Dec 16

Just a quick note to say happy holidays to everyone!  It has been an amazing few months at Ken Taylor school and I can't wait to see what 2017 will bring to us all!

I also wanted to congratulate all the students on their hard work. Report cards went home today and it was a pleasure to write them and provide all of you with a little more information about your child's progress at school. Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions. Although I won't be checking email for the next week, I will respond when I have access to email again:)

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate. Have a restful and relaxing break!

Dec. 15

We will be going on a field trip to the Glenbow Museum on January 11 which is quite soon after the break. We are just finalizing all the forms now but thought we would put the bug in your ear early. In order to go on this trip we will need quite a few volunteers so please let me know if you would like to attend and if you have a police clearance on file already (unfortunately it's too short of a window to just begin the police check for this trip but we have 2 more later in the year as well). Due to the cost of busses and the maximum capacity already being met by just the students and teachers, we are asking for parent volunteers to drive themselves down to the museum and meet us there.

Our trip to the museum will be focussing on the program:

Our Community Our People: Who Built Calgary

(Social Studies)

Who were the individuals that helped build our first communities? Whose ideas led to the creation of our unique city? Based in the Mavericks gallery, this program allows students to explore with artifact handling and photographs and discover the pioneering men and women who first settled the West and began building our great city ... Calgary!

Students will also have the opportunity to explore other exhibits in the museum with a guide. Please email me at smjordan@cbe.ab.ca  if you are interested in volunteering for this trip. Thanks so much!!

Coming Up:

• Pyjama day tomorrow! Wear your PJs, slippers, and robes!
• Carolling tomorrow at 8:30. Our class performs!!
• Report Cards go home tomorrow
• Early Dismissal tomorrow
• 
  

Dec 14

What a fantastic day we had!!  I can honestly say that this day will go down as one of the best ever in my teaching career so far.  The excitement, smiles, and energy that we all had this morning made this such a perfect morning.

We started this morning by getting our room set up and ready for baking.  We tied our baking into our science unit on Liquids and as we mixed our recipe, we recorded some of the things we observed.  For example, what happens when we mixed two liquids?  A liquid and a solid? Two solids?

We each had a turn to add an ingredient, mix the ingredients, roll it, or cut out a cookie.  As we went, we smelled the different ingredients such as cinnamon, cloves, vanilla and even our dough.

Smelling spices

Smelling spices

 

 

Mixing Liquids

Mixing Solids 

 

Once we had our dough mixed, rolled, and cut, it was time to bake them. This was special for the class as we had the chance to go into the staff room.  Here we spent some time recording our observations, creating our own gingerbread kid, and reflecting about what we learned about solids and liquids.  We also did some writing using our sense of smell and sight that we will use tomorrow for some poetry.  

 

 

 

Finally they were ready!!! We offered some to our office staff and they all agreed they were delicious... but were they? When would the students get a chance to try them?  The delicious smells were making all of our tummies growl!

 Finally when we got back to class, we had a chance to try them.  They were flavourful, healthy, and decilious!!We started by only taking 1 bite and after our bite, we looked at what part of the gingerbread man we bit.  We used this to make a tally. This information will be used to make our own graphs. Stay tuned...

Coming Up:

• Red and Green Day tomorrow
• Early Dismissal Friday
• Report Cards home Friday
• Our class performs a dance at Caroling on Friday. Starts at 8:30
• Pyjama Day Friday
• Winter Holidays start Friday at 11:30am!!

Dec. 13

It has been a busy few days in our classroom!  The excitement of the holidays is definitely in the air!

Today we had some fun with our gingerbread study!  We have read three stories and have been comparing them as we go.  We have read the Gingerbread Man, The Gingerbread Girl, and Gingerbread Boy: Loose in the School.  We have noticed that each has a similar problem but that the solutions are quite different.  For example in the Gingerbread Man, the cookie runs away from everyone and in the end the problem is solved by a tricky fox eating the cookie (yes we thought this was rather sad....) BUT in the Gingerbread Girl, the she tricks the fox and even becomes friends with him.  We also noticed some repeated phrases in all of the stories.  Although they are similar in that they are little chants, the words are quite different.  We have been recording all these similarities and differences on our classroom Gingerbread House.  Here are a few close-ups of our work:

Tomorrow we will be baking our gingerbread kids!!!  To connect with science, we will discover what happens when we mix liquids and solids and what happens when we bake (does it stay a liquid or become a solid?) .  We will also be doing some graphing when we eat the cookies and finally some descriptive writing about the smell and taste of our cookies!  We can't wait to show it off to you tomorrow!

Coming up:

• Thursday is Red and Green Day!
• Friday is an early dismissal Day
• Report Cards go home Friday!
• We perform a dance at caroling on Friday. Caroling starts at 8:30am.

Dec. 9

As we continue our investigation into liquids, we always seem to end up with more questions than answers. What does molasses move slower than water? Why are some liquids slippery?  Is oil made of water?

Today we compared different liquids by using our senses. We  had to smell, touch, pour, and observe the liquids.  By doing these simple tests on a liquid, we were able to figure out what most of our mystery liquids were.  They were: oil, vanilla, soap, and molasses.  It was so interesting to watch the students so engaged and excited to touch and pour the different liquids.   It was also very funny to see their reactions after smelling molasses. They just couldn't figure out  what it was!

At the end of the lesson we were introduced to the term viscosity.  We learned that the molasses was the most viscous of the liquids that we had due to the larger size of the molecules.  We also learned that we can change the viscosity of a liquid by changing the temperature.  The warmer the liquid, the less viscous.  Of course these are new words and will take some time for the student to master, but we will be using them throughout this unit. 

Lastly,  Parent Council is still looking for a few parents to volunteer as Parent Volunteer Coordinator for our classroom.  If you have received your CBE police clearance and this position would interest you please contact parent council at councils.kennethdtaylor@gmail.com . 

Coming Up:

Gingerbread cookie baking on Wednesday!

Red and Green Day Thursday

Pajama Day next Friday

Next Friday is early dismissal

Winter break starts next Friday!

Dec. 8

We had a busy day of writing, art, and health today!
We worked really hard to get our penpal letters done so that we could send them in the mail tomorrow.  Not only did we write them a letter, but we also painted a cute snowman card for each of our penpals.  Look below to see a few examples of our letters and cards:

This afternoon we read a book called I Wish You More by Amy Rosenthal.  Mrs. Fraser and Mrs. Buonomo asked us to make some wishes to "light up" the gym. We had a great conversation about about wishes that would help others, not only ourselves. It was so touching to hear the thoughtful, kind, and selfless answers that they came up with.

Next week, these light bulbs will decorate our gym for our carolling.   Families are welcome to join us for these times.  Our class will perform one dance but more information to come with dates and times.

We will also have two spirit days next week!  Check below for more information:

Coming Up:

• Gingerbread cookie baking on Wednesday!!
• Red and Green Day Thursday
• Pajama Day next Friday
• Next Friday is early dismissal
• Winter break starts next Friday!