Playground Portraits

Such a hardworking group deserves a little time on the playground on a sunny Friday afternoon!

Smoothie Search Competition

In Health and Career Education we have been learning about healthy eating.  After completing a three-day food diary, we realized that many students needed more servings of fruits and vegetables to reach the six servings per day recommended by the Canadian Food Guide.  As a result, the great Division 9 Smoothie Search Competition was born!

 First, we decided on the criteria for a great smoothie:

-tastes good (and appealing to other senses too)

-provides servings of fruits and vegetables, and possibly dairy

-low in fat and added sugar

-easy to prepare

Once we knew what we were looking for, it was off to the computer lab to search for recipes.  After we found delicious-sounding recipes, we calculated the number of servings of fruits and vegetables they provide (along with servings for any other food groups as well).  Finally, we created posters to advertise our smoothies.

 Next, it was time to vote.  Each person got four stickers to put on their top four choices.  It was tough to decide!

When the votes were tallied, we had our four finalists:

Mango smoothie by Davin and Chantelle

Strawberry-Banana Concoction by Jia and Katja

Mixed Fruit Smoothie Delight by Jaisal

World's Best Smoothie by Dominic and Ryan

We were then ready for the best part, the taste testing!  We made all four smoothies, tried them and took tasting notes on each one.  They were all delicious!  (Thanks to our student photographers Hajir, Nathaniel, Eyuan and Jaisal for the photos of the smoothie-making process.)

 Finally, it was time to look over all of the tasting notes and vote for a winner.

And the first annual Division 9 Smoothie Search Champions are:

Ryan and Dominic with their "World's Best Smoothie". 

Congratulations, boys!

Stay tuned to the blog for a link to all of the smoothie recipes coming soon.

Fantastic Friday!

Have a look at the pictures below.  Can you guess what school spirit day we had yesterday? 

No, you're not seeing double, it was TWIN DAY!  It was great to see so many students showing school spirit by participating.

The ParticipACTION Funmobile also visited our school yesterday.  Their goal is to "bring back play," encouraging kids to spend more time being physically active.  We learned that kids should aim to be active at least 60 minutes a day, every day.  They brought lots of cool equipment and high-energy leaders to get us moving.  We had fun playing follow the leader, capture the flag, skipping, wheelchair racing and hula hooping.

What are your favourite ways to be physically active?

John Cabot

In Social Studies, we are learning about early European exploration of North America.  So far, we have talked about the Vikings and Christopher Columbus.  Next up is John Cabot.  He was an Italian explorer who sailed for England.  He arrived in North America in 1497, landing in Newfoundland.  He was excited for two reasons:
1)  He thought he had "found" another undiscovered part of The Indies.
2)  He found that there were tons of cod fish in the waters around Newfoundland.  This was a very useful resource to take back to England.

Below is a short video reenactment:

After his first trip, Cabot returned to England.  He then set sail with five ships on second voyage in 1498, but . . . he was never heard from again!  What happened to him and his crew remains a mystery.  What do you think happened?

Serving Sizes

We are currently studying nutrition in Health and Career Education.  Specifically, we are learning about how to make healthy food choices using the Canada Food Guide.  The Canada Food Guide tells you how many servings you should eat daily from each of the four food groups.  For children nine to thirteen, the servings are as follows:

Fruits and Vegetables - 6 servings
Dairy and Alternatives - 3 - 4 servings
Meat and Alternatives - 1 - 2 servings
Grains - 6 servings

But, what's a serving?!?  That's what we've been learning about over the last few days.  The food guide tells you how much one serving equals for many common foods.   For example, a 1/2 cup of cooked broccoli is a serving of fruits and vegetables; 3/4 cup of cereal is a serving of grains.  To estimate accurately though, students need some practice.

Ms. Birdsall brought in several different foods. First, students served themselves the amount they would typically eat of that food without measuring.  Next, they measured how much this amount was.  As an example, let's pretend Fred served himself some rice, then measured and found that he would typically eat two cups of rice at dinner.  Then, students checked the station card to look up what one serving of this food was, (For rice, one serving is 1/2 a cup.) and measured that amount so that they could see what one serving looked like.  Finally, they calculated how many servings their first amount was.  In Fred's case, he discovered that he would normally eat about 4 servings of rice at dinner.

Here are the students hard at work:

For which food group do you find it easiest to eat enough servings?  For which food group is it the hardest?