and war. We looked at some famous refugees including Albert Einstein, Malala Yousafzai and Anne Frank. We then discussed the living conditions of refugees when they are placed into refugee camps and compared this quality of life with their lives in their home countries. We asked ourselves " How bad could things get that we would leave our homes, friends and families to live in an overcrowded, enclosed camp?"

During lunch we also finished watching Matilda:

"I love Miss Honey, she is so kind" - Dalila.

Ask me: What are some reasons people might become refugees?
What would you do if war broke out in Calgary and our home was destroyed?

There is no clue for the GOTD as we didn't get to work on it today, so we rolled it over.

This Friday 6th December is Choice and Curiosity day which will also be another pyjama day.

29 November

Our Grej of the Day (GOTD) was the human towers of Catalonia. The clue stumped a few people, but you just had to put all the capital letters together, hence it being formatted strangely.

Madame McCann can in and read us a French story about a missing hat and as we ate our snacks, Mr. Richardson read us the enormous crocodile. Madame McCann showed us some new games we can play as part of our daily 5 centres.

We visited the Grade 4 book fair in the gym. It was great to discuss new books we hadn't heard of before with Grade 4. Afterwards we got to vote on our favourite genre of book.

We posted off our letters to the soldiers and some of us wrote in our journals for the week.

Our clue for Monday's GOTD is : Dear Kitty.