Field Trip - Community Spring Walk On Tuesday, we had the perfect day for our Spring Walk! Students were so excited to explore their local community and enjoy the hot weather. Students got to explore their environment through a five senses scavenger hunt where they had to check off things they heard, smelled, tasted, touched, and saw. Students also made connections to other field trips this year; for example, some students tried to find various types of seeds they learned about at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. Science This week, we reflected on our Spring Walk and made connections between what we saw during our walk and the Needs of Plants. Students did some sketching of plants in their school environment and explored for various species of plants. We also finished our Tomatosphere investigation and concluded Seed J were regular tomato seeds and Seed K were the seeds from space! Each student got to bring home their seedling and will hopefully continue to take care of their tomato plants! Language Arts In preparation for their “Trip to Iqaluit” stories, students brainstormed how to make a story interesting and engaging for their readers. Students came up with:
Math This week in math, students solved real world math problems within small groups and whole group discussion. Students also participated in reciprocal teaching, which is where other students teach their peers how they solved the problem. Students had the opportunity to be the teacher and come up to the board and explain their solution to various problems. This strategy not only gets students public speaking and using math vocabulary, but it also provides students an opportunity to see various strategies to solve the same problem. Next week, our class will start our measurement unit! Social This week students continued their exploration on Inuit culture. Students pretended they were going on a trip to the city of Iqaluit and researched things like the current weather, how long it would take to travel their, and how much it would cost. Students then had to decide what they would bring for clothing, as well as what they would see and do while they were visiting. Students also compared and contrasted how their own culture was different or the same as Inuit culture. Some students noted that their cultures music also feature drums and special types of dances. Others commented on how Inuit people’s diets are focused around meat and fish which was very different from their vegetarian diet. As a class, we discussed the importance of learning about other cultures in Canada and how it is important to respect and appreciate each others unique ways of life. Lastly, students finished their Ted Harrison inspired Inukshuk Art which is now a bright and colorful addition to our classroom! Reminders
Picture Day Photo forms are due Wednesday, May 23rd. Fun Lunch is on Thursday, May 24th. We are no longer accepting forms therefore if you did not send in the yellow form and payment, please send a lunch on Thursday for your child. Enjoy the long weekend! Ms. Craig
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Students have been watering the tomato plants daily and recording the number of seeds that germinate. One package of seeds is a control (earth) group and the other is the experimental (space seeds). After two weeks, we decided to report the results to the Canadian Space Agency. We received an e-mail back from them letting us know that the seeds we received were grouped as follows: J - Control Group (Earth) K - Seeds spent about 6 weeks on the International Space Station Across Canada, we learned that 75% of J seeds germinated and 75% of K seeds germinated across Canada. We planted more J seeds than K seeds, so our results were not the same. Ask your child how these results might help with Space Farming? The Tomatosphere program recognized our students as honorary Canadian space program scientists for contributing to experiments in the field of space farming, a critical ingredient in the design of a life support system needed to send humans to other planets. A new season is upon us . . . Spring! Teaching our children to become observers is a vital lesson in science. This week, we went on a walk in our community to spot spot signs of spring. Students completed a sensory nature Scavenger Hunt. Do you see it yet in your neighborhood? Grass is turning green Bushes are sprouting new leaves Trees are blooming Bushes are blooming Tree are growing tiny leaves Seeds are starting to sprout in the garden. Birds are making nest in the trees Back in the classroom, students reviewed patterns and symmetry while painting spring butterflies. We discussed the concept of symmetry and showed pictures of how butterflies are symmetrical – one side is the same as the other side. The wings of the butterfly needed to be the same, so as they painted one section on the right they painted the matching section on the left the same color. Note to Parents: Please use reusable containers and send less snacks with wrappers so that our garbage level goes down. Our leadership students have been working very hard for this to happen. Thank you for cooperating with us. If you go GREEN, we can be CLEAN. From Valley View Leadership Math: This week in Math, both our grade 1's and 2's were working on their mental math and estimation. Students worked through Three Act Math problems which help develop skills such as problem solving, analysis of word problems, and how students can develop a proper estimation. Science: Students continued to learn about the needs of plants. We have also been working on our Tomatosphere investigation and each day we fill in our germination chart. This week, students show their tomato seeds sprout into seedlings. The Seed "J" seedlings happened to sprout much quicker leading students to believe that those are the regular tomato seeds, and Seed "K" are the space seeds. Starting next week, we will starting our unit on Small Crawling and Flying creatures! In relation to our social curriculum, students also learned about the Northern Lights, also known as the Aurora Borealis. Students not only learned the Inuit legends behind this phenomenon but we discussed the scientific explanation to these beautiful lights. Social: This week, students started their inquiry on the Inuit people of Canada. First, students learned about the Inukshuk, a rock statue made by the Inuit people as a landform to guide their people back to their homes. Students had the opportunity to build their own Inukshuk, write a reflection why Inukshuk's are important, as well as start their own painting inspired by the work of Ted Harrison. Students also researched Inuit life and culture through a book study. Students were put into groups and given 5-6 books per group and were asked to investigate four factors of Inuit life: food, home/shelter, art/music, and clothing. Students had the opportunity to share their learning with the class and create a mind map of our findings. Language Arts: Students continued to learn about different types of poetry this week. Students learned about the Japanese poetry, Haiku, which is a three line poem which consists of a pattern of 5/7/5 syllables. In line with our science investigation, they wrote their haiku's about the needs of plants. Students also started to learn about rhyming poems and different rhyming schemes such as AABB and ABAB. This week, individually I worked with students to assess their reading comprehension as well as their ability to decode unfamiliar words. Their results will be communicated to you through their report cards in June. Reminders:
Our Spring Nature Walk is coming up on Tuesday, May 15th. We are still looking for one more volunteer so please let me know if you'd like to join us! Volunteers need to arrive at the classroom at 9:15am, as we will be leaving promptly at 9:30am. According to the forecast, the weather will be in the mid-20's on Tuesday and full sun. Please have your student dress in appropriate clothing as we will be outside for a few hours. It would also be a good idea to pack your student with a water bottle and apply sunscreen before school! Enjoy the beautiful this weekend and Happy Mothers Day! Ms. Craig Students added the final feature to their City Blueprints: Parks and Recreation; they also added a legend. A legend is included with a map to unlock it. It gives you the information needed for the map to make sense. Maps often use symbols or colors to represent things, and the map key explains what they mean. ... Symbols in the key might be pictures or icons that represent different things on the map. Students started a new Scientific inquiry: Tomatosphere
THE SEED INVESTIGATION QUESTION Will the tomatoes grow the same in space as they do on earth? In the Seed Investigation, students are investigating the germination rates of tomato seeds that have been to space (or exposed to space-like conditions) with seeds that have remained on Earth. One package of seeds is a “control” (untreated) group and the other is the "experimental" (treated) group. The “experimental” seeds spent almost approximately 30 days on the International Space Station in June/July 2017. The primary objective of the Seed Investigation is to determine the number of seeds that germinate compared to the number planted for each of the two types of seeds (treated and untreated). Field Trip This week at Studio Bell, students participated in a scavenger hunt throughout the galleries to learn about various genres of music and students had the opportunity to play instruments independently. Each parent volunteer/teacher had an iPad to take videos and pictures of students completing challenges which Studio Bell will share with us in the coming weeks. Students had a blast exploring the various parts of the museum and collecting various challenge cards from the tour guides! Students were especially in awe of the Kimball Theatre Organ which was used in the early 1900’s to accompany silent films! Ask your students to tell you about their special instrument! Math This week Grade 1’s completed their addition and subtraction post-assessments as well as ways to recognize which strategies are most efficient and effective for each student. This week Grade 2’s have been working on subtraction with regrouping. This is typically a difficult part of the Grade 2 Math curriculum therefore students may need additional support at home. Towards the end of next week, students will be sent home with a math reasoning problem that they’ve completed this past week. This assessment has been given a mark and has notes on how students came to their solution and the steps they used to understand the problem. Science This week we started a scientific experiment called Tomatosphere. This project allows students to grow their own tomato plants in the classroom room, however this is a catch! Half of these tomato seeds spent 30 days on the International Space Station. Our class was given two packages of seeds and it is our turn to hypothesize which package went up to space. Our research question we are investigating is how exposure to space will affect the rate of germination. Germination is a key concept your student should be able to explain! Ask your student what germination is (hint: when a seed grows into a seedling). Students learned important scientific concepts like having a control and experimental group. We also reviewed the needs of plants including air, water, light, and nutrients. Students also learned about life cycles and the various stages in an organisms life. For more information on our Tomatosphere project, go to http://tomatosphere.letstalkscience.ca Literacy This week, students continued to work on their poetry unit through planning out a color poem. Students had to reflect on one color and how it relates to all of their senses. For example, one student said the color blue “felt” wet and slippery, “smelled” fresh like spring rain, and “looked” like a mirror due to a waters reflection. This poem asked students to think abstractly and connect with their five senses. Students also wrote a creative short story based on their Tomatosphere project. Students had to create a backstory as to how their seeds got up to space! This gave students to develop their imagination and story-telling in connection to our science project. Art This week students also finished painting their black capped chickadee sketches and they are now displayed outside our room! Students are excited for our upcoming nature walk to see if they can find these birds in their natural habitat. They also drew the tomato life cycle in their visual sketch journals in connection to our Tomatosphere project. Reminders
This week I sent home the parent letter/volunteer sign-up for the May 15th Spring Walk. I am still looking for multiple volunteers so if you are interested, please hand in your volunteer sign-up form! Thank you for everyone who volunteered this past month. We've had a busy few weeks of field trips and they were all very successful! We only have a couple field trips left so please sign up if you have not fulfilled your volunteering commitment. Thank you! Ms. Craig Hello Room 9,
For our Studio Bell field trip on Thursday, we are leaving promptly at 8:30 so volunteers please meet at Room 9 no later than 8:15 to meet your groups! I am still missing forms and payment from a number of students so be sure your forms are in no later than Wednesday! Thanks again. Ms. Craig Students enjoyed the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. Fist, they explored the wonders of nature through a guided walk! They discovered plants, insects, birds and animals, and investigated topics such as seasonal variation, migration, adaptation and hibernation. During this field study, students were able to experience the wonders of the natural world. When a child is out in nature, all the senses get activated. They are immersed in something bigger than themselves, rather than focusing narrowly on one thing, such as a computer screen. Students are seeing, hearing, and touching. Out in nature, a child's brain has the chance to rejuvenate, so the next time he has to focus and pay attention, perhaps he or she will do better. Research suggests that a connection to nature is biologically innate; as humans, we have an affinity for the natural world. Problems associated with alienation from nature include familiar maladies: depression, obesity, and attention deficit disorder. Kids who have direct access to nature are better learners. Exposure to nature has been shown to reduce stress and increase attention spans. Following the nature walk, students learned all about seeds. Plants can’t travel, but their seeds can! During the program, students joined Mr. Seed as he explored the amazing journey of tree, plant and flower seeds. Students learned about the ingenious ways plants reproduce and participate in hands-on activities involving real seeds. When they returned to school, they represented the various ways seeds travel in their creative journals. Plants may not be able to move from place to place, but seeds can.
Ask your child: How Do Seeds Travel?
Field Trips: This week, students had the opportunity to explore two great places in Calgary: the Calgary Tower and the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. On Monday, students got to observe the city of Calgary from a birds eye view from the top of the Calgary Tower. Students learned the history of the tower, how it was built, and fun facts about what it has to offer! Each student was given a clipboard and a scavenger hunt checklist to find the various shapes around our city's downtown skyline. Once they had found all the shapes, students got to make their own city scape with various shapes! Lastly, students loved their free time on the observation deck and standing on the glass deck. This field trip gave students a great perspective as to how city are laid out and how their own city blueprint should look. Students identified the various parts of our city like rural, suburban, and urban centers as well as identified key infrastructure such as rivers, bridges, streets, and highways. On Tuesday, the class packed up again and headed out to the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. It was a perfect day for a nature walk outside and the path was filled with wildlife. Students began their day with the Traveling Seed Show in which students learned the 5 different ways seeds travel! Ask your child how seeds get from one place to another and try to get them to teach you the corresponding dance move! After snack we set out on a guided nature walk where we saw a ground squirrel, red-tail hawk, lots of Canadian goose, mallards, chickadees, magpies, and many other species of birds! Although we didn't see a beaver out on the path, we could tell that beavers lived in that area due to the bitten down trees! Students loved being outside in nature and hearing all of the different bird calls. Literacy This week students finished their final draft of their acrostic spring poetry. They also wrote reflections on their time at the bird sanctuary focusing on what their learned and what they saw during the nature walk. Lastly, as a class we read the book "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss. This book focuses on how we need to preserve our planet in a fun and engaging way! Students were asked to make connections on how this story applies to what we've been learning about reducing our carbon footprint and following the three R's: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Math Grade 1: Working on making proper estimations and subtraction 0-10. Next week we will start subtraction 0-20 . Grade 2: Base tens and subtraction without regrouping. Next week, we will be sending one a math evaluation of how students are doing with subtraction equations and problem solving. Science In addition to our field trips this weekend, we extended our discussion of seeds and birds by doing an animal spotlight on Black-Capped Chickadees. As a class, we read books on chickadees as well as watched videos on chickadees in their natural habitat and their chickadee songs. In addition to learning about the chickadees habitats, appearance, and fun facts, we also did a guided drawing and painting activity where each student did a watercolor painting of their chickadees. Students finished works of art will be displayed outside our room with all our facts we learned about the Black-Capped Chickadees! Reminders
Studio Bell field trip forms and the $14.50 fee need to be handed in as soon as possible as we are going next Thursday (May 3rd). If your child has misplaced the forms, please email me at [email protected] and I will send home another form. We are still looking for one volunteer to join us. Please keep in mind by the end of the year, you should have volunteered at least 3 times this year. Thanks and have a great weekend full of sun! Ms. Craig Social Studies Students are continuing to brainstorm ideas for their city blueprint and what are necessities to create a sustainable community. They are excited about their upcoming field trip to the Calgary Tower as they will get a birds eye view of how the city of Calgary is organized! Science This week our science was surrounding Earth Day which is coming up on Sunday April 22nd. As our class won't physically be together on Earth Day, they had the idea of celebrating it over the past couple of days! In connection to our social studies city planning project, we looked at ways on how we can make our city clean and green. Students researched different types of pollution including air, soil, and water. We also learned what our carbon footprint was and came up with a list of ways as to how we could reduce our carbon footprint to help preserve our planet. Students each chose 3 things they could do in their daily lives to reduce their carbon footprint. Some ideas students discussed were:
Lastly, as a class we did a watercolor paint activity where each student got assigned a letter that they got to design and paint a design on. After they letters were dry and cut out, students were to solve what all these letters spelt. Their clue was the "three R's to help save our planet!" Students realized the secret message was: REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE. Literacy This week students made an acrostic poem about Spring. First students had to imagine their five sense and how they relate to spring. Students mentioned hearing birds chirping, smelling cleanly cut grass, seeing the change in colors, and feeling the warmth of the sun on their skin. After completing a rough draft in their reflection journals, students are now in the process of completing their final copy which they can bring home next week. Math In Grade 1, students are starting their investigation of subtraction. They are answering the questions like what is subtraction, what does it look like, and how can we solve it? Students are learning a variety of strategies we can solve subtraction equations as well as building their math vocabulary with words like minus and difference. In Grade 2, students are doing subtraction without regrouping in Ms. Smith's class through games and hands-on learning. Thank you to all of the parents who came out to support our Math Fair! It was a great night filled with games, problem solving, and popcorn! For the parents that were not able to attend, here are the two games the students learned and the instructions so you can play at home! Field Trip Reminders:
On Monday April 23rd, we are going to the Calgary Tower! Volunteers, please arrive at Room 9 for 9:15am to meet your groups! On Tuesday April 24th, we are going to the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary! Volunteers, please arrive at Room 9 for 8:45am to meet your groups! Please ensure your student has indoor shoes, snacks, and water! Can't wait for a fun-filled week of field trips! Enjoy the long weekend! Ms. Craig Sometimes we enjoy doing Art for the sake of Art! To celebrate Spring, students created simple birds that are stacked on each other, with the highest one looking at a pretty flower. For this project, students were given drawing guidelines on a paper by folding the paper to make creases. The birds and flower were drawn using the creases as drawing guidelines. Water colour pencil crayons were used to paint the art. After the painting dried, permanent markers were used to trace their work. So beautiful! Thank you to all the parents that attended our Math Fair. It was a fun affair - the students were very excited. A major objective of the math fair was to have students solve interesting problems. Math is seldom an isolated activity and students should learn that doing math is sharing their experiences and insights with others. There was a high degree of interaction, with visitors relying on the students to help them learn our math games and solve our problems. Students, family, friends, and casual visitors also had the opportunity to visit other classrooms and try each others' problems.
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Authors:Room 9 & 11 will be sharing their learning every Friday. |