Oct. 31

Happy Halloween!!

We had a really great day in our class today full of learning and fun!

This afternoon we had a fun time putting on our costumes and sharing them with each other. It was lovely to see the students helping each other tie up costumes, putting on masks for each other and helping find missing pieces (We are pretty sure we didn't lose anything today!)

We then walked the school to show off to the rest of the students and to see the creative costumes of the rest of the school. I think most of us would agree that the kindergarten students stole the show...

After our parade we listened to a fun Halloween story on Tumblebooks and enjoyed our special snack. For the end of the day, we had a chance to pick one of three activities, including a game called "Boo Bump", a math number recognition colouring page, and lastly a Halloween word game.  Unfortunately my SD card wasn't in my camera so I cannot post any pictures of the fun but I am sure if you ask your child, they can tell what a great day it was!

I hope everyone is as safe as they can be tonight and has as much fun as they can have. Looking forward to what November will bring :)

Oct. 28

Happy Friday to everyone!  We had such an amazing week of learning this week. I can feel the students are really settled into our class and have an urge to learn more each day.  It's so exciting to feel this energy in the class!

Today we continued working on our Design Thinking Project for Magnets. Today we met in our teams to think about exactly how we would build our device and make a plan for it. In order to do this, we needed to practice good communication, compromise, and active listening.  Some of us took some risks in sharing our ideas and we all worked on "plussing" the ideas of others.

We practiced using the language: First, then, next, and finally to make our plan so we knew exactly how to build it. We also came up with a list of materials. This was very specific and even needed to include if we needed glue!

Next week we will be prototyping our ideas and testing them out.  I can't wait to see these devices come to life!

Coming up:

• Halloween Monday - Bring costumes to change into at lunch. Bring a special snack for the afternoon activities :)
• Mrs. Jordan away Wednesday morning at a Design Thinking Professional Development opportunity with several other teachers from Ken Taylor. 
• Oral sharing will start in two weeks. Watch for a schedule on the blog next week!

Oct. 27

We hope everyone had a great day. We sure did!

In math, we started doing some skip counting using our 100 chart. At first we practiced counting forwards and backwards starting on 10 or a multiple of 10. However, as we started to see the pattern, we started to make it a little more difficult. We would pick random numbers such as 43, 86, or 7 and count forwards and backwards.

At the end of the math time, we started playing a math game called "Buzz".  This is a game that you could play as a family while driving, eating dinner or even going for a walk. We didn't get much time for it today, but will continue tomorrow. 

BUZZ

 The leader announces starting and finishing numbers and which numbers will be ‘buzz’. For example, we might start at 1, finish at 100, and say buzz on numbers that are skip counting by 10 or 5. Students stand in a circle to count in turn by ones, but they say buzz instead of the specified numbers.

For example, a correct sequence would be “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, buzz, 11 ….”

If a student forgets to buzz, they are out of the game. Last one standing wins.

We also had a special visit from Joy Bowen-Eyre who is our ward's trustee and Chair of trustees for the CBE.  She was so excited to come into our new school and meet the students and talk about what they are learning.  We look forward to any other special guests that may pop in through the year.  

Coming up:
Halloween on Monday: Click here to watch our Halloweeen Announcement

Oct. 26

This morning, we had the chance to learn about a special Hindu and Sikh celebration called Diwali. We learned about this festival of lights by looking at some art (Rangoli) and traditions of the celebration. We were in awe when we saw pictures of how the night lights up in India during Diwali!  To learn more about it as a family, I have attached the link to a Tumblebooks video.  In order to access this may need to go to the Calgary Public Library site ( E-library- kids) and then Tumblebooks. Diwali Video

This led us to talking about our own family celebrations and writing about some celebrations that we have in our culture, religion or family.  We spent some time talking about our special celebrations, writing about them, and then sharing our writing with small groups and the class.

We found it interesting that although many of us celebrate different things, that these celebrations have many commonalities such as food, family, music, and at times gifts.  We will continue to revisit different celebrations through the year. If your family celebrates a certain holiday that you would like to share about, please let me know!  You are welcome to share music, food, clothing or other things about your celebration!

Oct. 25

As always the day seemed to zoom by today for all of us, and it goes to show that the old saying of "Time flies when you're having fun" is true!

This morning was spent with Mrs. Duncan, our guest teacher, as I was at one of my regular Learning Leader meetings at the Career and Technology Centre.  As always, Mrs. Duncan  said the class was a pleasure to be with and was very respectful and helpful to her. It's always nice to come back to school and get such a positive note! Great job everyone!

This afternoon we had out class photos and the students were buzzing with excitement about them. We all put on our best smiles for them and we can't wait to see the proofs in a few weeks!

We finished our day with a class meeting. We have regular class meetings as a way to connect, discuss our problems, share our ideas, and ask questions. Today our theme was about how to include others and make others feel welcome.  We had a great discussion about how it feels when others exclude us, either intentionally or not.  We talked about how words, body language and tone can impact others feelings.

Some students expressed that they don't want to say no to their peers during buddy working times, but sometimes they want to work with new partners or they already have a partner. They asked how they can tell someone "no" in a way that won't hurt feelings.  This led to us new language such as "I would like to try to work with a new partner today, but let's read together tomorrow" or "I was your partner yesterday, so let's try to find new people today".  I think these small tweaks in our language helps us better understand each other and ensure we don't have hurt feelings.  These kinds of conversations will continue regularly in our classroom as a way to help students relate to one another better, communicate more effectively and ensure that we are being as inclusive as possible.

Oct. 24

It is hard to believe that we are nearing the end of October already, but it's true and our amazing work and learning in our class is reflective of being in school for two months already!

Today in math we did our third Number Talk.  This will be a routine that we will try to do everyday  for 5 - 10 minutes as it will help us build our mental math strategies.  Why do we do this?  We are trying to look at math less as rules and memorization.   We want to find more efficient ways to solve problems that eventaully we can use with larger numbers.  This idea comes from Sherry Parish who is an educational math leader.  Number Talks Article.
In each number talk, we are presented with a problem. Students then have the time to solve the problem and think of at least one strategy to solve it.  They then share their answers and after our answers are shared, students have the chance to "defend" or prove their answer.  With guidance from me, this allows the students to learn from each other and to see that our peers are teachers too.  Having these kinds of conversations has many benefits including:
 • Clarify thinking.
 • Investigate and apply mathematical relationships.
 • Build a repertoire of efficient strategies.
• Make decisions about choosing efficient strategies for specific problems.
• Consider and test other strategies to see if they are mathematically logical.

Although it is only 5 minutes a day, the students are already starting to develop more efficient math strategies, such as using doubles rather than counting all the objects.

We also played a fun math game to help us with the vocabulary of less than, greater than, higher, lower.  We had a hundreds chart and in partners one person thought of a number.  The second person guessed a number and was answered with "higher, lower, greater, or less than".  Through this process students would find the correct answer. This game could easily be played in the car with or without a hundreds chart as a way to pass the time.  Here are a few pictures of us having some fun while learning:

 


Coming up:
Photo day tomorrow!!! Dress in your best :)
Mrs. Jordan away tomorrow morning
Book exchange tomorrow morning

Oct. 21

We had a really exciting morning today!  We started on the Empathize phase of the Design Thinking Process for our playground design project. We welcomed three experts into our class that we had the chance to learn about and interview.  We welcomed Margie, who is one of our school council members that helps with the fundraising of our playground, Tanya, who is the representative for Blue Imp Playground Manufacturing, and Mr. Dyck, who is our school principal. Each expert provided us with a different perspective on the process of planning and building our playground.

Margie provided us with the money perspective and some questions we had for her were:

• Can we help raise money?
• Can we raise money by doing something like a Terry Fox Run? 
• Can we sell cards at Christmas?

With Tanya, we were interested in finding out more about the design process and materials of our future playground. Some questions we had were:

• What type of materials are best for playgrounds in Canada?
• How much space would we need for a playground?
• Are the pieces of equipment different in a city park than a CBE school. 

Our focus with Mr. Dyck was on the safety of our school and students when designing a playground. Some of our questions were:

• Is there someone who checks the equipment and what do they check?
• What equipment is too dangerous?
• How will you help us keep safe?

Our next phase will be starting to design and plan the parts of our playground that we want at Ken Taylor School. Stay tuned...

Coming Up:

• Mrs. Jordan away Tuesday morning at a Learning Leader meeting. 
• Photo Day Tuesday (ours will be in the afternoon when I am back)

Oct. 20

Unfortunately not much to write about today as I ended up going home early as it seems I have finally come down with the back to school cold/flu. I will be back tomorrow though!

This morning, we continued to work on our reading skills through our daily 5 reading. We have all set some reading goals and your child should be coming home with some information shortly about their goal and how you can help at home. We also continue to learn new strategies to help us in our reading. Today we talked about reading fluently and a strategy to help us with that. One strategy that we will work on is learning our common sight words.  We will do this through our writing, games, and daily reading practice.  How can you help at home? You can help by spending a few minutes a night playing some games or practicing reading the sight words.  You can even have your children make the words out of lego, alphabet beads, or magnetic letters. Here are a few websites that can help you get started:
Sight word Games
Sight Word Bingo
Sight word Games 2
Sight Word flash cards

Your child may come home next week with some cards to practice and some easy games you can use as a family to make it fun.

Coming up:

• Special playground presentation tomorrow
• Popcorn treat day continues tomorrow
• Early Dismissal tomorrow.