Apples, apples, apples!

The Kindergarten class has been enjoying the season of apple harvesting! Their adventure began last week with a trip to the nearby field to pick wild apples. The students found enough apples to fill an entire shopping bag! 

The students brought them back to the classroom where they washed and cut them with plastic knives. These apples were then put into a slow cooker for several hours to make apple sauce. The children were delighted by their home-made applesauce which they ate at snack time in the classroom.

  

The next day Mrs. Gatti brought in several different types of apples and the students all had the chance to try them all. Red & Yellow Delicious, Fuji, Gala, Honey Crisp, Granny Smith, Paula Red, MacIntosh, each student had their own favourite by the end of the tasting! 

They also weighed them to see which weighed the most - Honeycrisp won and Paula Red was the lightest!

Keeping with the apple theme, Mrs. Gatti brought a juice processor to school and the students made their own apple juice. Each student washed their hands before picking 4 or 5 slices of apples to put into the machine. 



The students squealed with laughter as some of the apple halves jumped out of the juicer and back on to the desk!

The students took turns putting the apples into the juicer with Mrs. Gatti's help and then using the juicer's plunger to push the apple slice into the machine.

The juice poured out of the spout and into the measuring cup underneath. When the juice came out more slowly, Mrs. Gatti emptied out the pulp into the organic bin and then the juice poured out more steadily again.

The students juiced enough apples for about 1.5 liters of juice! They said the juice was delicious!

Parents, students and Olivet School teachers love the Olivet School community for its caring, home-like quality, very small class sizes and its rich academic program taught with a foundation in Christian values. If you have been looking for elementary education which combines the strength of top quality teaching with the individual attention and opportunities of a personalized learning community, then you too will love Olivet School. For more information about Olivet School, private school in Etobicoke, please visit our website.

Halloween in the Playschool class

The Playschool class is celebrating the spooky season of Halloween!

This Playschool friend is visiting the pumpkin patch.

Playing in the bog water table is fun, especially if you catch a frog!

These playschool friends are hammering  golf tees into pumpkins.

Squeezing paint, makes these pumpkins look pretty.

 

The haunted house-box is fun to colour in!

This friend found a worm in the rice table, eeks!

While sifting through the sand she found spiders, flies, and mice, oh my!

Painting bats is very fun indeed.

This friend is beading a very festive bracelet.

The I-Spy Halloween puzzle is challenging, but not too hard for this Playschool friend.

 

For more information about Olivet School please visit our website www.olivetschool.ca.

 

Today cellist William Findlay of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra came and performed two concerts. The first was for the younger students and was enjoyed by the Playschool, Kindergarten, and Primary Class. He demonstrated to the students how he could play a song two different ways a happy way (in a major key) and in a sad way (in a minor key) William Findlay played a few children’s songs and had the students guess which one he was playing. Finally, he told the students a story and used his cello. He used different music to depict different characters in the story. The students had to tell him what animal or character he was playing at different parts and what the characters were feeling based on the music. One of the favourite animals he played was the cheeky squirrel.

 

 

The next performance was for the older students and any staff or parents who wanted to watch as well. For the older students he talked about the cello and about the composition of the bow. I was very impressed to see every students’ hand shoot up when he asked what the bow was made of. He discussed how important it is for the beat and the melody to work together. He played “O’ Canada” using different beats and showed us how it could completely change the song. He then got the students to be the “beat” of a song by clapping their hands and saying “chhh” to imitate a drum and cymbal while he played his cello beautifully. The students and faculty had many questions for him and he eagerly answered them all.

Both were great performances which I very much enjoyed!

To learn more about Olivet School please visit our website http://olivetschool.ca/.

 

Kindergarten Goes to the Greenhouse

The Kindergarteners went to the Centennial Greenhouse today. 

 The students enjoyed seeing the blooms.

 They drew pictures of their favourite flowers.

Their pictures are posted on the bulletin board for all to see!

For more information about Olivet School please visit our webpage http://olivetschool.ca/.

Stone Carving

On February 19, Sandy Cline came to Olivet School to teach the students in grades 3-6 how to sculpt stone.  In the picture above, the students are working on a piece of pre-cut stone.  

Each student starts out with a roughly cut piece of stone. They have to file, shape, sand, and smooth it to look like the loon above. 

This sculpture was created by Sandy Cline and is named "Dinner and Dance".

Sandy Cline and his wife Rita pose with Sandy's sculpture "Dinner and Dance".   

Sandy Cline uses the sharp saw to further shape the beak, which must then be filed and sanded into shape. 

Some of the students got dusty! 

The students polish and wash the carvings in water to remove excess dust. The carvings are also sanded in the water with fine sandpaper. 

The carvings are heated before beeswax is melted onto them. 

The wax being melted on the carvings.

The wax has to be cooled in water and the wax is buffed to a shine. 

The students were very happy with the end result!

Open House

 

You can drop in to visit the Grade 1-6 classes from 9am to 12pm this week.  Please make an appointment with Sandy if you would like to visit the Kindergarten Class. You can take this opportunity to visit the classroom your child will enter next year.

 

We're promoting Wednesday, November 21^st to the public as an open house day when people can come by during the morning or evening to get to know Olivet. Please invite your friends and neighbours; we have plenty of open house invite cards and brochures. Inviting them to our Facebook page is another great way to get the word out. 

Terry Fox Run

Last Friday the students participated in the Terry Fox Run. Our run took us from the school to the creek. They ran 1.5km. The students thought about how difficult it would have been for Terry Fox to run 40km a day! The students had a great time.