CRITERIA:
- I collect and record data about myself
- I pictorially represent that data by using a legend
- I analyse my data by looking for similarities and differences between the different glyphs
Welcome Back to a New School Year!! We’ve not been back for long, but we can already tell that we’ve got a great group of motivated and curious kids. Since moving into our permanent class, we’ve been busy getting to know each other and building our classroom community. We worked together to brainstorm different values that are important to us in the classroom and we narrowed down our list to four values that will guide us throughout the year – respect for each other, treating others the way we want to be treated, sharing & caring for others and good manners. Several of us made posters for our wall so that we have visual reminders. We will refer to those values throughout the year and will be reminded of their importance :) One this week’s activities involved sharing details about our summer (data) in the form of a glyph (face). Each part of our glyph (face) represents different information. For example, our hair represents where we went this summer (our glyph shows hair is blue if we didn’t go anywhere, red if we stayed inside Canada and yellow if we went outside Canada) and our eyes represent a word to describe our summer (if our summer was fun our eyes are black, if it was uneventful our eyes are blue, if it was exciting our eyes are brown and if our summer was exhausting our eyes are green). Once our glyphs were completed and displayed, we walked around and made observations, looking for similarities and differences between the glyphs. We recorded those observations and then shared with the class. It was great to see students so engaged in the activity and so willing to think critically. LEARNING INTENTION: I can represent data in a glyph CRITERIA:
This week also included several different STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) activities that involved lots of problem-solving, teamwork and perseverance. One of the activities involved making a tower to hold a stuffed animal and another involved building a LEGO sailboat for Max in Where the Wild Things Are. We loved the challenges and are looking forward to more! It was a great week of learning in division 14!
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Our last few weeks of the school year were upon us, but you wouldn’t know it from how busy we were! Here are a few things we got up to! Over the past few weeks we’ve been participating in Speech Fest!! We spent time in class brainstorming and then picking a speech topic, writing our first draft, receiving feedback and then using that feedback to make revisions. After writing our speeches, we then practised before sharing our speeches with the class. It was great to see so many topics. Some were informational, teaching us about “homelessness”,” choosing the right pet” and “different positions in basketball.” Some were personal, such as “my bestie” and “being the oldest” and others were persuasive, such as “recess should be longer” and “taking different subjects at school.” Although several of us were nervous, we persevered with a growth mindset and confidently shared our speeches.
We also had loads of fun using our design thinking with an Egg Drop STEM Challenge. Our goal was to work collaboratively to build a contraption that protects an egg from cracking when dropped from up high! We had lots of different supplies to choose from, such as popsicle sticks, yarn, tape, a balloon, coffee filters, and paper cups, and we were really creative in how we used them. Some used toothpicks to help prevent the contraption from tipping upon landing and others used straws and cups to hold the egg in place. Once everyone was done with the building, we dropped our contraptions from the bridge on the playground and we were excited to see the results!! Great thinking. Great collaboration. Lots of fun! We took a few field trips in our final weeks together – one to a local beach and one to a local park. We loved exploring the beach and finding different hermit crabs, baby crabs, shells, and rocks – all important parts of the local ecosystem. We also loved being together at a local park. It’s been amazing year of learning in divisions 6 & 7!! A huge thank-you to you all for being such a great group of kids. You were willing to take risks and to challenge your thinking, but you were also respectful and kind. I am so proud of how far you’ve come! I encourage you to continue doing small things to help make the world a better place. This world is lucky to have a generation of big hearts and strong minds. ♡♡♡
Throughout the year, we’ve been developing our Core Competencies and have taken many opportunities to identify those Core Competencies and discuss them, recognizing them and highlighting them when we’ve seen them in action. We’ve also used some direct instruction to build upon our understanding. What does it look like? What does it sound like? Although all Core Competencies are a regular part of our classroom, in the third term we have focused on Communication. Our specific focus: communication during our novel study Book Talks. In the beginning, we discussed the skills that we use when communicating and we shared how we could transform our Book Talks from a sharing session to a discussion. We brainstormed different things we could do to add more to our Book Talks, including asking each other questions or building upon what others share. Because students came up with the ideas on their own, they became much more engaged and the discussions more meaningful. We followed up each Book Talk with a personal reflection on our contribution to the discussion and what we could do differently next time. By the end, we were ready to self-assess. We’ve been using different units to find the perimeter and the area of different shapes… and we have loved the hands-on learning. Although we enjoyed using pattern blocks, square units and square centimeters, we loved the measurement work involved with metre sticks! We had loads of fun drawing quadrilaterals on the concrete and using the meter sticks to find the perimeter and the area. Remember how we were working on picture books about healthy relationships? Check out how some of them turned out:
Click on the links to read the stories in Microsoft Sway: The Story of Ruby and Alice Bob and Jeff's Problem Friendly But Fierce Ted the Turtle Makes Friends After learning about different forms of energy, we used our creative and critical thinking while designing robots that transform energy. It's hard to believe that we're in the final weeks of the school year. We've still got some great learning happening...but know that the end is just around the corner.
This week we welcomed our moms and dads into the classroom after school to show them how much we appreciate them! We prepped the classroom beforehand with some banners and other decorations and we layed out little booklets that we had made. We were excited!! When they arrived, we treated them to tea and cookies before taking them to the gym for some fun. It was a lovely afternoon for all of us. 😄 We’ve recently spent time talking about friendships – what we look for in a friend and what we can do to help our friends out. We all have different needs and we all face challenges…including grumpy moods like the elephant in Hooray for Hat by Brian Won. As shown in the book, friends can be supportive and patient and friends are good at cheering each other up. To share our learning, our task is to write a non-fiction or fiction book about what it takes to be a good friend. Here is the task: Learning Intention: I can write a picture book about healthy relationships Criteria: - I describe qualities of a true friend - I include details about the behavior shown by a true friend - I describe challenges in relationships - I describe unhealthy qualities Obviously picture books need pictures, so we captured some images outdoors! A great use of our new photography skills! A few of us also participated in our district track meet. We demonstrated excellent sportsmanship and team work and did a great job representing our school. It was another great week of learning in divisions 6 & 7!! Next week: June!!
We LOVED our field trip to Science World this week. Even though the Sky Train was packed with passengers we had lots of fun squishing in…and making room for new passengers! We greatly enjoyed exploring the many different exhibits at Science World and participating in a lab. Science World’s feature exhibition is Numbers in Nature A Mirror Maze and we found it fascinating to learn about the different mathematical patterns that surround us in nature. We also loved getting lost in the mirror maze – it was filled with tessellations and symmetry! It was a great day filled with lots of learning…and fun!! A big thank you to the staff at Science World 😊 We’re sure you’ve heard us talking about Creation Lab, as it’s a highlight of the week for many of us. Creation Lab is a time for us to be ADST thinkers by coming up with a plan, making changes to that plan and improving ideas along the way. It’s also an opportunity to work collaboratively with others and to come up with solutions for problems we face along the way. It’s a great opportunity to develop our Communication and Thinking Core Competencies. Our book talks are underway and we’ve been enjoying sharing our connections, predictions and new words with our peers. Many of us have gotten really good at carrying on the conversations by asking each other questions and by sharing our thinking. Curious about how our photography summative tasks turned out? Click here, here and here to see what an awesome job we did!! It's hard to believe that this was the last full week of May! These last few weeks have flown by!
Did you know that we get energy from the food we eat? Or that the sun and wind create energy? Or that there are many kinds of energy? These were a few of the many facts we learned from a non-fiction picture book about energy. While listening to the story we gathered and recorded information about energy that was new to us and then we shared it as a class. A simple introduction to note-taking. We then had lots of fun making wind turbines out of paper and straws. When we took our finished turbines outside, we noticed the wind made the turbine move …a simple but clear way to see that the kinetic energy in the wind can be used to create different forms of energy. Fascinating. This week we also learned how to use Office 365 Sway. Before getting started we got some helpful tips on how Sway works and then we signed into our Office 365 Education accounts and began experimenting. We inserted text and images into sections called cards and then played around with the design. We loved the “remix!” button that randomly changed the design. There were so many different options! After having fun playing around on Sway, we were ready to use it for other purposes. Over the past few weeks we have been learning about photography techniques and how to include elements & principals in our photos. We captured photos for our summative task and now have a great tool – Sway! – to share our learning. Here's our task: LEARNING INTENTION: I can capture photos that include elements & principals in art CRITERIA: Capture photographs that include texture and line Use the “rule of thirds” photography technique in at least one of your photos (the subject shouldn’t be centered) Include a theme of social responsibility (examples: caring for the environment, helping others in need, building relationships, valuing diversity, solving problems) Include descriptive words that connect to your theme Share your photographs in an engaging way (with Office 365 Sway) It was another great week of learning in divisions 6 & 7...hard to believe only 6 weeks left before summer break!! 😥
Track and Field season is upon us and the beautiful sunny weather has made it easy for us to get outside and practice! This week we kicked off with long jump and triple jump. Both are new for a few of us, so we’ve learned the steps and have practiced, practiced, and practiced! We’ve all been working really hard at improving our steps, knowing that we can’t step over the foul line and knowing that we need to build our speed. Sometimes it’s hard to know what we need to work on so to help us see a different perspective, we captured a quick video of us jumping. Our task will be to watch the video and to look for something that we can work on, such as jumping with one foot or jumping before the foul line. This week we also read a lovely picture book by Kate Jean Neal called Words and Your Heart. It’s a story about the incredible power of words and how what we say can be either positive…or negative. That led to a discussion about how good it feels to be the giver or the recipient of positive words and that we need to do it more often. And of course, with it being Mother’s Day on Sunday, we couldn’t resist making cards for our moms. We’re already looking forward to welcoming our parents into our classroom for a combined Mother’s & Father’s Day tea. 😊
So, you know how last week we watched a video of group discussion in action and then used that to co-create criteria for our own reading group discussions? Well this past week it was discussion time for us! We brainstormed our own ideas (about a recent novel study) first and then met with our group to discuss. Each of us had a device to record our conversations so that we could listen to and reflect on the discussion afterwards. That was more powerful than expected! Some of us listened to our recording several times, enjoying hearing our voices and reflecting on ideas shared. But how did those conversations go? We knew that there were strengths (we all shared) and stretches (some of us spoke too much, some not enough). To dig a little deeper on how the conversations went, we did a self-assessment. This week’s self-assessment is a new style for us, so our teacher modelled how to use it. As a class we listened to a volunteer student’s recorded discussions and then our teacher took us through how to use this style of self-assessment. When it came time for us to reflect on our own, we knew what was expected so our self-assessments were thoughtful and accurate. We also set some goals to work on to better meet criteria next time. It’s been a busy past few weeks finishing up and sharing our Science Fair projects. A few of us patiently waited for our investigations to finish while others were busy recording data on tables or drawing conclusions from their findings. It was great to see lots of collaboration when we faced challenges (including dried up plants or burnt out light bulbs) during our experiments. We did a great job persevering when the experiment didn’t go our way or results weren’t what we expected. While wandering around the classroom watching students put finishing touches on their experiments, I overheard student discussions about chemical reactions and the impact of physical activity on your heart rate. That was a clear reminder to me that inquiry-based activities are not only motivating and engaging for kids, but they also involve important critical thinking skills! The final part of our Science Fair was to share our learning – first with our peers and then with the school. We co-created the criteria for our presentations by brainstorming what makes a good oral presentation and then voting on which criteria we wanted to include. We loved sharing our projects with other classes in the school, staff and students. That was a big highlight of the week for many of us. Over the past few weeks we’ve been learning a bit about photography. Have you ever heard of the rule of thirds? The rule of thirds is one of the first techniques beginner photographers learn about because it helps create stronger images. It’s is a basic composition technique that involves positioning the focal point off-centre. We’ve gotten really good at it! We also learned how to include line (an element of design) and texture (principle of design) in our photos. After learning about the rule of thirds, line and texture, we took our devices outside and captured some great shots that we shared with classmates. With Ramadan about to begin, it was a great opportunity to learn more about the most holy month in the Muslim calendar. We read a picture book called My First Ramadan and learned about fasting during daylight hours, the importance of prayer, reflection and helping those in need. Doing good deeds for others is also important during Ramadan, so we each chose a simple one to focus on during the month. We each wrote our good deed on a strip of paper that we chained together and hung from our ceiling. 30 days of good deeds. 😊 Ramadan Mubarak!
Normally when we hear the word “patterns” we think of Math concepts, but this week the patterns we learned about actually connected to art. Ever heard of Romero Britto? He’s a Brazilian artist who uses lots of different patterns in his art. To find out more, we took a look at several different pieces of his art and noticed some common features. His art is filled with simple patterns, bold colours and think black outlines, so that became the criteria for our flower pop art activity. We’ve been exploring fractions over the past few weeks so the unifix cubes have certainly come in handy. Our first activity involved using cubes to make different designs and then using fractions to represent different parts of our whole. We also learned the meaning of “equivalent” after realizing that 1/3, 1/2 and 1/4 can be represented in many different ways. Great Math thinking. Sharing our ideas in a group discussion is an important part of learning. But often when we get together to discuss, one person ends up sharing while others simply wait for their turn to talk. Those “discussions” don’t feel like real conversations. To take our conversations to a deeper level, we watched a video of a group discussion in action and then shared what we observed. We noticed that the kids in the video were able to carry on their conversations by asking each other questions, adding details to further develop those ideas, and sharing their own opinions, even if that meant respectfully disagreeing. They also showed active listening skills (eye contact & body language). Watching this video gave us a different perspective on what our discussions could look like and led to us co-creating criteria for our group discussions. Here's what we came up with: Learning Intentions: I can share metacognitive strategies during group discussions Criteria:
Before finishing up the week and heading off to enjoy our long weekend, we learned a bit about the meaning of Easter with a picture book called …you guessed it! Easter. Although many of us celebrate the holiday, we didn’t realize that Easter is a Christian holiday (similar to Vaisakhi being a religious holiday). The picture book taught us a bit about the religious history of Easter. We then ended the day using watercolours to paint pictures of Easter eggs. We hope they were shared with our families. 😊
Our Science Fair experiments are in full swing and we’ve been busy making observations and recording data! Check out all this learning in action: This week we also learned more about style in writing (see BC Performance Standards here). Style involves variety – variety with the language used (adjectives, interesting verbs) and variety with sentence lengths. We focused on the latter this week and before getting started we as a class decided that short sentences are 1-9 words in length, medium are 10-18 words and long sentences are 19 words and higher. After our teachers modelled the activity, we then took a sample of our writing and counted the number of words. Many of us were surprised to learn that most were short! And some of us noticed that only medium and long sentences were used. It became clear what we needed to work on, so we set some informal writing goals and put those into practise with our letters home on Friday. Looking forward to seeing more variety in our writing. In celebration of Vaisakhi, a few of our students shared the significance of the day with their peers and then led a craft activity. We learned that Vaisakhi is a day that marks the new year for the Sikh community in Canada and around the world and that Vaisakhi celebrates the creation of the Khalsa by Guru Gobind Singh Ji in 1699. Great leaders in Howden & Clackson’s class!!
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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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