Dear Parents,
Every year for Earth Day, our school celebrates with the awarding of the golden pineapple for the class who's done the best fundraising and a day of dancing with DJ Trevor. Friday, we danced with DJ Trevor and this week is off to a great start as we begin our dance residency with local dance Artist Candice Irwin. We've worked two half days with her so far this week, and have 3 more sessions in total together.
As you can see from the pictures below, students are moving in creative, controlled ways, thinking about the elements of dance, and generally having a great time. We had a good discussion about how dance is a form of storytelling and I look forward to seeing how we move forward together in our understandings as the residency progresses.
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| From one of our "Promenade" warm ups |
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| Students had to creatively link themselves across the room |
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| In different activities, different elements came into focus more clearly |
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| 5 relationships exercise |
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| Students had to create 5 different connections |
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| Each connection told a story |
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| Viewers were encouraged to reflect on the story they saw being acted out |
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| Students really took risks and were willing to play |
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| From the 8 moves up, 8 moves down exercise |
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| Different qualities of movement were emphasized |
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| Some were sharp |
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| Some were smooth and flowing |
In any case, I'm sure you'll agree it's been an exciting week to be back in the classroom.
In other curriculum news:
We filmed our Canada 150 video segment today, making mosaic flags of different provinces.
I've begun DRA testing to get a more formal assessment of reading levels with individual students, which is going well so far. Students are in line so far with where I hoped or expected to see them. We're writing letters to some of our favourite people this week in writing.
We continue to work on addition and subtraction strategies in math. Most students can see that 7+2 and 2+7 are the same things, but right now the challenging bit is getting students to see the relationship between 7+2=9 and 9-2=7.
We're continuing to look at structures and materials in Science and have finished the Social Studies unit on Community (though one student still needs to finish a final assessment).
This is also Ms. Vijan's last week in the classroom. I personally want to thank her for her support and professionalism over the past few weeks and know that students are looking forward to celebrating her last day with us on Friday.
Sincerely,
Ms. Goegan
