STEM? STEAM? STEAML?

Dear Parents, 

STEM usually stands for Science Technology Engineering and Math, and STEAM is also becoming a popular buzzword in education. The extra A is for Art, but I'd also like to have Language in there too, because you get such great authentic writing when you give students a purpose to write about. 

It's been a fun week in the classroom. Yesterday, I challenged students to create a shoe out of paper. They got to work in teams and were allowed to use any of our scrap paper plus glue, tape or staples to fasten it together. The shoes had to fit on one student's foot and protect it from the environment. They were very focused for the entire work period and some stayed in for recess, on purpose, to finish decorating their shoes (I see I missed taking photos of these later creations, but will add them in when I show the writing). 

Putting final touches on it

Cutting out a sole

Using different pieces to create a shape

Measuring your foot

Shaping it with tape

Cutting out parts of the template

One group's final masterpiece

Today students worked in partners in math. First, we practiced sorting shapes by different properties (Number of corners, Number of sides, Lines of symmetry). Students have these math concepts, but often revert to more basic concepts when asked to sort (e.g.: Big vs. Little or by colour)

The shapes on the left all have 4 corners

Afterwards, students used the shapes to make some fun pictures.

For both activities, part of the goal is to get kids engaged in directed play. They're learning when they are experimenting and testing and taking risks. But these are also language activities, because they ask students to use specialized vocabulary for specific purposes: to label their pictures and to explain their thinking. 

Today was the due date for our birdhouse project. This process writing was practice for some of the writing we'll be doing about that. I hope to hang our birdhouses in the parenting centre yard tomorrow in advance of the long weekend and spend some time exploring out there as well.

Sincerely, 

Ms Goegan

Becoming Activists

Dear Parents,

With Ms. Khokhar's support, a long term project Room 105 has been working on is trying to find ways to help homeless people in our neighbourhood. We started by looking at how space in our community is used and thinking about how we might change local High Park to make it more welcoming to homeless people. Students had some great ideas, like building more bathrooms and showers, adding more lights, free entertainments like outdoor movies, and having fresh food available for people.

We have read a lot of books about homelessness, building empathy, examining different types of homelessness, and looking at some of the community resources already in place. Here are some of the class favourites:

I See You:

This book was about noticing what other people ignore and really started us on our path to explore this topic more deeply

The Magic Beads: 

This taught us that kids can be homeless too, and they often need to deal with some tough situations as a result

Lily and the Paper Man: 

Was the launch point for a conversation about how people who are different can sometimes be frightening and how to deal with our feelings when we see things that make us sad.

On our Street: 

This book has a great easy to understand breakdown of basic issues around poverty and homelessness. It would be a great resource in a primary or a junior classroom. 

Still a Family: 

More about families going through homelessness

Last Stop on Market Street:

This one is about people who volunteer at a soup kitchen and made us check some preconceptions, because we assumed the main characters were homeless at first, before discovering they were helpers. It showed that even people who don't have a lot themselves can still help others. 

As a result of all this work, we decided to create a drive at our school, asking people to bring in new backpacks, lunch bags, and water bottles to give to kids at a local family shelter called Redwoods. To help advertise it, students have been making announcements in the mornings and we all made posters that we've put up around the school. We'll be collecting materials until May 15th.

Here are a few of our posters in the school:

Other News, related or not:

We love High Park, and really enjoyed our last trip to the park, where we learned about different kinds of birds, made some nests, and did some birdwatching with binoculars by the pond. Here we are next to our nests.

The final project is almost due. Students will present their birdhouses made out of recycled materials on May 16. I'm hoping we'll hang them in the Parenting Centre yard and see whether we feed more birds or squirrels.  (To that end, if anyone happens to have some extra birdseed hanging about, I'd be grateful).


We also have a end of year trip in the works. As a further support to our Matter and Materials unit, we're going to Legoland. We just got in on someone else's cancellation so expect a trip form home very soon for our trip on June 4th. This is a more expensive trip than the HPNC: to pay for everything, including buses, will cost $25. Please let me know if this is a hardship and we'll see what can be done.