March Newsletter

Here's your March Newsletter: March Newsletter

The monthly theme for show and share is Animals. Bring a picture, a stuffy, or other artefact and try to have 3 facts to share with the class about your animal. The more unusual the better!

Sincerely,

Ms. Goegan

P.S. A warm welcome back to Imaan. We've missed you this past month and look forward to lots of stories about your trip.

A sad farewell to Rosemary, whose last day will be this Friday. We hope your new school appreciates your silly sense of humour and excellent drawing as much as we do in 202.

Adventures in...

This week's post will be a quick one, since I seem to be more out than in the classroom this week. But learning continues apace....

Interest in maps and space exploration continues. Ms. Moniz has managed to hang the planets and we're getting good use out of our space ship. One of the interesting recent developments is a more narrative based play in the drama centre. Instead of saying, "I was the baby" or "I was the Doctor", students are now saying things like, "We were going to Jupiter but then an asteroid crashed into our ship and Julia had to rescue me."

The interest in maps has also continued. We try to keep it fresh by giving students new ways to think about maps and shapes. These students are creating a play dough version of the map of Canada. 

At the science centre, you can see we've got a number of ways to visualize mapping for students to play with. Puzzles of Canada and European nations are next to two different globes.

Students are also mixing the two inquiries. In this wall display, you can see maps of the solar system that students have created, based on their play in the drama centre. 

Another way to tie this all together is through art. This book called "The Starry Night" shows New York through the style of Vincent Van Gogh. You can see a student's journal showing Vincent Van Gogh painting The Starry Night, which I thought was an interesting perspective.

When looking at the painting The Starry Night itself, students liked:

--The colours

--The brightness of the moon and stars

--How the town was outlined in black to make it stand out

--The shapes and lines.

We brainstormed about how we might achieve some of the effects he does in our own work. Students came up with the idea of using the pastels and watercolours, like in their creation of the patterned mittens.  You can see the sample I mocked up today after school for them, using oil pastels and watercolours. 

Hopefully, I'll have lots of artwork to show you for next week. We've decided to make pancakes next Monday, so perhaps some pictures of that adventure as well. 

For this week, note that library is tomorrow. On Friday, the school will host a performance of The Circus of the Animals in the afternoon. I should have copies of March's newsletter for you later on this evening as well and will post on the blog as well as sending them home. 

Have a great week, 

Sincerely,

Ms. Goegan

Grand Tour

Tomorrow is Library, and this is your weekly blog post reminder.

Interviews were, as always, fascinating. It's always great to hear how the other half of the student day looks and I got some pretty interesting tales out of school.

For those of you who skipped this round, I thought it might be good to give you a peek into what the classroom looks like of late:

Here are the mittens we made using oil pastels and watercolours to highlight patterning. It works both as an art activity and a mathematics one:

Here, students are showing the numbers 1-10. Of course, these are SKs so many of them already know 1-10, but numeracy has so many facets. An activity like this is good practice connecting numbers to objects and looking at the relationships between numbers as well as building counting skills.

Many of our numeracy activities came to a head on 100th Day. In this display, you can see the finished products of several students' 10 charts, as well as some of our practice working with patterns and tally marks in groups of ten. It's important to show students that ten can look many different ways in order to help ground the number concept. 

You can also see the reflection students wrote together answering the question: "If I could have a hundred of anything, I would want..."

Many students said they would want 100 diamonds or jewels, but there were some less expected answers too. My favourite was Felix's 100 Salmon (I think they were for eating).

You can also see the 100th Day vests students worked hard on posted up in the hall: 

We've posted a selection of photos from the Scientist in School Magnet workshop day. Students are fascinated and excited to see themselves at work and (hopefully, just like this blog) it helps them remember the learning as well. 

Although some students have insisted that their mommies really do need these photos at home.

The interest in maps continues as well. This display shows student work and highlights the features that maps contain. Students continue to draw their own maps and put together puzzles of different maps as well.

This student made a map by using plasticine to create the outlines of the countries 

Our Amaryllis is blooming nicely:

One bloom on Wednesday

This morning, there are four

And, as you've seen, our drama centre has become a space station. The feature attraction is this amazing giant box, which is slowly becoming a rocketship:

Students looking at images of the sun.

We covered the roof with tin foil, cut out some portholes and a door. 

Construction creates opportunities to solve problems. Creating the roof of the rocketship required many trials and errors. I started out thinking of it as a cone, when we should have been thinking of it as a square based pyramid. The somewhat messy result was covered by a funnel and aluminum foil.

As teachers, it's important to model these kinds of open ended problems because it helps show that not all problems have simple answers. (At least this is what I tell myself.) One of our biggest goals is to help students become resilient in the face of challenges. Solving open ended practical problems like these provides many opportunities. 

When possible we try to let students take the lead. Today, they solved the problem of creating the handle for the rocketship's door by suggesting hole punching the tubing and tying the string so that the handle was more sturdily attached.

It's not pretty, but it works. That handle isn't coming off.

We also provide opportunities for students to answer their own questions. This experiment was the result of a student asking why there are craters on the moon. Students played with dropping marbles into flour from various heights and observed the results. 

This post has ballooned somewhat, but I think it's clear that learning is happening in Room 202.

Thanks for reading!

Sincerely,

Ms. Goegan

P.S. Another result of the interviews is post-dated inspiration. I've been trying to think what our next cooking activity should be and, although we've missed Pancake Tuesday, I think Pancakes are great anytime. If there are parents who are able to volunteer to support this activity, please let me know your availability.  With a griddle and some squeeze bottles, it should be quite easy to manage.

Valentine's Day

On Thursday, the 12th, we'll do our Valentine exchange in class.

Please let me know if you have not received the class list of names. Students have made an envelope bag to hold the Valentines they receive, but if there's anything else you'd like to send in, please make sure it's in sealed bags to go home for students or speak to me directly.

I'll try to post more pictures after the fact to avoid spoiling any surprises coming home.

Cheers,

Lisa

Inquiry: Maps and Space

Dear Parents,

When inquiry begins to happen, you grab the kite strings and hold on. Right now there are two overlapping inquiries in my classroom: one about maps and one about space and the solar system. I'm never sure where these things come from, but when I begin to notice an interest in children's play, I try to follow it and there are usually interesting results.

Our mapping inquiry started when I noticed that students were drawing treasure maps in their journals and on spare scraps of paper. This may have flowed out of making animal tracks or burying jewels in the sand table, it's hard to say. But I happened to have some photocopies of grid maps that I then brought in for them to explore. I found that students' first instincts were to tell stories with these maps: there were often monsters and treasure, and sometimes familiar characters like Batman would appear.

 Using this interest, I brought in an atlas and "read it" during circle time. We explored different features every day for a week. Many of the features of maps were already intuitively obvious to my students ("Why is this part brown and this part is blue?" "Because that's desert and that's water.""What are these triangles here for?" "Those are mountains."). Others, like compasses, grid lines, or boundaries, needed a little more figuring out.

Two students are working on a map together, with the atlas to hand for inspiration.

We've also been applying the concept of maps to build retelling and sequencing skills. Students have created "maps" of stories like The Snowy Day, The Very Grouchy Ladybug, Hansel and Gretel, and Going on a Leaf Hunt. Some stories are a more natural fit for this type of retell than others. Choosing books with a clear sequence  or journey really helps students develop the concept. 

For this project, we used coloured chalk and brightly coloured paper to get students using something new.

 As for the second inquiry, I'm having a lot of fun with the drama centre right now. Students made a whole series of dials that we've attached to the wall for the "Space Station".

One of my fine motor activity inspirations was weaving pipe cleaners through the holes of a colander. These make excellent helmets (I'm sure you'll agree).

Old headphones are both headsets and microphones. The sponge is a console. And it's important to keep power tools to hand, just in case anything needs fixing.

Some of these are dials, some are steering wheels. Some have colour grading and numbers

. There's also a compass, just at the left edge in this one. 

We've got posters of the planets up to help set the scene. 

This box will become a rocket ship. The excitement on its delivery was palpable. 

So, that's what we've been looking at these last couple of weeks. You can expect to see many more images of maps and to learn lots of interesting facts about space because I don't see these particular inquiries dying down anytime soon. 

Sincerely, 

Ms. Goegan

P.S. I personally recommend Mary Roach's book "Packing for Mars" as an excellent source for answering all the really odd questions you may have about what being an astronaut is really like. 

February Newsletter

Dear Parents,

Here's the February Newsletter: As specified earlier, Julia and Jackson will go on Monday and Tuesday respectively and we have a mathematical theme in February.

Please check to see when your student's special day is:
February Newsletter

You'll also find information about 100th Day, a monthly overview of classroom events, and 3 science experiments you can try at home.

Please enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Sincerely,

Ms. Goegan

P.S. Thanks to Sara for noticing that I accidentally posted last year's newsletter instead of this year's. Issue resolved!