Social Studies This week students reflected on their own sense of community and what groups they are apart of. Students shared the various groups they were apart of from their school community, classroom community, neighborhood community, and many more. From there we discussed the community of Calgary and what a city needs in order to thrive. In groups, students presented what they thought were city's needs and wants. This week we also compared urban, suburban, and rural settings to which students examined which area they live in. Students learned the concepts of infrastructure and a city blueprint as a foundation for how they should design their own city in the coming weeks. Science We started to explore the role of a Civil Engineer and how they contribute to city blueprints and designing of structures. Students reflected on how they can think like a civil engineer to properly design their city in the most efficient way possible. Next week, students will be looking into environmentally friendly ways to cut down pollution in their cities. Math
This week Grade 1's learned how to write their own addition word problems and have finished their unit on addition. Next week we are starting subtraction. Grade 2's are working on two-digit subtraction with Ms. Smith through lots of interactive and engaging math games. In Room 9, we have also been practicing our problem solving and math reasoning with brain teasers and math puzzles. Its a fun way to get students thinking outside of the box with math and working in groups to try to come to a solution! Literacy Room 9's goal has been to improve their reading skills by focusing on their "Just Right" level books! Everyone morning and afternoon, we are working hard to increase our vocabulary and jump to the next reading level. Students also worked on a reflection entry on their community and why being apart of many different communities is beneficial. Special Assembly Valley View School had the privilege of welcoming Earth Rangers to our school today for a special assembly on climate change and animal conservation. Students learned about various species adaptions, habitats, and how our changing climate affects these animals. Students got to meet many animal ambassadors like Millie the armadillo, Floyd the python, a red-tail hawk, and a barn owl. To become an official Earth Ranger, you can head to https://www.earthrangers.com/membership for details! Reminders Thank you for everyone who has signed up to volunteer for the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary on April 24th - we are full for volunteers! I am still looking for 3 volunteers for the Calgary Tower visit on April 23rd so please email me at [email protected] if you are interested! The Math Fair Night is on Thursday April 19th this week from 6-7PM; please come visit the three Grade 1/2 classrooms and get your child to teach you our various math games! Ms. Craig
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Students learned about Wonderful Worms! We had some wiggly worms visit our classroom. Students learned about composting and how important worms are to the natural environment. Ask your child: Why are worms important? Worms help to increase the amount of air and water that gets into the soil. They break down organic matter, like leaves and grass into things that plants can use. When they eat, they leave behind castings that are a very valuable type of fertilizer. Worms are nature’s recyclers. Students also learned about our school's recycling bins. As Earth helpers each and every day, students have been learning how to sort garbage and recycling into their respective bins. The stations include bins for recycling, refundable beverage containers (yellow), organics, and garbage. These bins have been colour-coded to match the City of Calgary totes: blue for recycling, black for waste, and green for organics. Organics are collected in a white bin in our classroom and then moved to the green organic bin. Paper, cardboard, plastic containers, metal cans, foil, and glass containers can all go in the same bin. This matches the City of Calgary’s Blue Cart program, so staff and students can recycle the same items at home and at school. The CBE’s recycling program was developed to increase program sustainability and long-term success. Teachers and students are responsible for recycling in the classrooms.
Hi Room 9 parents & students! Hope you all had a fun and relaxing Spring Break!
The month of April will be busy with field trips and special activities! Here are some reminders for important dates coming up! Fun Lunch forms are due back Friday April 13th in order to secure your spot. The Math Fair night will be April 19th for students to go around to different classrooms and teach their parents different math games and activities! The rescheduled field trip to the Calgary Tower will be on Monday April 23rd. If you wish you volunteer, please email me at [email protected]. For those of you who were signed up initially, I will contact you to confirm if you can still make it! We would like to have 4-5 parents come with us! Our class is visiting the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary on Tuesday April 24th. Please hand in your field trip forms this week! Thank you and looking forward to being back at school! Ms. Craig Students enjoyed their field study to Arts Commons. They participated in two multi-disciplinary workshops taught by professional artists that support students in specific art disciplines through hands-on workshops in art, music and science. Our visual arts workshop explored our five senses. Though we may not actually be able to feel or hear the objects and scenes depicted in a piece of art, artists often invite us to use a variety of our senses when we explore a work of art—encouraging us to imagine the textures, smells, and even tastes of what is depicted. During this workshop students were introduced to various art materials that appealed to our senses and used as inspiration to create a piece of art. During our music workshop, students had fun learning about the spectrogram and building a sound sandwich. They used drinking straws, popsicle sticks and elastic bands to make a fantastic sound-making device. Varying the design allows children to experiment with sound. Ask your child:
What can you hear? Can you make different sounds? Try moving the straws closer together. Does this change the sound? Try the experiment with different sized rubber bands - long, short, thick and thin. You could make your own sound sandwich orchestra! What's happening? When you blow through the sound sandwich, the air vibrates the elastic band. The vibrations produce a sound. Large elastic bands vibrate slowly and produce a low-pitched sound. Shorter elastic bands produce a high-pitched sound. If you move the straws closer together, you make the elastic band shorter. This makes the sound more high pitched. Thank you to parents for attending March interviews. It was great to share our learning and meet with all of you! Field Trip - Arts Commons This past Monday, our class enjoyed a fun-filled day of arts, crafts, music, and dance at the Arts Commons! Students first met with an artist who had the students participate in a blind drawing exercise and then discuss what abstract art is. Then students got the chance to produce their own abstract art which focused on using their five senses to describe their favourite foods. Students had to think about what is tastes like, smells like, feels like, and sounds like while they eat it. It was great to see students exploring their creative side with the help of our artist! After lunch, our class moved to a dance activity which was focused around "building things". Students learned a two minute dance about construction workers. Students were having so much getting to add their own personality into the dance and let loose! All week, the students and I have been doing the dance before recess to ensure we still remember our moves! Math This week in math the grade 1's have been moving onto addition with sums from 0-20. I'm encouraging students to try different strategies other than finger counting to come to their solutions. One of the strategies we've worked on has been counting on which involves more mental math skills. Over spring break, ask your student if they can solve some addition equations using the counting on strategy! The grade 2's have been continuing to work on their two digit addition with regrouping. After spring break, the grade 2's will be moving onto subtraction. As a whole class, we've been working on our estimation skills through Dan Meyer's Three Act Math series which works on students ability to problem solve in a real-world situation. Literacy This week students have been doing daily reflections/stories in their writing journals. Each day we set aside some time for students to work on their stories or reflection of activities and most love it so much they continue into exploration time! Students also finished their Snow Globe Stories which will be posted on the bulletin board after spring break! We've also been playing games such as "Boggle" and "Scrabble" to work on word formation and increasing our vocabulary. Science This week, students finished building their boats as well as participated in the boat show where students got to present their creations to the class. One by one, students got to test their boats to see if they floated and if their boat could carry a load (wooden blocks). Students were very excited/surprised that every single boat in our class floated! Students then reflected on the building process and if they would make any adjustments to their original design. Reminders:
Fun Lunch forms are due back Friday April 13th in order to secure your spot. The Math Fair night will be April 19th for students to go around to different classrooms and teach their parents different math games and activities! The rescheduled field trip to the Calgary Tower will be on Monday April 23rd. Our class is visiting the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary on Tuesday April 24th. Have a great spring break & see everyone back on Tuesday April 10th! Science: This week, students finished there boat prototypes, collected materials, and started designing their boats. As a class, students brainstormed criteria on how to judge and build their boats based on two main challenges: make a boat that will float and make a boat that will carry a load. Students carefully chose each material to ensure their watercraft was able to successfully achieve both challenges. This design thinking task gets students sharing their ideas with others and testing possible outcomes. Literacy: Students worked on the literary process when creating their "The Day I Got Stuck in a Snow Globe". Each student created a rough copy then as a class we created a "peer edit checklist". Students then paired up with a partner to make sure their story had proper capitalization, punctation, "juicy words", and was interesting! Finally, students copied their final draft onto their snow globe drawing. The class is very excited to share their stories during Parent Teacher Interviews next week! Math:
The grade 1's are continuing to work on addition with sums of 0-20 using multiple strategies. The grade 2's are also working on two digit addition with and without regrouping. Field Trip Reminder: On Monday, our class is going to the Art's Common for a fun and physical field trip! Please ensure students pack plenty of food and water as it will have many physically engaging activities. As students will be dancing and moving, make sure they have indoor shoes as well. We are very excited to have a fun day off-site with all three Grade 1/2 Science Program classes! Students enjoyed their field studies to Fort Calgary and participated in the program Building Calgary. Linking social studies and science, students learned about Calgary’s past and how different types of buildings have been used. Then, students worked together to build a child-sized log cabin, and traveled through the museum to further explore buildings and their materials. After lunch, students participated in another program called Calgary: A Prairie Community and learned about the diversity of our prairie home! Together, we worked on a 3-D map of our city in the past and celebrated the language and culture of Calgary’s founding communities. Students enjoyed dressing in costumes, learning new languages, and handling artifacts as they learn about what makes different cultures unique.
Science This week, students explored the question of what objects float or sink. As a class we collected different classroom items and tested their buoyancy! Students then got to create their own hypothesis' about items they would like to test and recorded their own results. We also examined how the shape and size of boats corresponds to their load and capacity by testing how many wooden blocks a raft or canoe could hold. Students were shocked by our findings which made for a great class discussion! Students finished the week by designing their blueprints for their prototype boat. Their challenge is to design a boat that can float and hold as many block cubes as possible. On Monday, we will be starting to build our prototypes so if you could donate various materials it would be greatly appreciated! Math The Grade 1's have finished learning doubles and we've moved onto what an addition equation is. Students learned math vocabulary like plus, minus, and sum as well as learned an addition song and some fun addition games. Ask your grade one student to teach you their addition equation song and the corresponding actions! Grade 2's are working with Ms. Smith on two-digit addition and regrouping. Art On Monday and Wednesday, students had the opportunity to work with our Artist in Residence Leah Donald who taught the students about how to wet felt. Students helped create a mural for the front of the school that will be displayed in coming weeks. Ask your children how they contributed to the art piece and what are the essential keys for felting (water, wool, heat, and agitation). Literacy Students started their rough copy on their stories "The Day I was Stuck in a Snow Globe!" Remind your students to bring home their home reading books and encourage them to read their "Just Right" books that are at their appropriate reading level. STEAM Friday: On Fridays, students go to a different classrooms to learn subjects relating to science, technology, engineering, art, and math. Students who were in Room 9 this week learned the origins behind dreamcatchers and how to weave their own! Students had a blast decorating their designs with feathers and beads. Students enjoyed working with our Artist in Residence, Leia Cathleen Donald. They created a beautiful mural that will be displayed in our school. Wet Felting is a method of creating art using wool fibre, water, soap and agitation.. This process is easy, fun and clean! Wet felting works with the natural properties of wool to bind the wool fibres together into a piece of felt. With our expert guidance, students created a colourful, unique piece of art. Everyone was amazed as the fluffy wool was transformed into a solid piece of felt. It's magical! What’s the use of a fine house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?”
Henry David Thorough Students continued to work in groups to design their city blueprints. They have completed sustainable housing and essential services (safety). When we use the word “sustainable” we are discussing communities that are designed to reduce the overall environmental impact in such a way that we can meet the needs of the people without compromising the natural environment. Following our research, students accomplished this by:
This week we focused a lot of our discussions on what it means to be a good classmate and how we as a class can prevent bullying. Students brainstormed how they can be respectful to others, show compassion and empathy, and what it means to be brave and stand up for others. On Wednesday, students were encouraged to wear pink in support of "Pink Shirt Day" which is an anti-bullying initiative. As a class we discussed the many forms of bullying and how we can take initiative to stop these acts in our school and classroom. Students also made their own pink shirt and wrote their ideas of how they stop bullying on a day to day basis. This week we also started our "Boats and Buoyancy" unit by first brainstorming defining characteristics and abilities of various watercrafts. Students were split into groups to collaborate and share their ideas and knowledge then they shared their groups ideas with the rest of the class. A strong educational tool I like to see in any classroom is reciprocal teaching where students teach others about their ideas and opinions. Reciprocal teaching is also a great way for students to feel appreciated and heard in their classroom. Next, students learned the idea of buoyancy and started to develop hypothesis' about which classroom items would float or sink. Students explored their classroom environment and chose a variety of objects they would like to test to observe if they were buoyant or not. In their field study journals, students made their predictions in the form of a drawing. As a class on Friday, we tested our group hypothesis' of various items. On Tuesday, students will independently get to test objects they chose and record their findings. In the upcoming weeks, students will be constructing and testing their own watercrafts. If you would like to donate any of the following materials it would be greatly appreciated:
- tinfoil - straws - cardboard - styrafoam cups - popsicle sticks - sponges Thank you! Leia Craig * I will be filling in for Mrs. Kemski while she is on maternity leave so feel free to contact me at [email protected] |
Authors:Room 9 & 11 will be sharing their learning every Friday. |