What have we been up to this year? We have been learning about "community" for the last few weeks.  We've learned how members of a community have rites and responsibilities, how levels of government take charge of different resources, how elections work, and that to make a great community, individuals must serve each other.  

For our service project this term, we have set a goal of collecting 250 cans to donate to the London Area Food Bank.  With the help of our families and neighbours, we hope to achieve this by the end of October.  If you have non-perishable food items to donate please contact us.  Thank you for your support!

We always find something interesting on nature walks.Can you believe it is almost time to start a new school year?  We couldn't be more excited to welcome back old friends and meet new friends.  This year is going to be filled with learning and fun! What kind of fun?  Check this out!

Picking black raspberries on our nature walkYes, you read that correctly.  Olive Grove Academy runs eleven months of the year. But, in the summer we make sure to leave lots of time for fun.  This July we tried out three different splash pads, one new nature trail,  one new indoor play space, went to Storybook Gardens and ate lots of black raspberries, ice cream and freezies!  But we kept on learning too! 

Play Away

Art Connection: Students drew a cartoon of themselves as a heroWhat makes one person jump in front of a moving train to save someone and other people to walk by a person in need? In our seventh session this year we learned the science behind empathy and the qualities we need in order to change our world for the better.   (One student ran his own social psychology experiment!).  Through this unit we learned that there are many kinds of heroes.

Written and artistic work to show our familiesEach year our school chooses one design topic to study, and a project that requires us to work as a team.  This year we studied architecture.  We learned how to describe the things we liked or didn't like about the man-made structures in our environment. We learned about cities around the world that have beautiful architecture, and cities that...well....could use a few lessons.  Then, each student chose 

Our Earth sciences was a fun session!  Each student completed projects about the layers of the earth, plate tectonics, earthquakes 

A scrumptious demonstration of how tectonic plates move.

and volcanoes according to their interests and abilities.  For our presentation day, we wowed our parents and visitors with a science fair style presentation.

We had a castle full of jesters, knights, ladies and squires on the day of our Medieval Feast.  Decorations included a crest for each family and costumes made by students.  The entertainment included sword-swallowing,

Overall health is very dependent on a good night's sleep.  In our third session of the year, we focussed our attention on the Health topic of sleep.  We learned how the natural day/night cycles and seasonal cycles are made in the solar system.  We learned about the history of sleep, the biology of sleep, and how other animals sleep similarly or differently compared to humans.  We also talked about how sleep needs change over the life span. In music classes we learned a winter lullaby.  For our culminating activity the students wrote and produced a news cast about sleep complete with an interview with Sand Man, an investigative report, commercials, and a play-by-play of the stages of sleep.  

Abstract art by C.B. inspired by Jackson Pollock.Our second session of the school year was focused on visual arts.  During this time, we learned how to critique art, about different artists and styles of art, and we got to go the London Museum.  For our final presentation, we invited family members to our gallery.  Students guided their guests around and answered questions.  

Our first session of the year is over.  We can hardly believe that we've been back at school for five weeks already.  On our last day of school before our Thanksgiving break, we invited parents and family members to come see our work.