With Hanukkah beginning on December 2, it was a great opportunity to talk about different cultural celebrations. We got started with a picture book Is it Hanukkah Yet? and we learned about the menorah, dreidels and latkes that are a part of the Jewish celebration. We also talked about our own cultural traditions and the food, clothing and special activities that accompany those celebrations. We had a lot of fun sharing our own family traditions with our peers and noticing common threads between us. We were also reminded of how these traditions are an important part of who we are. Did you know that bats can use echolocation to find food up to 18 ft. away in the dark? And that platypuses can locate their prey using electroreception (underwater detection)? Fascinating! We’ve learned that and more as we explore how different animals use their senses to find food and shelter, locate mates and avoid danger. With animals, it’s all about survival! To share our learning, we’ve been using our creative and critical thinking to create our very own species, with unique senses, behaviours, and habitats! We got our first introduction to Ozobots this week - miniature robots that are loads of fun!! Ozobots travel along a pathway and follow special colour sequences that they encounter along the way. The colour sequences are codes that the Ozobot can understand…so when it sees blue green red, for example, it will go its fastest speed for 3 seconds while flashing green and white before returning to its cruising speed. We loved using codes while mapping out paths for the Ozobots to follow. It was tricky at first…our lines were too thin and our colour codes weren’t the same size, but we learned so much simply by making mistakes. We've tested and have shared our paths and are looking forward to continuing the learning next week. We read Metis Christmas Mittens by Leah Marie Dorion and learned about the Metis tradition of making mittens for loved ones. Those mittens warm the hands and the heart :). Check out the mittens we drew using oil pastels. Next week: December!! It's the most wonderful time of the year 🙂
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This week’s highlight was Identity Day!! Each of us chose something that we are passionate about, created a display and then shared it with the school. We loved it!! We felt so proud sharing our projects with visitors to our class, but we also enjoyed visiting other classrooms. We noticed that many of us have common interests. It was a great community builder and we are already looking forward to next year!! We finished our last few chapters of the Global Read Aloud Amal Unbound, but the postcards from other classrooms continue to arrive. We’ve enjoyed reading the postcards and discovering that their thoughts and opinions are very similar to ours. This week we got several from Wisconsin, one from Pennsylvania and one from Texas! Hope they keep rolling in! This week we began writing letters to Aisha Saeed, the author of Amal Unbound – a perfect opportunity for us to practice adding detail to our writing! Here’s our task: Learning Intention: I can write a formal letter to the author of a book expressing my ideas and opinions Criteria:
We all know how important it is to be kind to each other and to build positive relationships with classmates (Social Responsibility Core Competency), but this week we get off track and forgot to think about how our rumour spreading was negatively impacting our classmates. We had some work to do. We got started by reading Mr. Peabody’s Apples, a picture book that shows how quickly rumours can spread, how hurtful they can be and how hard it is to undo the damage done. Many of us can empathize with how it feels when rumours are circulating because we’ve had that happen to us. And it hurts. To practice how to respond when we hear rumours, we did a role-play activity. Each group had a scenario to act out and was asked to model a positive way to respond to rumours. It’s sometimes hard to remember the right way to respond in the real world, but we need to remember to choose kindness. December is our turn to decorate the front foyer of our school, so here’s a sneak-peak at what it’ll include: Hard to believe we're already nearing the end of November!! Time flies when you're busy learning!!
A highlight of the week for many of us was our HUB Learn2Ride Bike Safety program. Our two sessions of training were jam-packed! We learned all sorts of information about how to stay safe on a bike, proper helmet use (2V2), how to do an ABC (air, break, chain) safety inspection and how to follow traffic laws. But the best learning was when we rode around on our bikes outside. Many of us worked our way through different stations that involved making shoulder checks and using hand signals, turning corners, etc. while others of us who are beginners gained confidence by balancing on a bike. There were even a few of us who learned to ride for the first time! A big thank you to HUB and to the City of Surrey for this great learning opportunity. This week we also focused on adding detail to our writing. Although many of us have ideas to write about, we often write too briefly because we aren’t sure how to add detail. That’s when practise comes in handy! Before the practise however, we had a direct lesson on how to expand on a simple sentence. Mrs. Howden modeled how to brainstorm ideas to add detail and then we worked in groups to do the same. Once we had ideas brainstormed, we were set to write a paragraph. We then practised a few times on our own, including in our weekly letters home. We’ll continue to work on adding detail because it’s an important part of our writing. Did you know that Nov. 16 is Louis Riel Day? Louis Riel was a Métis leader who fought hard for human rights and was an advocate for the Métis culture. Interestingly, many of us hadn’t ever heard of Louis Riel, so we did a mini-inquiry to learn more. We were surprised to find out how poorly he was treated for standing up for Métis rights. Another great week of learning in divisions 6 & 7 :)
We all know that the poppy is associated with Remembrance Day, but how did the flower become a symbol of remembrance? To find out, we read A Poppy Is to Remember, a picture book that tells the story of the poppy and of the poem “In Flanders Fields.” We learned that during the First World War poppies grew on the battlefield and over time came to represent those who have fallen. They also became a symbol of hope. We were inspired by the background art in A Poppy Is to Remember, so we used warm watercolours to create similar sunrise backgrounds and black construction paper to cut out Flanders Fields silhouettes. We shared our finished art with the school at our Remembrance Day assembly. This week also included Diwali, the festival of lights. Diwali is a holiday that began in India, but is now celebrated around the world. To celebrate in our classroom, we lit candles, listened to Indian music and made our own Rangoli art. We also brought positive energy into our classroom by leaving thoughtful messages and good wishes. We’ve been having fun connecting with students globally while reading the Global Read Aloud novel: Amal Unbound. We were inspired by a class in Virginia who shared an activity comparing themselves with the main character, Amal. Here’s what we created: We also contributed to a Padlet conversation: And have loved receiving postcards! Connecting with other classrooms has been exciting, but our discussions in class have been equally enjoyable. This week’s theme was “fairness” and we made many text-to-text and text-to-self connections.
It was another great week of learning in our classroom. :) This week was a busy one! One of the highlights of the week was Halloween. To have a little fun, we had some leaders plan, organize and run Halloween activities for their peers. One group led a station that involved estimation and another one that involved drawing ghosts. We even had students create a Kahoot and a bingo game! Great leadership. Great enthusiasm. Loads of fun!! This week included our last nature walk over to our local park and it’s been fascinating watching the trees respond to shorter days and cooler weather. Last week, many of us predicted that by this week’s visit, all the leaves would have fallen and we could tell on our walk over (as we traipsed through leaves) that that prediction was very likely accurate. And sure enough, it was! We recorded the changes and then spent time walking through and appreciating the park’s ecosystem. Still no birds this week. And no insects. Great observations that clearly show that we are watching…and wondering. Volleyball season is underway and we’ve been working on building our game skills. To get us started, we learned more about the fundamental techniques of serving, bumping and volleying by reviewing the steps. Then it was time to practise! It’s been lots of fun sending the ball back and forth with our partners. Along the way, several of us have asked great questions: “when I serve, why doesn’t the ball go over the net?”, “why when I bump does the volleyball go sideways?” and “how do I get better?” Great questions! Here’s what we’re looking for: When we serve the ball we: • Face the direction that we want the ball to go • With one hand, hold out the ball in front of us • Strike the ball with our dominant hand as we step forward with our opposite foot When we bump the ball we: • Bring our hands together and close one on top of the other • Hold our arms out in front of us • Stand in the “ready” position • When the ball gets close to our arms, bump the volleyball of our forearm When we volley the ball, • We hold our arms above our heads forming a diamond shape • We stand in the ready position, ready to move • Try to make contact with all of your fingers touching the ball • Push the ball upwards Sometimes we don’t realize what we’re doing until we see it for ourselves. So to find out, we captured videos of all of us volleying, bumping and serving so that we can watch those videos (shared in our digital portfolios) and see for ourselves what we do well and what needs improvement. In a few weeks, we’ll re-record to see how our skills have improved. We’ll keep you posted. Check out this spooky bunch of kids! Another great week of learning in divisions 6 & 7 :)
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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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