Weekly Update; Voyageur Week!

Hello parents and students!

I hope everyone had a great long weekend,  I had the opportunity to attend some very interesting sessions at teacher’s convention last week that I hope will help me implement some new ideas in class. Pioneer day last Tuesday was a great success, the students got a taste of what life was like for a pioneer child and I’m sure have many stories to share with you about the day (Ask them what it was like writing with ‘kid friendly’ quills and ink!)  

This week will be the start of our voyageur week, in conjunction with our prairie inquiry work I thought it would be a good idea to explore the notion of trading posts, the Hudson bay company’s influence and the effect that has had on shaping Canadian communities.  Since we have been learning about Winnipeg, one of the prairie communities we are studying we will celebrate a festival they hold every year in the city called Festival du Voyageur.  We will celebrate the festival on Friday with a variety of stations and activities throughout the day, it should be a fun and memorable time for the students!  To get in the voyageur spirit I will encourage the students to dress up as they would have!  Some suggestions for voyageur wear could be a toque (red if you have it!) a plaid, lumberjack style shirt,  suspenders, sashes…. This is of course optional; it’s just a fun idea if the students feel like dressing up to get into the voyageur spirit!

Ms. Q

More pioneer links

 Hello students and parents!  Feel free to browse the links to get ideas for pioneer day!

Travel back in time
Prairie images
Pioneers of the west
Pioneer life
'Letters from the trunk' interesting interactive site to learn about immigrants and settlers coming west
Search photographs on the Glenbow site
Games about pioneer life

All images from the Glenbow museum website.

Weekly Update

Hello parents and students!

As January has come to a close I’m reflecting on what a busy month it was.  Between getting back into the swing of things after the Winter break, to skating weekly and many of the students being involved in the musical it was a very busy time!   

The students have been continuing to work on their poetry unit, first completing a poem about the senses and how it relates to the prairies.  Earlier this week the students started a brand new kind of poem, it was a struggle because it’s a new concept for them.  In small groups they have been collaborating to create a personification poem.  So far they are doing a fantastic job!  My hope is they will create their own after experiencing it in a group setting.  

We had a math challenge this week.  We had a group discussion about what it would be life to attend school if they were a pioneer child.  As a group we realized most had to walk a long distance, and we didn’t have the convenience of a car, bus etc as we do today! So on our record breaking temperature day on Thursday, as a class we walked around the school field until we reached a kilometer. I timed the class to see how long it took to walk and in groups or on their own the students had to figure out how long it would take to walk FIVE kilometers if they knew how long it took just to walk one. It was interesting watching what the students used to help them come up with the answer, we’re not finished with the problem, it is ‘to be continued’ next week.

We had our Fort Calgary and Cantos museum trip on Friday, what perfect timing for that trip as we are focusing on prairies and how the settlers made it out west.  I could tell the students appreciated the hands on activities they were able to participate in and hopefully they will come away with some new ideas and questions as we dive deeper into our inquiry research.

Subitizing: What is it and why is it important?

You may have heard your child mentioning subitizing activities we have been doing in class. Subitizing is "instantly seeing how many" meaning,  subitizing is not counting but recognizing common pattern arrangements such as those we may see on a dice or domino.   How good can you subitize? The results might surprise you....

Can you count faster than a chimp? 

not easy eh?

The students has been practicing this, doing games, quizzing one another and just explaining what they see. This is an example of what a student might explain if they were subitizing if they saw this picture for just a few seconds:

They would tell me they see 9, when I ask how they know here are some explanations I have heard from them before:

"I see 3groups of 3 and if you add 3+3+3 that is 9"

"I saw one group of 6 blue dots and one group of 3 red dots and that gives you 9"

"I recognize that pattern, when I see it I know it's 9 because I've seen it before"

This is something that can easily be practiced at home, the students have really enjoyed the games we play in class and as they progress the hope is that the more they can subitize quickly they better their number sense will be if they can instantly see things in groups and be able to clearly explain how they know the answer. Things that can be used at home to practice:

-coins

-dominos

-dice

-cards with dots

-anything you can see in groups!!!

Weekly Update

Hello parents and students!

The first few weeks of January have been very busy for us, we have dived into our prairie research and the students are comparing life as a prairie kid in the past compared to now.  Some examples of research questions the students have come up with are:

What was school like?

How did people get around?

What did they eat?

What were houses like?

How did people stay warm in the winter?

What kind of jobs did people work?

What did kids do for fun?

What tools did people use to make life easier?

Our trip to Fort Calgary and Cantos museum on Friday is perfect timing, as the students can take what they learned from the trip and apply it to their research questions!

We have started a poetry unit, using the prairies as our inspiration.  The first poem the students created was a piece about the senses, some wonderful pieces developed from that.  We’re moving onto different kinds of poetry and the students have been creating art that will later be used as an inspiration for their writing.

I taught the students how to use google maps last week, they thought the satellite view/streetview function was the neatest thing!  Using it I showed them areas of Winnipeg that were of interest, they I let them explore with it outside of the city looking at the prairie landscape from a bird’s eye view, the students then designed their own bird’s eye view art using the google maps for ideas.

In math we have been working on strengthening our number sense, they students have been doing activities with grouping and subitizing.  We will be starting a unit around measurement soon, linking it with our prairie inquiry work. 

Busy weeks coming up!  In February we will be having a pioneer day….more details to come soon!

Ms.Q   

Weekly Update

Hello parents and students! 

First post of the new year!  You will notice I posted some prairie links to the side here, this is to help the students do their research. So we have left the arctic behind and we are moving onto our inquiry work with prairies communities.  The students have been looking at a variety of books and websites last week getting a feel for what life is like. I’ve read them a handful of stories to help paint a picture of prairie life, then and now.   The city we will focus on is Winnipeg, we will compare Winnipeg and Calgary since they are both considered prairies communities. I’ll be posting a lot of links and helpful resources in the next few weeks if your child is ever interested in doing extra research at home!  I will keep everyone in the loop about the different activities going on in the classroom, I have a few ideas up my sleeve….

In math we will be continuing our morning math problem at the start of each day.  We are doing a calendar project for the month of January and many of the questions will be related to using the calendar.  As a class we are working to develop our mental math strategies, by doing this it increases the student’s computation ability and helps them strengthen their basic facts.

I will have more posts once we start working more deeply with our inquiry work, will also put up some more math websites as that seemed to be a popular request last term!

Ms. Q

Weekly Update

Hello parents and students!

I want to thank you all for coming out for sharing night, the students were very excited to show off all their work from the last few months so it was wonderful to see such a great turnout!

It was a busy week as we prepared for the big night, the students worked very hard to pull the room together.

Just over a week until our winter break!  Though it's hard at times for the students to stay on task with all the excitement in the air, we have a lot of work to do until the break!   Next week the students will be putting the finishing touches on their arctic fairy tale, finally publishing into their own book!

We're wrapping up our inquiry work on arctic communities, the past few days we've had some discussions as to what we've learned since we started all the way back in September. In reality we could study the arctic all year because there is so much more we can dig into but we will be moving on to study prairie communities in the new year.

In math we have continued to work with base blocks to help develop our number sense.  Recently we are working on ways to count to 100 using skip counting techniques, grouping and mental math.  The students have been learning about odd and even numbers and using ten frames to show our learning.  By using ten frames, the students have discovered how even numbers always have a 'partner' while odd numbers always have one left over.  Here are some odd and even games your children can play at home if they are interested in practicing:

odd or even sorting
Jelly Diving

I look forward to seeing everyone at interviews this week!

Ms. Q