Money, money, money!

The next natural way for students to practise addition and subtraction with large amounts, is to introduce money.  The students were paired up and were practising counting coins.  The little gal demonstrated her understanding as she created the pile of coins on the left and said "One dollar"  I told her that she didn't have 4 quarters to which she explained her thinking that two dimes and a nickel were the same amount as a quarter and that she didn't need to count the coins because she knew that four quarters made $1.00 because they were worth 100 cents.

How exciting!  That's what we all hope for, confident students who understand the concept and can explain their reasoning!  Hooray!

The students really enjoyed this hands on experience.  Offer your child some experience when you are at the store.  Ask how much an item costs, let them read the tags on the shelf, ask which coins they would need to use for that amount.  They can even explain (after this week) how much 'change' they will expect from a cashier for an item.

For example, a can  of soup might be 69 cents and you might give the cashier a 'loonie.'

How much change will they receive?  It's a wonderful real life opportunity to practise mental math!

Some of my little girls are in Garden Club.  On Friday they helped me set out the beans that we have grown from seeds, and are now ready to enjoy the big garden.

They gently pulled their roots apart, set them out, dug holes, planted and patted the soil firmly before

watering!

Happy Mother's Day!

Garden Club

I want to start off with a HUGE thank you to Salisbury Greenhouse, Rob Sproule and the different members of Strathcona County for their generous and innovative offer to bring gardening into schools.  It is only their supportive backing that this project was born!

I really should have taken some photos of the 'before' but truth be told, this is a Garden Club which involves students from Grades One to Four and I do not have written permission from all of those parents to allow their children's photos to be on the blog.  I can show you the fruits (actually vegetables) of their labour!

These two raised planters were gifted to us through the program that I applied for last September.  I plan to apply again this year to add another two planters to the front of the school.  With one growing season under our belt, I can see how we could improve our plans, and allow for more crops to flourish.

I was so excited to see the peas!  Brought me right back to my own childhood and picking peas with my Baba on her farm!

Baba grew cauliflower, but I never have.  I thought that the children would love to see how the plant creates the flower that we eat in the middle!  I bet they will love cauliflower because of this.

I had been warned against growing zucchini or squash or pumpkins.  I knew why but again, this is about the children learning, appreciating and then exploring the world of vegetables, so I did not listen and here is a little pumpkin!

Our cucumber patch has not yet yielded, but there sure are a lot of blossoms!

I'm pretty happy with the beans!  I had been 'pinning' ideas onto my Pinterest board for Gardening and the trellis idea was one that I used.  It is bamboo poles and jute twine and is working perfectly!

We have six different pepper plants, each producing a different type of pepper.  I think this one is called a banana pepper and of course, the one below is a green pepper.

By the time the students return, the lettuce will probably have gone to seed, but that is part of the learning.  There are radishes in front.  Did you know that radishes will grow really, really big?  I didn't, probably because we used them when they were small in our salads.

This was just for fun and though it's not really how I imagined, we'll try again next year.  Those are scarlet runner beans running up along a teepee shape created from bamboo poles and netting.  The idea was to create a 'hide away' place.  Look inside!  The grass is probably 30 centimetres tall!  Wouldn't it be a great place to curl up and read a book?

In September, I am sure that the Garden Club is going to be so excited to see the vegetables that they started back in the spring.  They will have the opportunity to be part of the harvest and like the Little Red Hen, they will be able to enjoy what they worked hard to grow!