Jan. 16

I hope everyone had a great weekend and had a chance to get outside and enjoy the sunshine!

Just a reminder that tomorrow is book exchange and also Popcorn Treat Day!

Today in Social Studies, we continued to look at the different geography and land of Canada's Dynamic Communities.  So far we have looked at a Northern landscape, a East Coast landscape and now The Prairies.

We have spent our time looking at pictures of the prairies, but more importantly looking at our own community and making observations.  We have looked at the types of vegetation (tall grasses and wildflowers) and the lack of trees.  Not only have we noticed the lack of trees, but together we investigated the reason for this in the prairies.

We have been noticing the difference between our landscape and that of Nunavut and Nova Scotia. We have been comparing the communities and discussing why our vegetation, wildlife, and climates are so different.

We worked on another "See, Think, Wonder" routine.  This routine encourages students to describe, interpret, and wonder, which are higher level thinking skills.  This task will continue to be a challenge to students as it requires a lot of metacognition. We have used this routine consistently throughout the year and students are starting to become more independent and make deeper connections.  Here are a few examples:

Coming Up:

Popcorn day tomorrow and Wednesday

Early Dismissal this Friday

Jan. 3

Happy New Year!!  I  am excited for what 2017 will bring to our classroom and our learning!  We had an excellent start to this new year today.  The students came to school excited and smiling and eager to learn.  It was nice to see all of the students and hear all about their winter break.  I know the students were so happy to see each other too!

Today you should have received field trip information and consent forms for our field trip to the Glenbow Museum next week.  We will spend all day on January 11 at the museum doing two different programs that connect directly to our social studies curriculum. This is a great opportunity for both students and volunteers as most of the class has not been to the museum before!

Please read through all the information carefully, sign the forms and send back by Friday.  If you are able to volunteer, please email me or send back the purple forms ASAP.  We will need two volunteers from our class in order to go.  Don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about driving there or your police clearance.

Coming up:

• Glenbow Field trip - January 11
• Mrs. Jordan away Friday January 13 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. 

Sept. 21

Happy Last Day of Summer!  Driving to work today, I noticed how the trees have already changed and have brought that beautiful golden colour of autumn to Calgary.  We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful city aren't we?

We continue our investigation into shapes and today we had a really tricky problem.  We were asked to find which shapes would fit into a triangle.  This took lots of determination, hardwork, and even required us to rethink our ideas several times. We saw firsthand how important it was to have a growth mindset for a problem like this.

One possible solution to this problem...

We will continue to do a variety of open ended math problems like this throughout the year as it will help us see math in new ways. It will also help us understand that there isn't always one right answer and that we can find different solutions to the same problem. 

Reminders:

No School Friday for students

Sept. 20

What a dreary day!  The rain and grey clouds continued all day, but we didn't let that ruin our fun!  We went outside today for a shorter gym and continued to increase our running stamina  in order to prepare for the Terry Fox Run. Today we ran for 6 minutes with minimal walk breaks! Well done everyone:) If you want to know more about Terry Fox, click this link.http://www.terryfox.org/SchoolRun/
There is a lot on this site about him, the run, and the fundraising.

We also spent some time playing a game called "Tribond".  This is where one person gives three clues and the other person needs to guess what those three clues have in common. Example: leash, fur, paws = dog

We used used this game to help review the concept of community from Grade 1. What does a community have and why are those parts important? This work will lay the groundwork for our future work on Canadian Communities. In small groups, we made some mind maps to show the parts of a community. Check out some of the things we came up with below!

To Watch for:
Your child should come home with black folder today. This is a folder to send notes, letters and work back and forth from home to school. This black folder can stay in their backpack but will need to be checked each morning at school and afternoon at home by students to check for anything inside. This should help prevent lost and crumpled papers!
Some of your children will have a Volunteer Form from the office to fill out. Please send back in the folder when it is done.