Oki families of grade 1/2 students! Brr! It was cold out there! It sure feels nice to thaw out after a full week of freezing temperatures. We had fun inside and did lots of learning, but it was time to get outside again! What have the kids been up to this month? Let's take a look! Students revisited their Sit Spots to see how things have changed. Just being close to Na'a helps us to refresh and refocus. We looked at the chinook arch that brought us these warm temperatures. Students were reminded of the story of The Bear Who Stole the Chinook that we heard on our field trip to Fish Creek Park. Winter is the time for storytelling. Room 23 welcomed Traditional Knowledge Keeper Alayna Manyguns to our class. She shared two stories with us. Students were captivated! We are very grateful for her teachings.
In Art, we've also been working on Guided Drawing. This week, we learned about the meaning behind our school name, and drew the Piitoayis symbol. The kids did a great job! So much excitement in room 23! Stay tuned for next week: Tuesday we have special visitors from Calgary Pro Musica who will work with my students to create a soundscape based upon nature found in our Sit Spots! We will present these at an assembly later that morning.
Have a lovely day, Ms. Sara :)
0 Comments
I can't believe how quickly time has flown in room 23! I am very excited as well to start a brand new decade with my students: it is now 2020!
Since my last blog post, a lot has happened in our school community. Students learned about Remembrance Day and our brave veterans in November. We also learned about Métis culture throughout Métis week. Students explored artifacts, listened to stories and coloured pictures. December was a lot of fun for room 23 students. They participated in an amazing Winter Solstice presentation and sang "I've Got Peace in my Fingers" to a full house, including a dress rehearsal in front of Colonel Walker school. Speaking of Colonel Walker, we now have a buddy class with that community! We invited the two grade 1/2 classes to our class one Friday, and we visited Ms. M's grade 1/2 class the following week. We will continue to build friendships with those students in the months to come. ,December continued to be a time of fun and learning with two field trips: one to Fish Creek Park and another to the Central Library. Students learned about history, listened to an elder, and enjoyed learning in a new way. December finished up with an exciting visit from Santa and Elsa. These visitors brought laughter, smiles and toys for the kids. What a great day that was! Whew! What a lot of excitement that we've had! I am sure that there will be more fun and learning in the weeks to come. I will continue to update you through this blog, SchoolMessenger emails, as well as occasional phone calls. I look forward to posting pictures of some of our adventures in the weeks to come. Happy New Year! Ms. Sara :) Oki parents and guardians, Students in room 23 were really excited to see their work shine on last week's blog. Many wanted me to share their terrific work from this week as well. So hold onto your tablets, here we go with more photos and news! W.O.W. Time: During W.O.W. time, students chose a "sit spot" where they could get to know the land and see it transform over time. We practiced kakyosin this week by listening to the sounds around us. Afterwards, students shared their discoveries in Sharing Circle. They heard the wind, leaves, traffic, birds and grass.
Math: This week, we began to look more closely at numbers. We are exploring how to "make numbers" using their fingers, cubes and objects around them. Students also learned about "Friendly Numbers": numbers that together add up to make 10. Students continue to be excited about patterns and are finding them all around them. Just yesterday, some of my students were excited to showed me patterns that they had discovered with their clothes, when they were jumping on a trampoline (up, down, up, down), and even their eyes! Another way that we are practising our numbers is by playing games. Every morning during calendar time, we add a day to our poster and count the number of days by jumping and saying the numbers aloud. We call this the Jumping Game. We also practised our counting skills by playing "What Time is it, Mr. Wolf" outside. This was a lot of fun to watch and play! We are also getting fit while counting to 100 with Jack Hartman videos. Check it out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTeUqWGCKjA Writing: Students are building their writing skills through daily printing practice (Morning Work) and journals. For two journals, before writing, we also added a bit of math: we talked about preferences, tallied our opinions and reviewed how to write numbers using letters and symbols. Buddies: Grades 1 and 2 students are building their reading skills through opportunities to read with their grade 5 buddies. Some students played sight word games with their partners this week to change things up. Here are some pictures from last week's pyjama day with our big friends: Reading Strategies: When Ms. Jackie is in our class, we break off into small groups to work with the teacher or in partners. Ms. Jackie focused on letter sounds with her group, while Ms. Sara introduced the Picture Walk strategy to make predictions before reading new books with her groups and played some reading/ spelling games with her students. Students will continue to build reading skills through different mini-lessons and practice sessions guided by teachers. How do you choose an interesting book, magazine or article to read? This week, we learned about using the Goldilocks Strategy to find "Just Right" books to help us to stay interested in reading for longer periods of time. Check out our reading stamina graph to see how we are progressing : If you are looking for opportunities to support your child's reading at home, or just want to check out some interesting new books, I recommend Tumblebooks, an on-line resource that has audio of great kids' books. Check it out! http://www.tumblebooklibrary.com/auto_login.aspx?u=calgarypl&p=sd19 The library also has Bookflix with great fiction and non-fiction books: https://calgarylibrary.ca/read-learn-and-explore/eresources/bookflix/ That's about all the news from this week! I hope that you enjoyed the photos.
Have a great weekend, Ms. Sara :) Oki parents and guardians, Where has the time gone? I feel like just yesterday it was the start of October, and now here we are half-way through! Here is a bit about what we have been working on in room 23. W.O.W. time (World of Wonder): During W.O.W. time, students have a chance to explore big ideas while outside on the land. We've been looking at seasons, insects, colours, patterns and numbers. This week, we have been practicing sitting quietly, connecting with nature. What can we see? Hear? Smell? Feel? It has been fantastic seeing students grow in their ability to show kakyosin: an awareness of their environment and observation skills.
Whew! We sure have been busy in room 23! I will be posting updates every 2 weeks, so stay tuned.
Have a great weekend, Ms. Sara :) Oki Room 23 Parents! Welcome to our blog! Please check out our posts to find out what is happening in our classroom and upcoming activities!
|
Ms. Sara
|