To share a few facts about the beautiful province we live in, we added a QR code to the postcards that links to a brief “About BC” section on our class blog. 24 postcards have been popped in the mail. 9 more to go!
Our class signed up to be a part of the Global Read Aloud Amal Unbound postcard exchange, so we’ve been busy drafting postcards to send off to students in classrooms throughout the United States and Canada. We got to choose what to write about – our favourite part of the book, a connection we made or something we’re curious about – and after we finished our draft, we wrote on the postcards. We did a great job clearly sharing our ideas about the novel in the limited space on the card! To share a few facts about the beautiful province we live in, we added a QR code to the postcards that links to a brief “About BC” section on our class blog. 24 postcards have been popped in the mail. 9 more to go! We’ve continued with the Science Big Idea How Living Things Sense & Respond to Their Environment with some science experiments that involve our senses. We’re all familiar with our five senses, but we didn’t realize how much they actually work together sending signals to our brain (even when we’re sleeping!). It’s the brain’s job to interpret and then respond to these signals. To see this in action, we did a few experiments that used only one sense. Our first experiment challenged our sense of smell – we needed to identify substances (ketchup, dish soap and coffee grounds) without seeing them. Our second experiment had us tasting and identifying objects (apples, pears and potato) with our eyes shut and our noses plugged. Both were harder than we expected! They clearly showed us that our senses work together to let our brain know what’s going on around us. We lucked out with the sunny weather for our afternoon nature walk to our local park. When we arrived at the park, our task was to find our tree and to note any changes that we observed since last week’s visit. We were surprised how many leaves had dropped from our tree in only a week! We also noticed fewer birds and insects, but more moss on the trees. Clearly some birds have flown south for the winter, but where were the other birds? Busy building nests? And are the spiders hiding with their egg sac? We predict that by next week’s visit, all the leaves will have fallen. Stay tuned! Halloween is right around the corner and our little kindergarten buddies were learning all about pumpkins. They did a great job measuring the height and weight of their pumpkin, but they needed a bit of our help with carving. Before getting started, our little buddy came up with a design. We were impressed by how creative they were! We helped them sketch the design – on paper and then on the pumpkin – and then it was time to begin carving! We were great leaders – very patient and very helpful. We’re looking forward to having some Halloween fun of our own next week :) Another great week of learning in divisions 6 & 7.
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A highlight of the week for many of us was a walk to our local park. Here in BC we’ve been having lots of beautiful fall weather and the afternoon of our walk was no exception. When we arrived at the park, our task was to choose one specific tree and to make detailed observations of what we saw. We took a close look at the bark and kept our eyes peeled for living things – were there insects? Birds? Was there moss? We also examined the foliage (needles or leaves) – was the tree still filled with leaves? What colour were they? Using what we already know about the changing seasons, we made predictions about what we expect to see when we visit next week. We were introduced to the BC Writing Performance Standards this week and spent time learning about the key components of quality writing – form, style, meaning and conventions. We discovered that the words on the Performance Standards rubric are complicated! They clearly weren’t written for kids! So our goal was to focus on one component and to try to put it into kid-friendly language. Here’s what we came up with: Form Instead of: • some analysis and reaction, often connected to retelling • some supporting details, reasons, and explanations (e.g., how student felt) We came up with: • My topic is clear • I include details to explain my ideas Our weekly letters home will be a great opportunity for us to practise and improve upon our writing. It is election week in our municipal election so after doing research on local mayoral candidates and learning about current “hot topic” issues (including transit and safety & security), it was time to cast our ballots. Our results were submitted to StudentVote.ca and won’t be shared until after polls close. Until then, we’ll be wondering who our next mayor will be.
We had the wonderful opportunity to visit with local author Sarah Ellis at the public library. Sarah Ellis has written over twenty-five books for young readers and has won many honours, including the Governor General’s Award. During her talk, Sarah shared how she gets ideas for her stories, many of which are memories from her childhood. She also gets ideas from stories she’s heard, dreams, newspaper articles and strange experiences. We loved hearing her share how this combination of ideas is what leads to her draft (and that she uses a pen and paper to write!) and then the final story. At the end of her talk, Sarah Ellis gave us each a Dodger Boy bookmark to take home. A big thank you to Sarah Ellis and to the local library. Nothing says fall like scarecrows, so we started a fall art activity involving scarecrows and oil pastels. We worked together as a class to come up with the criteria. After brainstorming, we narrowed it down to three: the art needs to take up the majority of the page, we need to use a minimum of 4 bold colours and we need to outline the art. We were excited to get started – and to give our scarecrows some personality! A great week of learning in divisions 6 & 7 :)
Have you looked outside recently and noticed that chestnuts have broken away from their burrs? And that leaves are changing colour and pinecones are falling? That’s how living things are responding to changes in their environment. Over the next few weeks we will be going on several nature walks through a local park and taking note of changes that we see happening. Speaking of changes, we’ve also begun a Science experiment to explore and compare how plants respond to a change in conditions. One of our plants will be in darkness, one of them will be given orange crush (instead of water) and the last one will be our control plant. We made predictions on how we think the plants will respond. Although it’s still early in our experiment, we have already seen changes. In math we’ve been building our number sense while using Base 10 Blocks to add 3-digit numbers. Using manipulatives is important in Math because it helps build our conceptual understanding. To share our learning, we recorded videos. Here was our learning intention and criteria: Learning Intention: I can use Base 10 Blocks to find the sum of two three-digit numbers Criteria: -My question involves regrouping -I explain how to find the sum -I use Math vocabulary (e.g. Base 10 Blocks, sum, regroup, ones, tens, hundreds) -I speak clearly The Global Read Aloud is officially underway and already the main character Amal is facing challenges, including having to care for her family instead of going to school. We’ve been making and sharing connections, inferences and predictions with our peers in class. We also participated in a Twitter slow chat to share our ideas with kids in Texas, Connecticut, Colorado, Indiana, New York, Ohio & Alberta! The question was about whether Amal should go to school or stay home to care for family. Here’s what we shared: It’s voting time again! With our civic election fast approaching we’ve been discussing government and the differences between the three levels (municipal, provincial and federal). We’ve learned that the municipal government is responsible for things such as safety, transportation, and housing, which is why they are hot topics in our upcoming election. We also learned that each mayoral candidate has different plans (or platforms) if elected. Our local candidates have short 2-minute videos that we watched to learn about their plan. It was a great introduction to the candidates. Next week we’re going to dig a little deeper. With our Canadian Thanksgiving weekend fast approaching, we took some time to discuss gratitude and then reflected on what we have to be grateful for. Otsaliheliga - Cherokee for "we are grateful." Wishing you all a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with your family :) See you back next week!
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AuthorWe are a curious group of kids who are excited to share our learning with you! Archives
March 2020
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