When our students demonstrate great virtues (like gems hidden in a mine), when they achieve success, and when they are just generally awesome, I hand out "gems". When our gem jar is filled we get a treat. We all consult ahead of time about what the treat will be. For our first gem reward of the new school year, we decided to make a trip to Appleland Station. Unfortunately...
Today we received word from the Ministry of Education of Ontario that we are officially a private school. For most of our day-to-day life this won't make any difference, however it does mean that some of the same resources and supports, and the official academic records will be available to support our students.
This month we have re-started our routines of going on regular nature walks. On our first week, we started new nature journals and talked about safety and respectful actions when in nature.
The second week, we investigated jewelweed. Jewelweed is a folk-remedy for poison ivy rashes. We learned to identify this useful plant by its leaves (that shine silver underwater), stem (hollow like a straw), flowers (beautiful orange or yellow little trumpets), and exploding seed pods. We harvested some jewelweed, cleaned and cut it and made some ice-cubes of jewelweed for later use.
This week, we learned how to identify birch trees and looked out for Birch Polypore (a useful fungus). We also gathered wild grapes. Pictures of our adventures and the artwork inspired by the birch trees are featured in our first video of the new school year,
"Round the Seasons".
The fates postponed our lemonade stand business until Tuesday August 24th but given the heat and sun, the weather couldn't have been better. The children worked hard waving signs, setting up the space, and serving customers. Thanks to some hard work and some generous donations, we will be able to give the London Humane Society $121.05. We will also be able to spend $279.65 on new reading books for our school. That's a total of just over $400!!! Way to go team!
Friday August 20, 2021 is Lemonade Day. The children have been working hard to plan for a lemonade stand. They've worked out advertising, perfected recipes, calculated prices and planned for COVID considerations. Customers will get to choose whether the proceeds will go to fund more books for our library or to the London Humane Society. Come by Hamilton Road at Oriole Drive between 1:30 and 3:30 pm to support our students. Rain date: Monday August 23.
In the month of August, Olive Grove Academy will be learning about the ancient and modern Olympic Games. Each day we will focus on one sport and one country associated with the Olympics. Do you have extra baseball gloves? Basketballs? Volleyballs? If you have sports equipment we can borrow or have to try out some of the sports we are learning, please contact Renée.
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