Science Design Project

Students in room 15 planned, cut, taped, glued and created circulatory models for Science.
Projects will be on display during conferences.

Art in Nature with Our Grade 1 Buddies

Our highlight this last week was time spent with our Grade 1 buddies. We used the natural materials we collected last buddy time to make our artwork that represents respect. Miss Cichosz and Mrs. Turner took photos of our artwork and printed copies for us. We used these copies to decorate our nature journals.

On Thursday, our class visited Truro Creek with our buddies and learned about the safety boundaries. We all spent time in nature and drew illustrations in our nature journals about what we respect about nature while inspired by life around the creek. We also talked about the types of animals we might expect to find at the creek and how to show respect for nature. Our class had a wonderful time with our buddies and we are looking forward to more time outdoors and at the creek!

A few examples of our Respect Nature Art

At Truro Creek

Juggling, Buddy Time, and Shape and Space

We had an exciting week beginning with a juggling presentation and lesson on Monday. We had a lot of fun and learned about balance, coordination, and juggling a variety of objects.

Our class also had Buddy Time with Team 8 (Grade 1). We learned about the Seven Sacred Teachings and Miss Cichosz read us a story about respect and the buffalo. After talking about respect and how to respect nature, we collected found materials outdoors, such as pine cones, dry leaves, and twigs. Next Buddy Time, we will assemble these materials to make artwork that shows what respect means to us.

Our class also started working with perimeter, area, and volume in our math study of Shape and Space. We explored the typical dimensions of a Haudenosaunee longhouse (approximately 10 m. wide, 10 m. tall, and 25 m. long with a curved roof) as part of our First Peoples' study in Social Studies. We learned how to find the perimeter, floor area, and approximate volume of a longhouse. Our week was full of learning and fun!

Length of an average Haudenosaunee longhouse (25 m. from the camera to the students in the centre of the hallway)

After Thanksgiving

Team 15 spent the last week talking more about gratitude. We shared what we learned from our reading about Beringia, wrote and shared journal entries written about a typical day as though we lived in the time period of Beringia, and began to read and study Indigenous Peoples' stories of origin. Our class also completed a writing assessment to help Miss Cichosz support us in our writing throughout the year. We began to learn about area in Math, including that different rectangles can have the same area (cover the same amount of space). We're excited to continue our learning and expect this coming week will fly by quickly!

Early October and Thanksgiving Art

Our focus for the first week of October included review of the big ideas of Growth Mindset. Photos of our bulletin board on Growth Mindset are included below which include examples of what we imagine our brains look like when we seek challenges; the more lines (connections) we have in our brains (due to challenges) the more we're growing our brains!

We also explored shapes using tangrams and continued our work with measurement. Our class began our study about the First Peoples of Canada. We read, discussed, and summarized the main points of the scientific theories regarding Beringia and will continue debating and sharing our understanding this coming week.

Our class also enjoyed making autumn themed cards with our Grade 1 buddies. We finished the cards on Friday by writing Thanksgiving messages inside. Happy Thanksgiving!

Is it the End of September Already?

Yes, it went by quickly! Our first month of the school year has come to a close. Here are a few highlights from our last week of September:
We explored shapes and space using pattern blocks. Our goal was to build a shape using specific criteria (such as number or types of blocks) and the pattern blocks available to us. This exploration helped us to begin understanding the term "area" before tackling problems that involve finding the area of a space.
We completed surveys about our intelligences, graphed and discussed our results, and decided on our strongest strengths. Some of us are reflecting on our strengths or we were absent, so we will add our names to our intelligence chart (shown below) this coming week. We will use this chart to find peer helpers during the school year as each person signed up under one of his/her strongest strengths.
We published our Class Treaty after writing the drafts together. Our treaty will guide our choices and actions throughout the school year. Those of us in attendance signed the treaty as a sign of our commitment and the rest of us will sign next week.
We also worked on Read to Someone after successful practice of Read to Self. Our class is doing a great job of focusing on our reading and we're beginning to share strategies and book recommendations with each other.
In September, our class focused on building community, understanding multiple intelligences (different ways people can be smart) and growth mindset, and increasing our focus. We will review these concepts during the school year and use them as a foundation for our learning. Let's get to more learning in October!