Nov. 30

Another successful popcorn day today!  The students were so excited to have such a fun snack for their lunch today.

Today we did some work on ordering numbers from least to greatest.  We spent some time discussing the math terms least and greatest and how we determined if one number was larger than another.  After just a short time, they were able to verbalize that when ordering numbers you need to first look at the tens place.  If the digits are the same in the tens place, then you move to the ones place and look at that digit. We worked cooperatively in partners to order from least to greatest and tomorrow we will continue but will work from greatest to least.

Some questions you could ask your child:

• Which number is greater ____ or  ____? 
• How do you know?
• Order these numbers from greatest to least  (give them 3 or 4).  
• How did  you decide ____ was the greatest? Smallest?

Coming Up:

• No school Friday
• Scholastic Book Orders due Monday (if you need secret books, please email me)

Nov. 28

Good afternoon!  I hope you all had a great Monday!
Just a couple quick notes about important school/community events coming up this week:

Tomorrow AND Wednesday are Toonie Treat Days! Bring $2 for a bag of popcorn that you can purchase at lunch.

This weekend our school with have it's first Christmas Market! How exciting! You are welcome to come with your family between 10-3 to find a few of these special gifts for Christmas (maybe even a little something for you).  It is a great way to connect with other families in the neighbourhood.

Lastly, don't forget it is book exchange tomorrow.  Have a great night!

Coming Up:

• No school Friday! PD day for teachers

Nov. 23

How exciting and interesting to see all the different colours for School Spirit Day today. We loved hearing the different reasons that our school colour should be a certain colour. There was no real consensus today, but I did see a lot of purple, orange, and blue...

Today we had the chance to take out the laptops and practice logging in. We did such a great job of listening and following instructions!  Because our log in went so smoothly, we had time to learn about and use our very own CBE Gmail accounts.  We spoke about being safe, respectful, and showing good digital citizenship when using these accounts.  It was fun to log in and have the chance to use such a grown-up tool!  We started to compose our first email and as we did this, we realized that it was a really similar idea to writing our pen pal letters. What a great connection!  Our first email is to Mrs. Jordan, but as we get good, we hope to send our parents an email.  Did you ever think your 7 year old would be sending you emails ;)

For some information about Gmail accounts with the CBE, you can click here:
CBE Gmail

Coming up:
No School Friday
No School - Dec. 2

Nov. 22

Tomorrow we will have our 2nd school spirit day!  We are so excited for it!

Being a new school means that we have the chance to start some traditions for the future students. One of those traditions is picking a school colour.  Today we talked about how we pick colours and how colours can make us feel a certain way.  We talked about what feelings we wanted to feel at school and what kinds of students we wanted to encourage. Some words that came out were: learning, creative, fun and problem-solvers.

For our spirit day tomorrow, students are invited to wear a colour that they think would represent Ken Taylor School the best.  They should be able to explain why they chose that colour.  Today we watched a video that Mr. Dyck and Mrs. Tuttle created to share a colour they think would represent Ken Taylor.  They read a story and shared their feelings about the colour purple.
You can watch that video here:
School Spirit Video

As a family you could watch the video, talk about what colour your child will wear, then discuss why they feel that would be a good colour.
This image shows how companies use colour in their logos to invoke certain feelings. What do you think? Do these companies match their colours? Do you feel these feelings when looking at the logos?

Lastly,  today we had a photographer in for the CBE to take picture of our students learning.  Students who had the purple permission form signed may be in some of these pictures and you may see them on the CBE site.  It was fun for the students to show of their learning :)

Coming up:
School spirit day tomorrow
Fun Lunch tomorrow
No School Friday
No School - Dec. 2

Nov. 21

Thank you to all the students who showed such kindness and respect to Mrs. Duncan this morning.  She has repeatedly expressed how responsible, hardworking, and helpful you are when she is there.

Tasting the water

Tasting/feeling the water

Today in Science, we continued to look at water. We used our senses to taste, smell, touch and look at water.  We came up with words such as: slippery, tasteless, shiny, and even transparent! We had the chance to use some eye droppers to look closer at a drop of water.  This was a great way to review safety rules for science such as never smell, taste or touch materials in science unless you are told to.  We discussed how liquids such as water are safe, but they can look like other liquids such as bleach which may not be safe (Don't worry... we won't be using bleach at school!).

How does water flow? Up or down? 

We practiced a visible thinking routine called: See, Think, Wonder.  The purpose of this routine is to encourage students to make careful observations and thoughtful interpretations.  It helps stimulate curiosity and paves the way for natural inquiry.  
Look at some of our responses:

 

Coming up:

• Wear a colour to school on Wednesday that you think would be a good school colour. (We will be talking about this more in class tomorrow )
• Fun Lunch Wednesday
• No school Friday

Nov. 18

Sorry for the late post today!  It has been an action packed day :)

Today we had a busy morning full of reading, writing, sight words and catch-up work. It was fantastic to see all the students working independently on their work and completing what they needed to complete.  It was a very productive morning.

This afternoon we started some inquiry into our science unit on Liquids. We started today by reading a book Water Can Be... 
This started us thinking about the different forms that water can have, where we can find water, and how water can change.  After this, we spent some time asking questions that we have about water that we hope to answer throughout the next few months. Here's what we came up with:

The hope is that as we answer these questions, it leads us to even more!  We ended science today talking about drops of water.  We looked at drops of water on leaves and on Monday, we will get the chance to use some scientific materials such as eye droppers and petri dishes to explore water even more.  We will use a valuable resource of water that is right at our fingertip through this unit: SNOW!  We will keep you updated what we learn as we investigate this resource more...

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Coming up:

• Mrs. Jordan away Monday morning
• Wednesday is Spirit Day - Students will get to wear a colour that they feel should represent Ken Taylor. More info to come..
• Please send back purple CBE permission forms for media ASAP.

Nov. 17

 We had a wonderful day of learning today!

 In math, we used our knowledge from making groups of ten with our buttons to start to represent numbers using tens rods and units.  We were given a number and using a variety of different types of blocks, we made groups of ten to show the number.  You can see that many of us used this as an opportunity to make some fun patterns too!

We also had the chance to sign out the school computers and we reset our passwords to a more personal password. We spent some time reviewing why it is important to have our own passwords and who is allowed to have our password (parent, grandparents and babysitters if necessary, and teachers).  We will start to use technology more regularly in our class for big projects, but also just for our day to day activities such as math games, writing, and even reading.   As we will be using the computers more, I am asking students to bring in their own pair of headphones in a ziploc bag.  Please label these headphones with your child's name.  We will keep these at the school for the year and return back to you in June.  Thank you in advance for your help with this!  If this is something you are unable to bring, please send me an email and we can come up with a plan :)

Have a great evening!

Coming up:
Early Dismissal tomorrow
Mrs. Jordan away Monday morning at Learning Leader meeting

Nov. 16

Believe it or not... it is true: we are one month away from Winter Break!  Where does the time go?

Our focus in Social Studies continues to be on communities.  Today we continued to talk about community, but in a much broader sense than just Evanston or Calgary.  Knowing that communities share common aspects, we spent some time brainstorming what all Canadians share and how Canada is a community.  We came up with: our flag, our money, Justin Trudeau, (yes... some of us knew this!!), freedom, and shared land.

The focus in social studies this year is looking at different types of communities within Canada so it is important that students have a clear understanding between city, province, and country.  We have been working at differentiating these three terms and learning about what they each are.

On Monday we looked at the Maritime provinces and many of us were in awe of the beauty we saw with the rugged coastlines and blue oceans.  Today we did a brief overview of the central provinces of Canada, Quebec,and Manitoba.  We were especially intrigued by Quebec City and their winter festival and Ottawa and Parliament.

If you wanted to find out more about Canada, here is a good site with many links to other sites:
Canada LInks
Canada Map Puzzle

Coming up:

• Oral Sharing starts tomorrow!
• Early Dismissal Friday
• Mrs. Jordan away Monday morning at Learning Leader Meeting. 

Nov. 15

In math today, we started to look at place value and how each digit in a number represents a different value.  For example in 29 the 2 represents 20 and the 9 represents 9 ones.
To start to grasp this concept, we practiced counting buttons and grouping them by 10s. Very quickly, we started to see that grouping by 10 made counting large numbers much easier.  This is something that you could have your child do at home as it is a fun and easy process. Here is what we did:

1. Used cups to help us count the buttons
2. Filled each cup with 10 buttons.  Left the single buttons on the table in front of the cups.
3. Drew a picture to show the cups and labelled each cup skip counting by 10
4. Under the picture we wrote how many tens and ones we had and then we wrote the total number.

Starting to count 

Groups of ten into cups

36 Buttons 

60 buttons

Showing Numbers in Different Ways

 Showing Numbers in Different Ways

When we finished, we discussed what we learned and noticed about counting today. Here are some of the questions we asked:
1. Is it faster for you to count by ones or by tens? Why do you think that?
2. Did you make a mistake counting? How did grouping by 10 help you when you made a mistake?
3. How can you use the cups to help you count?
4. When would you use this in real life?

Tomorrow, we will continue to work on this and then we will do a similar math activity but use blocks and start to form ten rods.  Using tens and ones blocks will be a key manipulative through the year and it is important that students understand what they represent and the value they have before we use them.


Coming up:

• Photo retakes tomorrow
• Early Dismissal tomorrow

Nov. 14

Today we had an opportunity to finish sharing our prototypes for our Magnetic Design Thinking Project.  It was so exciting for all of us to see the thoughtfulness, creativity, and problem solving that went into each prototype.

Here are our finished prototypes - remember that these are prototypes made with the materials we had accessible so we need to use our imagination a bit when looking at them :)

Push in the Chairs:The box is a pretend chair. Inside is a magnet.  In real life, this magnet would sit on the back of the chair. The wand magnet on top would be super strong and when held up, it would push in the chairs. This solves many students problems of forgetting to tuck in their chairs. 

The Remote Control BroomThe broom and dustpan would be attached to a remote control car.  A magnet would be placed underneath.  By driving the car around the room, the broom would sweep up the mess after snack and the  magnet would attract any staples or other small metal bits off the floor. This helps solve the problem of having a dirty floor in the classroom in the afternoon.

The Robot BroomThis contraption is one part of a robot broom.  The broom would be attached to the robot's leg and would detect dirt. The broom would sweet up the mess after snack and the magnet placed under the robot would attract any staples or other small metal bits off the floor. This helps solve the problem of having a dirty floor in the classroom in the afternoon. 

Metal DetectorThis simple device would save teachers a lot of time!  It is a strong magnet attached to a stick.  It would allow anyone to pick up metal from the floor (those pesky staples after changing a bulletin board) without even bending down!  This may be something I will implement in the class this year!

Case of the Missing CarpetPart of being a new school means doing without a few luxuries. One of those being a carpet. Students decided they would like to invent a carpet that is made up of individual pieces. These pieces can stick together by magnets for times that we buddy read, work in small groups, or even as a whole class, but can be taken apart quickly and easily during individual times. 

Case of the Missing Carpet 2Like the above example, students recognized that we didn't have a carpet and saw that they had the chance to design something a little different from a traditional classroom carpet.  They would use strong magnets and sew them into the carpet pieces so we had flexible carpet pieces. We can hope we get something like this!  

It was fun to see the excitement and pride on the students' faces as they presented their creations to the class.  They had the chance to see themselves as inventors and designers. Some questions you could ask your child about the process are:

• What did you enjoy about designing?
• What do you feel most proud about?
• Wid you run into any problems? How did you solve them?
• What would you change about your prototype?
• If you had any materials in the world, how would your prototype change?

Please note: Photo retake day is WEDNESDAY not tomorrow! Sorry for the confusion!
Picture retakes will take place on Wednesday November 16^th.  If you would like retakes for your child please return the original proof sheet with retakes requested on the envelope.  If you no longer have the original proofs please send a note requesting retakes.

Nov. 10

It was so nice to see many parents and family members at our Remembrance Day Ceremony today. Our class did a wonderful job of being respectful during our ceremony. We spent lots of time discussing why this was a more solemn and serious ceremony.  We also handed out poppies to all students.  We reviewed that our poppies are a symbol or peace and talked about what they represent. Because of these conversations, students showed responsible behaviour throughout the day with them. 

For our class contribution, we sang a song called "Dona Nobis Pacem".  They sang it beautifully and proudly. We also presented a short slideshow called "What is Peace at Ken Taylor School?".  We did some writing to give specific examples, some pictures to show this and included some of our poppies to display this symbol of peace.  Each child had the chance to either speak, show their artwork, show their poppy, or present the class wreath.  Here are a few of the pictures that we showed:

I hope you have a great weekend!

Coming up:

• No school tomorrow
• Photo Orders due Nov. 15
• Photo retakes Nov. 15
• Poinsettia orders due Nov. 21

Nov. 9

Thank you to everyone for sending in all their things for the Me Shoeboxes. We have really enjoyed looking at them and talking about them in class.

We are going to start our Oral Sharing next week. The purpose of oral sharing is:

·      To learn more about others
·      To share about ourselves
·      To practice good speaking skills in front of others (eye contact, expression, volume of voice etc)
·      To give feedback to our peers
·      To ask good questions to learn more about a topic or a person

Each morning, three students will have 1- 3 minutes to share about their family, using their picture as a starting point. They could talk about:

·      Who is in their family/how many people are in their family
·      What they love best about their family
·      What they like to do with their family
·      Where their family moved from (if not from Calgary originally)

Here is a schedule for their sharing. We will do some writing in class this week and next about our family and this will come home early next week in case they would like to practice. They are welcome to use their writing as a starting point but they can change/edit it as they want.   This doesn’t need to be anything too formal. This is just a chance for students to practice speaking to others in a safe environment and for students to learn to ask good questions to get more information.  We will continue to do this through the year with various topics.

Nov. 17	Nov. 18	Nov. 21	Nov. 22	Nov. 23
Kyle Bosco Justin Carter	Adam Ramish Jayden Isra Thomas	Tandra Ella Catrrina Sam	Everee Zoe Chloe Kieran	Makennia Juliette Ben Katerina

Coming Up:

• Veterans' Food Drive this week. Send in non-perishable food donations if you can. 
• Remembrance Day Ceremony tomorrow at 9:30am
• No School Friday
• Photo Orders due Nov. 15
• Photo retakes Nov. 15
• Poinsettia orders due Nov. 21.

Nov. 8

As part our Magnets unit, we are continuing to work on a design thinking problem.  We have defined our problems in our classroom that we think we can improve and we have come up with different ways to solve those problems. Today we started the prototyping stage of this process and we are actually creating models of our ideas. During this stage, we actually get to MAKE our ideas.  We are using a growth mindset throughout this process as we quickly realized that some of our ideas wouldn't work.  Instead of giving up, we worked together and  came up with new, creative solutions.  Keep posted for updates on our prototypes!

  

    

Coming up:

• Veterans' Food Drive this week. Send in non-perishable food donations if you can. 
• Remembrance Day Ceremony Thursday at 9:30am
• No School Friday
• Photo Orders due Nov. 15
• Photo retakes Nov. 15
• Poinsettia orders due  Nov. 21.