We are excited that Ms. Raeewal, a student teacher from the University of Calgary, has become part of our learning community. She will be with us for the next five weeks.
As part of our ongoing study of shadows, we have been collecting data each month about the length and direction of shadows cast by a meter stick at different times of day. Through this work, we are observing that shadows are affected by the position of the sun relative to where we are. We are also learning about the meaning of cardinal direction (which is shown on a compass). We have had a number of really interesting conversations about important concepts such as compassion, diversity and rights. Through discussion, we have generated lists of things that make us diverse learners, including how we have different problem-solving strategies and different ways of seeing things. Answering the question, "What is compassion?", we created a list of things such as "It is to care about others and to really have feelings." Reflecting on rights in the learning community, we created a long and very thoughtful list that includes such things as "we have the right to have our voices heard and considered" and "we have the right to a safe learning environment." Many of the ideas brought up in these conversations were reflected in the poem we wrote and presented for the Remembrance Day assembly: "In order to have peace, we need to remember..." Reciting our poem as we lit tea lights felt quite meaningful to us. We also enjoyed the two songs we sang at the assembly: "Why do we have Remembrance Day?" and "I've got peace in my heart." There were two more student presentations this week. By the end of these two presentations, we realized there is much more we want to learn about the issues of woodland caribou habitat loss and the disappearance of songbirds. We hope to revisit these and other issues in the months ahead. Our mathematics learning has led us to some interesting discoveries about the relationships between adding and subtracting. Today, we played with numbers to see that, if a + b = c, then b + a = c and c - a = b and c - b = a. We tried different numbers for a and b and these equations always worked! We have been working on organizing our ideas into paragraphs and connecting ideas with phrases such as "In addition to...," and "In fact,...". We have all practiced using topic sentences and elaborating with examples to organize our writing about the wild rose plant. We have continued our exploration of the changing face of Alberta, including a look at what this place might have looked like during the last ice age. We have also continued our work creating plant and leaf collages. We look forward to our day at Fish Creek Park on Monday!
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February 2018
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