Jeans Day
On Thursday, May 4 the students and staff participated in Jeans Day. Students and staff were encouraged to bring in a small donation for BC Children’s Hospital. There were lots of participants and jeans were worn from head to toe! The money raised goes to the BC Children’s Hospital. We raised a grand total of $1,018.85. Thank you for supporting this cause!
French Plays
In French, all classes have been working on their AIM plays and are preparing to present. Presentation days are to be announced, but likely sometime in June. In the images below, the grades 6/7 are practicing the play and using puppets. During these practice sessions, Madame Severloh circulates around the room, correcting students’ pronunciation and encouraging them to speak expressively.
Beauty and the Beast
Disney’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST JR. is playing at the Gateway Theatre Richmond, June 1st 2017. The musical, designed for middle-school aged performers, is based on the 1994 Broadway production and Disney’s 1991 animated feature film. The Pythagoras Academy cast contains approximately 80 students led by their ‘Musical Theatre’ teacher, Miss Emma Swords.
Admission: $15 adult (18 years +) and $7.50 for children.
Tickets on sale at TICKETS.GATEWAYTHEATRE.COM
International Dance Day at Aberdeen Centre
Each year the world celebrates International Dance Day. Artistic director Sunday Mulye invited students to take part in free dance workshops at Aberdeen Centre in Richmond. The students learned a contemporary warm-up, Irish dancing and various Bhangra moves. The students (and teachers) had so much fun!
JK Arts Week
Junior Kindergarten students have been participating in several art activities during Arts Week. Students explored various artistic mediums such as painting, drawing, architecture, sculpture and photography in a playful way. They enjoyed participating to group projects and showed process in their collaboration skills. Process oriented art activities allow students to develop creativity, self-confidence and a love for the various artistic practices.
Best Organization at the 13th Annual International Cartoon Art Competition
Ms. Isherwood submitted twenty pieces of student’s artwork to the 13th Annual International Cartoon Art Competition. Four students at Pythagoras Academy have won an award; congratulations Isabella Zhang, Ethan Yu, Elsa Wang and Camille Zhao! They will be moving through to the next round. Pythagoras Academy has been named Best Organization for the second year in a row with Ms. Isherwood awarded for the Best Art Teacher! These children will get to go to an award ceremony at the Vancouver Art Institute in June with their parents. Congratulations artists!
Teachers Teaching Teachers
Earth Week
Pythagoras Academy has been celebrating our Earth this week. Students have been participating in different activities to take action in helping to keep our Earth green and clean. Some of the activities include:
– Food Waste Challenge: Everyday students weigh their classes food scraps. The class with the least amount of food scraps at the end of the week wins the friendly school wide challenge!
– Earth Hour: All classes are encouraged to turn the lights out for an hour each day to say energy.
– Energy is Awesome Presentation: Fortis BC visited PA to share an interactive presentation to teach students about natural gas. Students learned what it is, where it comes from, how to be safe around and how to conserve it.
– Door Knob Decorations: Students decorated, wrote and drew Earth-related phrases to remind friends and family to conserve water, turn off the lights, etc.
Bucket Filling in 1S
Students in Miss Simpson’s grade one class have been talking about how to make other people feel happy. Students discovered that when they do kind things for other people to make them warm inside, it also makes them feel happy. Students listened to the book “How Full is your Bucket” by Tom Rath and Mary Reckmeyer. The book explains that by giving compliments, including our peers and helping others, fills up our imaginary buckets. If everyone has a full bucket they experience positive emotions. When buckets are empty negative emotions can be present. Students then decorated their own bucket and wrote nice compliments to each other on post-it notes to “fill” their classmate’s buckets.
Bowling Field Trip
The grades two and three students went to Town n’ Country Bowling Alley for a physical education field trip. The students played two rounds of bowling in teams. Students were taught some tips and strategies to ensure the ball hit the pins they wanted. The students also learned bowling terms like “spare” and “strike”. It was an afternoon filled with strategy, positive encouragement, and fun!
Measurement in Kindergarten
Students in Kindergarten have been exploring the concept of measurement. This week, students read the story Balancing Act by Ellen Stoll Walsh. After reading this story, students created their own “balancing acts” based on the concept of balance depicted in the story. Using a variety of materials, students experimented with the concepts of “heavier”, “lighter” and “balanced” and presented their balancing act to their classmates.
Students also enjoyed exploring the concept of weight and balance though interacting with a variety of stations featuring different measuring tools and materials. As students explored each station, they were given a measuring challenge for them to try to solve. These challenges included finding items in our class that weighed more, less and the same as an eraser and finding the heaviest item that we could measure.
AIM French
In kindergarten and grade one classes, students have been participating in several French vocabulary centres. Students have practiced writing and drawing vocabulary words with whiteboards or building the words with letter tiles. They have also worked with a partner to match pictures to the corresponding word. In small groups with Madame Severloh, they have been practicing matching sentences and pictures. Some of the vocabulary words being practiced are from the play La poule Maboule and some words are part of the “pared down language” that is taught through the AIM program. To learn more about “pared down language” in the AIM program, please check out this article: http://www.
Weather Study
This term in grade 3, students are studying the big idea: Wind, water, and ice change the shape of the land, so we have started the unit by studying weather. While learning about the water cycle, students created their own story, detailing the journey of a water particle through the water cycle. Using imagery, juicy words, and creative writing skills, the grade 3’s wrote a plan, a rough draft, and recorded their story on the iPads along with hand drawn pictures. This activity connects weather to our last units in science, matter and thermal energy because students were encouraged to discuss the addition of hot or cold temperatures for the particle to change state of matter.
Survivor Challenge
All students in kindergarten to grade seven participated in the “Survivor Challenge.” Students were put into teams in order to work collaboratively to accomplish different tasks. Developing teamwork and sportsmanship are an essential element to physical education. Here are some pictures of the unit and the teams…
Multiplication Strategies
The grade two students are learning multiplication strategies in math class. In partners, they played games to help them visually represent questions and help them solve problem. Students used counters and whiteboards to represent their understanding.
Spring Nature Walk
The students in Donatello class went on a nature walk to search for signs of spring. Students recorded their observations of the changes they noticed in nature. They saw cherry blossom flowers, worms and a bird feather!
