Canadian Postcard Project

As part of a National postcard project, our school received almost 80 postcards from across Canada.  This is a wonderful way for students to learn about our great country.  Following is what we will send out next week along with a photo taken by a visitor to our colony.

Hi from Minnedosa, Manitoba.                                                                                     

Our school is located on the Odanah Hutterite Colony.  We are a k-12 school with 38 students and 5 teachers. We have 10 students in our k-2 class this year.

We love celebrations!  Some of the special days we celebrate each year are beginning in the fall with the Terry Fox Run.  We have it on a Sunday and our whole community participates.  We walk, jog, or bike the 8 km section around our colony.  Even younger children are part of this event.  They get to ride in strollers, bike carts, or on a tractor and trailer.  It is a fun way to get out and enjoy the last days of fall.  

The annual Christmas concert is a great get-together before the Christmas break.  Valentine’s Day is also eagerly anticipated and each class has their own party. In the spring we have a music concert to share the student’s accomplishments.  Our k-3 students have voice lessons, grade 4s piano lessons, and 4+ have piano, guitar, or flute, and also get voice lessons. 

Our school does not have a gym so our students spend a lot of time outdoors.  Phys. ed. class happens outside unless in extreme weather conditions.  There is a hockey rink right behind our school and skating and hockey are a big part of recess and Phys. Ed.  Other winter sports are skiing and snow-shoeing.  Soccer, hiking, biking, and baseball are some summer activities we like.   

Our community’s main income comes from grain farming and a metal fabricating shop.  The shop manufactures metal products like construction fencing and dumpsters. It also laser cuts metal parts and welds for other companies. 

The land around our colony is unique; we live in a wetland area that is covered by hundreds of sloughs.  We get to see all kinds of water fowl returning in the spring.                 

                       

        

Odanah Colony is 4 km from the small town of Minnedosa.  Every winter the grades 4-12 students go skiing at Minnedosa Ski Valley and the grades k-8 go bowling at the Minnedosa Bowling Lanes before the spring break.  Minnedosa has a few small shops, a pharmacy, Co-op store, post office, library, and hospital.                

Winnipeg is the capital city of Manitoba.  It is home of the national museum, The Museum of Human Rights.  The museum’s purpose is among other things to educate the public on human rights and respect for others.  The museum is featured on our stamp.

All our students enjoy learning about the different communities in Canada.  

Cecropia Caterpillar

 Last September, as I was getting water from our rain barrel at the side of our house, I saw this huge (4-5") caterpillar crawling up the wall.  This was no ordinary caterpillar and definitely none I had seen before.  As a teacher I get to see and house many different kinds through the year. When a new one comes in, we research it and try to accommodate it to see it through its cycle.

This cecropia caterpillar, as research verified, is rarely seen in our area, and if it finishes its cycle, happens to be the largest moth in North America.  It had a beautiful rainbow of colours down its back.

Luckily I found this the Saturday before school begins - perfect for an intro activity.  Once I had it securely in a container I carried it to school.  Fortunately, on the way there I passed a group of my students who got to see this beauty.  I put it into a butterfly cage, along with a clover stalk.  I hoped to do some research later and see exactly what it needs.  Well... coming to school the next day, what I saw was not the caterpillar but a stunning cocoon, white and silky.  It had made use of the clover and spun its cocoon around it.  

What luck that the kids got to see it and I got pictures taken, as this thing didn't give us much time to observe itself.

Further research stated that the cocoon can be over-wintered in the vegetable compartment of a fridge which is what we did.  

A few weeks ago we brought it out and put it in a fish tank to observe.  I hardly hoped that the thing survived.

Yesterday evening as I sat at my desk with our classroom cat on my lap, she suddenly sat straight up, leapt down and quietly stalked to the shelf that housed the tank.  All alert, she stood and intently gazed at something.  I had to go and see what she noticed and there, fluttering around in the tank, was a magnificent moth!

The butterfly counts not months but moments and has time enough.
Rabindranath Tagore

This moth, once emerged, is almost at the end of its life.  It never even eats as an adult!  Its sole purpose is now to mate.  Then it dies.  

Winter Wonderland

I know this sounds cliched, but we really are living in a winter wonderland.  Our area has been seeing a lot of heavy fog lately.  Hoarfrost is formed on everything!

I caught these photos as the sun was setting coming home from school last week.  By the time I got inside the sun had disappeared.

My sister's backyard

The rays from the setting sun beakoned me to explore.  I will admit, I have not done alot of walking this winter.  Somehow, even though I think it isn't THAT cold, I find I just don't want to go out.  Not good!

Trees are weighed down with the frost.  Thankfully I got our cedar wrapped after the first big frost threatened to snap the fragile branches.

Home

I finally got some window stars made.  Our tattered old star was discarded last year so I had no choice but to get creative.  I really like these five point stars.  I made two large and a small one for the string of lights.  They have a wonderful effect in the bay window and I almost like them more during the day when there is hardly light showing through the frosty paper.

School's out and I am so ready for a break... not quite for Christmas though.

Winter Birds

Winter is here.  I know; not technically, but never-the-less, we are freezing so that means only one thing --stay indoors!  It is pretty difficult these days to muster up the strength and enthusiasm for a brisk walk.  That leaves only one way to enjoy the beauty of nature -- from the window.  And I have been doing a lot of watching these last few weeks!

Nuthatch

We have a variety of bird feeders set up in our yard. Consequently we get a variety of birds.  I have even seen some new ones -- male and female pine grosbeaks!  The male of these birds are an eye-catching red, not quite as brilliant as a cardinal.  This prompted my mom one day to excitedly call my dad to come see the tree full of cardinals!

Pine Grosbeaks

Also seen these last few weeks have been these birds: red polls, nut hatches, a magpie!! (at our feeders!!),

Magpie!

downy and hairy wood peckers, chickadees, blue-jays, and of course the common sparrow.

Hairy Woodpecker

As I mentioned before, this is window viewing, so some of my pics are taken through a window.  Sometimes I am lucky enough to open the door without a loud squeak to frighten away the bunch.

Downy Woodpecker

Chickadee

These have adopted our yard. They are everywhere!   Tomorrow my class will make a treat for the birds in their yard.  This is always a much enjoyed and appreciated activity.

Yellow Warblers

A pair of yellow warblers decided that our scrawny thunder-child flowering crab would be a fine place to build their nest.  Sitting in our living room one windy rainy evening, I was amazed that a yellow bird, goldfinch, I though, was actually starting to build a nest in the tree as I was looking on.  Back and forth it flew, from a large evergreen back to this tree, collecting spider web and grass and industriously working at making the stuff stay together on little more than a fork in the tree.  "Good luck", I thought.  After this evening, this wouldn't sound like such a good idea anymore.

Well, the bird did come back and pretty soon there was the neatest little nest in full eye-view from our window, if you happened to know it was there.  It has been quite interesting watching the progression, from a shy squirmish bird to not noticing us there at all, from eggs to these hatchlings cooling off in the heat.

These birds grew amazingly fast, from feathery down to soft feathers in like three days.  Soon the nest spilled over with these tiny birds, and they are tiny, about a quarter sized now and managing to fly a few feet to a tree when we try to put them back in the nest after dropping out.

 On Sunday, a misty rainy day, they decided to move out!  The nest was just too small to hold the lot.

 We wouldn't have noticed them around if not for the fussy parents trying to ward us off with broken wing antics.

This little guy seems to like the ground.  We put him in the tree and there he was, back on the ground again.

These fledglings are the sweetest things, you can't help but want to hold them when you see them.  They are still around, hiding in the shrubs under the windows.  It will be nice to see them safely fly off on their own.

Butterfly Hunt

Monarch

I have a class of butterfly enthusiasts.  It helps not only that we raised a swarm of Painted Lady butterflies, but also the fact that this seems to be the year of the BUTTERFLY!  Anyone else notice the great number of them this year?  Monarchs, yellow swallow-tails, painted ladies, mourning cloaks, cabbage whites!!!  (y' know, the little green worms in your salad!), there is a multitude of them all!  I have even seen the hummingbird moth which I had only seen once before around here.  I wonder what brings the population up so?  Is it the weather?  

Cabbage White

A quick search brought up this article.  Seems like a break in a drought made for ideal conditions and these insects flourished.  

Canadian Tiger Swallowtail

We went butterfly hunting this week.  We kept a list of the kinds and the number of each.  As each count is, we of course missed lots, but  this was great practice in identifying some of the different varieties found around here.  The cabbage whites, a gardeners nightmare, are especially numerous!  

Cabbages whites -- really enjoying the sage in my flower garden.

Painted Lady

I made the mistake of taking butterfly nets.  They were tucked away in the corner of the storage room and I couldn't resist.  I did a talk on what to 'catch', how to handle, and how to release butterflies unharmed.  But of course kids end up chasing and wildly running and the butterfly count becomes a hunt...  

Our sketchy count...


Tiger Swallowtail - 3
Monarch -- 23
Cabbage White -- 70
Painted Lady -- 7
Mourning Cloak -- 1

Annual SEEDS Bird Count

Every year our class participates in the SEEDS annual bird count.  The weather was great these last two days so we got our recording things, binoculars, and camera and headed out.  From past experience we know that nobody wants to carry bird ID books after the first 5 minutes so those are left behind.  We try to cover different areas on the place.  It is a wonderful opportunity to observe not only birds, but also plants and insects.  

These are some of the insects we saw on our walk.  The butterfly is a monarch.  We saw several fluttering past.  On one of the dandelions is a wasp and a bumblebee.  We know it's a wasp because its body is smooth.  It has no hair like a bee has.  Its stripes also go up and down instead of sideways.

Some of the blooming plants seen were the white Canada anemone, common silver-weed, and of course dandelions.  Today was the first time this year that we saw lady slippers.  We do not pick them so that other people can also enjoy them.  We also want to make sure that we will always have them.

These pictures show the difference between the red-winged blackbird male and female.   The brown bird is the female.  We also saw the common blackbird, however this year we did not see any yellow-headed blackbirds which are very common in our area.

The robin is a baby.  It is called a fledgling when it first comes out of the nest.  We could go real close to it without it flying away. The black and white duck is a scoup, and the last picture is of a mallard.  We saw many other birds but could not get any pictures of them.  All together we saw 1344 ducks and 854 seagulls.  Our grand total of birds we saw was 4559.

Written with help from my students.

Painted Ladies

Our Painted Lady butterflies began to emerge today!  I had ordered 13 caterpillars a few weeks ago.  They grew incredibly fast and it didn't take long for them to begin the last cycle in their metamorphosis.  Their chrysalis, though not as beautiful as a monarch's is also a thing of wonder.  It's gold flecks appear almost immediately.

It took a little over a week for them to develop.  Today was the first day we saw colour through the chrysalis.  I observed them after dinner and they were still intact.  During story-time one of the girls surprised us with, "There's a butterfly!"   Of course the book we were reading was put on hold as we all marveled at the creation!

These butterflies are not as big and as showy as monarchs, though wonderful just the same.  The under side of the wings is especially beautiful.
One of my students quickly dispatched to bring an orange for it to feed on when ready.

Amazingly, that is where it was when I came back to school this evening.  Two more butterflies were testing their wings!

With painted Ladies, if you keep them for two weeks, they are ready to begin the cycle again.  Hopefully we will be able to care for some long enough to see the eggs and watch the complete cycle.

Dusk

If you glance up in the evening sky lately you will notice a few brighter stars than normally.  These happen to be a planetary show of Venus and Jupiter in the west and Mars in the east.  Though they appear as nothing more than brighter stars, I still find it interesting that we get to see planets unaided by a magnifying device.  Also this is a rather uncommon occurance that you get both planets together like this.  Read more about the event here. 

This is my attempt to capture Venus and Jupiter.

February Fun

The weather has been just gorgeous.  This winter has been storybook perfect.  Sometimes I admit I miss the snow and cold, but that aside, the weather has been perfect for outdoors activities.  I have never seen kids get so much out of sledding, their main hill -- a ditch by the school.  Normally the snow is too deep for sledding around here. This year, the children have been using their sleds and toboggans since the first snowfall.  They have been using the hills not just for sledding, but also as a skiing outlet.

We went sledding as part of our Valentine's Day fun.  The sledding hill at Spruce Woods Park is closed this year due to absence of snow.  Another in Brandon that was contacted is also not open.  That was good news to me (I don't like any field trips!) though the kids absolutely love spending time at the sledding hill in Spruce Woods Park for a day.  

We have a decent hill going down one of our larger sloughs.  Valentine's Day was balmy so the snow was almost too sticky at first, but after a few runs, the going was good!

Of course, I spent my time refereeing the gang.  Kids see no qualms in coming back in the same path as the others are zooming down.  How they manage without adult supervision in their own time is beyond me.

After a half hour of sliding fun, we came back to school, ready for games and snack. 

 In the morning for math time, I had a few games ready to play.  The 'Ten More'  was a great one as my Grades 1- 3 are learning about math strategies now.  It was simply throwing a die and adding ten more.  I  had the younger students use a bead frame until they got the pattern.

You can find the game here.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Add-10-More-Bingo

 I tried to have a variety of activities for the day.  This was an easy craft I found which everyone, kindergartens included enjoyed making.

http://family.go.com/crafts/craft-837271-sweetheart-songbirds--t/

Monarch Butterflies

We started school three days ago.  I have another great group of kids this year.  Very interesting I might add too -- 7 kindergarteners!  

That is a first for me as normally I get small numbers of beginners; too small for serious kiddie stuff.  Most of the time they just get to tag along with my other group work doing modified versions.

I started my grades 1-3s on guided reading.  One of the books I did with a group this afternoon was on butterflies including their life-cycles.  I had to share my experience of collecting caterpillars this summer in South Dakota with my nieces and actually watching the metamorphic cycle.  When I got out my camera card, I realized the earlier photos were at home. 

So here goes;  I will organize them so that tomorrow I can just share this post with them.

Monarch egg 

We got a few milkweed leaves with eggs on them.  We only kept them around long enough to find one teeny tiny caterpillar a few mm long.  We then got rid of the eggs as we had larger caterpillars to observe.

We brought home two caterpillars, one was larger then the other and obviously almost ready for the chrysalis stage.  We were surprised how quickly the smaller one grew.  It took about a week for the first to change into the final stage.

The caterpillar attached itself  on a leaf with (I am told) silk thread! 

 It hung there for a few days (I didn't record how many).  We could see the colour changing from vibrant to a murky almost dead-like shade.

  

The next stage really surprised me as I had only seen cocoons before.  They were made by moths and not part of the cycle as chrysalises are. Someone happened to be around and see the caterpillar split its' skin for the last time.  The alert was sounded and we  managed to watch as it actually wiggled itself out and discarded its' skin.  

It hung by the silk thread and rotated itself until its shape was the classic chrysalis. The colour was jade green.  A pattern of the most beautiful gold appeared within the day.

After a few days, the green slowly turned translucent until we could see the developing butterfly inside.

The monarch chrysalis is gorgeous.  

Twice we missed the butterfly breaking out.  This is such a quick process, with both chrysalis I was around, observing them, and found them completely emerged coming back within ten minutes...

all crumpled up from its' journey!

and gloriously wonderful!

The Monarch Butterfly!