Somewhat unintentionally, this week became focused on the outdoors. The beautiful (but cold!) weather beckoned us to Nature's classroom and we could not dismiss the call. There is so much to learn outside of the walls of our building! - names of plants and animals - distinguishing between male and female ducks based on colours - the fact that you can cut a worm in half and...have two living worms! - the beauty and danger of mushrooms/fungus - conflict resolution - teamwork - creativity and imagination - an abundance of French vocabulary - managing disappointment - using tools safely (pocket knife and fish hooks) ... Our fishing trip today all started with a plan. Madame brought in a real fishing rod and we examined the anatomy. What are the important parts and how can we recreate them? We noticed, for example, that the fishing line runs the length of the rod. We guessed that this would be important because if we just tied the fishing line on the end of the stick, it might snap in half if we caught a big fish. Winding the line along the entire length of the stick helps the pressure to stay even along the entire rod. A legitimate fishing rod needs a good bobber so we looked at the supplies that we have in our classroom to try to figure out how we could fashion one of our own. Max suggested that we could take two applesauce cups and glue them together to make a bobber that would float. This seemed like an excellent idea, but we didn't have enough cups and we were worried that the glue wouldn't hold when it got wet. Instead, we found a whole basket of corks that Rosie's family donated for crafts. We had lots of those! And they float! We found that when we put the fishing line through them, we could even slide the cork up and down the line to change the position of the bobber. We drew out our plans. ![]() We spent some time this week building and beautifying the rods and bobbers. And then today was the big day when we got to try out our fishing rods for real! We only caught one fish, but we all decided that it was still a really fun day! Not to be forgotten, we also had our first walking trip to Hoffman Park this week. We found a perfect place to sit for class meetings, as if someone knew we would be using the forest as our outdoor classroom and had set it up in advance just for us. We built forts, played tag and hide-and-go-seek, looked for bugs and worms, and made all kinds of interesting discoveries. We were princesses in castles, and our sticks became spears and even food. We also spent some time outside this week with our Big Buddies, and in the garden with the French Immersion Kindergarten classes. Believe it or not, we were actually indoors for part of the week, as well. We began a new rotation system for our literacy stations that everyone seems to enjoy, and many of us are beginning to speed through our coloured home reading flashcards! Hooray!
We've been forging ahead with our literacy program and are now beginning to work on blended sounds! (2 or 3 letters together that make one sound, like "ou", "ch"...) At the moment, we're practicing working in small groups at different literacy stations so that in the near future, we'll be independent enough that Madame will be able to pull out small groups of students to do some focused reading practice with them. Many of us were quite excited this week because Madame let us use real keyboards to practice typing the sight words that we've been working on. We looked at the words projected on the board and then had to try to "type" them on our keyboards. This is great not only for reading literacy, but also for helping us to begin to familiarize ourselves with where letters are located on a computer keyboard. In Math, we've been playing a mystery shape game where Madame describes the shape she has in her mind and we have to try to guess what it is! We've also been learning about 2D versus 3D shapes. We divided into two teams and played a fun racing game to see which team could find the 2D or 3D shape first that Madame described. In our blend of Science and Socials, we read a great book this week about a boy named P'ésk'a and his first salmon ceremony. It reinforced for us how important salmon are to the First Nations communities and we learned about how those communities catch their fish, how they cook them, and then how they put the salmon bones on a ceremonial tray and return the bones to the river. Everybody thanks the river for the gift of the salmon. The only logical thing to do after reading the story was to make some salmon of our own! We didn't have any bones to bring to the river because Madame made a point of purchasing salmon WITHOUT bones for safety reasons, but we had fun being part of every step of the cooking process. We used a marinade of teriyaki sauce and brown sugar that was very yummy! Before eating the salmon, we all said "hay čxʷ q̓ə " ("thank you" in the Katzie language) to thank the salmon for giving its life for us to eat it. There were mixed reviews about the fish taste, but many of us liked it so much that we came back for 2nds and 3rds. All of the salmon had been gobbled up by lunch time! With our Big Buddies this week, we had the privilege of working on some Christmas tree ornaments to decorate one of the trees for the PAC Christmas Market on Thursday evening. We had a lot of fun painting! When those were complete, we worked on making some Christmas cards for seniors that don't have families to come visit them during the holidays. We didn't end up getting to go on our Hoffman Park walk this week because Madame was sick on Thursday, but to make up for it, Madame invited the other Grade 1 and 1/2 classes to go with us to Mitchell Road Park today! We had a great time reconnecting with old friends, and making new friends! On the way back to the school, we took a different route and cut through the forest back to Harris Road. We found lots of great sticks that we will use next week to turn into fishing poles.
It's been another short but full week, with the highlight being our visit to the Tynehead Fish Hatchery on Wednesday morning. (Sorry, I made a joke about having poop on my head to try to get them all to look at me for the photo below - this is why I teach young children...I have the same sense of humour. This strategy works great with my own kids, but apparently my expert strategy was a bust in a large group. Like good students, they started copying me by putting their hands on their heads. #Idon'tnormallyteachyourchildrenpottywords #Ipromise #Butallwordsarepartofliteracyright??). We have been working hard at school on learning about the salmon life cycle and the volunteers at the Hatchery did an amazing job of reinforcing those concepts for us! (Special thanks to one of our parent volunteers for some of these photos!) With hushed voices (well, sort of...), we got to visit a room where baby salmon eggs were incubating. We were shown visuals, or got to see first-hand, every step of the process from birth to death. One of our favourite parts was holding some salmon that had been frozen at full size. As a bonus, we even got to take turns feeding some trout! Back at school, we learned that salmon are really important to First Nations communities. Madame gave us some background information about who the First Nations people are (les "autochtones"). We were all very fascinated to learn that our school is on land that used to belong to other people and that our ancestors actually took the land from the First Nations communities. It was a revelation that sometimes, we are not always the good guys. We had lots of questions about this sensitive topic but we were very happy to learn that our country is trying to take good care of the First Nations people now and that they even have a special place to live called a "Reserve" right here in Pitt Meadows! We learn about them and talk about them a lot as a way of respecting them and remembering what they had to give up for us. (As an aside, anyone is welcome to drive onto the Katzie First Nations Reserve in Pitt Meadows. They even have a gift shop!) Madame spoke with an elder from the Katzie Reserve who told her that salmon are their reserve's main food source. We learned about how the Katzie people catch the salmon with big nets and then we began working on some Indigenous salmon art. Madame gave us lots of colours to choose from for our backgrounds, but we learned that it was best to choose just three colours because in art and in photography, the number 3 is considered to be the most beautiful number. Sweet little Lauren was so inspired by the stories about the First Nations people that she decided to draw a picture of how they might have been sad when their land was taken from them. :-( On a lighter note, our snack time today became "stupid human tricks" time. (...without using the word 'stupid'). ;-) If we come home saying that all we learned today was how to make monkey faces and hold pencils in our lips, Madame wants to assure parents that there was a lot more educational value to the rest of the day. ;-)
Yesterday, we remembered. We started the day with a Remembrance Day Assembly where our class joined with two others to sing Charlotte Diamond's "Donne-moi la main". We were nervous but we did a good job! Our class also walked to the cenotaph in Spirit Square and read the poem and each of the names of the soldiers listed on it. We were all very respectful and intrigued. With "Big Buddies" this week, we pulled out a classic craft and made tissue paper poppies. We had fun making them and it was great fine motor practice! On Thursday, we went over the hill... ...and through the woods... ...to Save-On-Foods we go! It was a looooooong walk there and back, but we did an amazing job of not grumbling or complaining! The Save-On-Foods workers taught us a lot about healthy eating and how to eat well-balanced meals. We learned about Canada's new food guide, and walked around to different sections of the store to see first-hand the kinds of foods that are rich in vitamins, protein (our "go foods"), calcium (our "bone foods"), and fiber (which cleans you out and makes you poop!). We were surprised to learn that yogurt drinks are tasty but are not actually healthy and sometimes have as much sugar in them as a candy bar. They're a great treat! But yogurt that we eat with a spoon is the way to go for healthy eating, giving us some much-needed protein and calcium without as much added sugar! In Math this week, the Grade 1s have continued their regular numeracy practice, while the whole class has kept moving forward with our shapes unit. Madame picked some volunteers and then would call out the name of a shape in French. The students had to work together to create the shape with their bodies. Our Mambo No. 5-inspired shapes song also gave Madame the idea to bring in her trumpet for a little more musical exposure. After all, what's Lou Bega without a little trumpet accompaniment? We had a lot of fun taking turns trying to make a sound on the trumpet. Some of us struggled and others blasted our ears! (Never fear...the mouthpiece was disinfected with each use). ;-) In Science, we have begun a unit on salmon and their life cycle. We worked in pairs to put together picture puzzles in sequence from birth to spawner and read a great story about the salmon's long journeys and the predators that they face. Later in the week, we played a game of salmon tag. We all started off as eggs, wobbling around close to the ground. When Madame touched us on the shoulder, we became a predator that Madame assigned (bear, eagle, seal, orca...) and ran around chasing and tagging the eggs. When most of the eggs had been caught, we started a new round - this time as alevins (the 2nd stage of a salmon's growth). We got to stand a little taller this time as we ran. We continued the game this way until we became full grown salmon. Some of our Big Buddies happened to come outside during our game and ended up joining in the fun as predators. Another highlight this week was when one of Madame's former Middle School students and his family donated a bunch of their old costumes to our class. We had so much fun dressing up and stretching our imaginations! Finally, it was such a beautiful week that we decided to do outside centres with the Ks and 1s on Thursday afternoon.
It's been a busy week of October festivities in K/1! We kicked off the week with a "walking story". Madame posted pages of a Fall story all around the schoolyard and we walked from one page to the other as she told the story. We had fun trying to find the next pages! ...even if some of them had fallen into the leaves by the time we got to them. After "reading" the story, we got together with our classroom Big Buddies/Little Buddies and each picked a tree to adopt. We encouraged our trees by telling them that winter is coming and their leaves are going to fall off... C'est difficile. Mais tu PEUX le faire! Even when things are difficult, we keep pushing through. We will continue to visit our "amis arbres" (tree friends) throughout the year to check on them and encourage them as they go through tough times. (A moment of silence, if you please...) After whispering sweet words of encouragement to our trees, we decided to fully embrace their gift of fallen leaves... Our "walking story" was all about finding fall leaves, making piles, jumping in the piles, making forts in the leaves, etc. So we felt it was only fitting that we live out the pages of the story. After using pumpkins last week with our Grade 6/7 buddies for our Science lessons, we had 4 pumpkins just hanging out in our classroom. That was way too much unharnessed potential. We decided to open them up and carve them out. And on that note, Madame is hoping that someone can explain to her how "slime" became a multi-million dollar industry when us kids have trouble putting our hands into a pumpkin without getting grossed out. (Or perhaps it was just the lure of playing with the centre toys instead of getting our hands messy...) Madame invited all of us to help carve our class pumpkins but most of us only lasted a minute or two. Meya was the reigning champ for stamina. We peeled and cut up two of the pumpkins to turn into purée for making pumpkin cheesecake muffins. The other two were saved for carving jack 'o lanterns. We used our Math concepts to carve our jack 'o lanterns. After reviewing the names of our French shapes, we took turns giving Madame suggestions of which shapes we should use for each part of the jack 'o lanterns' faces. Then Madame drew them and we cut them out. Of course, we couldn't let good pumpkin seeds go to waste! So we roasted them with salt and butter! Yummy! We also had lots of fun making the pumpkin cheesecake muffins! Almost all of us got a turn either adding an ingredient, stirring, using the handheld mixer, greasing the muffin pans (because Madame forgot her muffin cups in the car), or scooping the batter into the muffin tins. The muffins turned out oh, so delicious! And that smell! Mmmm... Too bad the week was so crazy and we didn't manage to make the muffins until Halloween...when we had lots of other amazing treats! We ended up with a lot of left over muffins. (Madame wasn't too disappointed to take some home). Thanks to the amazing parents and grandparents that provided yummy treats for our Halloween party!! For Halloween, we also enjoyed showing off our costumes and admiring all of the kids' costumes in our school-wide Halloween parade. And we got to see our Grade 6/7 Big Buddies perform a bunch of Halloween dances in the gym! Another special treat this week was "spooky Halloween juice". Madame brought in some dry ice and we made scientific hypotheses about what would happen when she put the dry ice into the juice. Some of us thought it would EXPLODE! Others thought it would bubble. We were very excited when smoke came billowing out of the blood-red juice. Oh, and we also did some reading, writing and arithmetic this week! ;-) Happy Halloween, everyone!
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