Going on a Field Trip!

Who built this city anyways?? 

I mentioned to students today that we will be going on a field trip to the Glenbow Museum on January 11 which is quite soon after the break. We are just finalizing all the forms now but thought we would put the bug in your ear early. In order to go on this trip we will need quite a few volunteers so please let me know if you would like to attend and if you have a police clearance on file already (unfortunately it's too short of a window to just begin the police check for this trip but we have 2 more later in the year as well). Due to the cost of busses and the maximum capacity already being met by just the students and teachers, we are asking for parent volunteers to drive themselves down to the museum and meet us there.

Our trip to the museum will be focussing on the program:

Our Community Our People: Who Built Calgary

(Social Studies)

Who were the individuals that helped build our first communities? Whose ideas led to the creation of our unique city? Based in the Mavericks gallery, this program allows students to explore with artifact handling and photographs and discover the pioneering men and women who first settled the West and began building our great city ... Calgary!

Students will also have the opportunity to explore other exhibits in the museum with a guide. Please email me at ljstewart@cbe.ab.ca  if you are interested in volunteering for this trip. Thanks so much!!

Recent learning

Today's first carolling session went great! We will be having 2 more assemblies this week. Thursday at 1:00 pm and and Friday morning at 8:30 (our class is doing a dance at Friday's assembly as well). As the weather was a bit warmer today (not much but it's an improvement) the students were able to get outside for a shortened recess and a few minutes of running around outside at lunch time. Also in the mornings if it is above -20 the students will stay outside until 8:00 am, if there is an orange circle on the door then students can come on inside. It may cool down later this week again so we may not get out but please ensure that students have proper clothing to stay warm. I plan to have the students visit and dig through the lost and found tomorrow to make sure nothing belongs to them as the pile is growing and I believe that items unclaimed will be donated soon.

Just a reminder that Thursday is Red and Green day and Friday is Pajama Day.

In Science we did an experiment on how many drops of water could fill a penny before the surface tension would break- everyone had very low predictions. Most students observed that they could fit double digit drops on their penny and were very excited to see how big their miniscus bubble could get before overflowing. The average number of drops was around 30 but students found that the size of their drops and how high in the air they squeezed their eye dropper made an impact on how many drops could fit.

Our Scientific Process Documentation 

Here are some pictures of our experiment.

A few drops in 

Students worked in partners

They were all so captivated as they worked in partners!

Hello Parents / Guardians,

Here are just a few reminders before we break for Winter Break.

Weather

• Please ensure your child is dressed for the extreme temperatures (hats, mitts, boots, snow pants and warm jackets).  The students will have some outside time for recess when the temperature is warmer than -20c including windchill. 

Donations

• If you and your family have any children’s (G rated) DVD’s that you would be willing to donate for indoor lunch/recess, please send them to school on Monday.

• Christmas time is traditionally associated with a time of giving and sharing. In keeping with the spirit of Christmas, we will be running a Christmas hamper campaign from December 5th through to December 13th. During this time please send your cheques or cash donations to the school in a sealed envelope marked ‘Christmas Hampers’. We will be distributing gift cards from all funds collected to Evanston families who would appreciate a little extra during the holiday season.

Caroling

• Students at Ken Taylor School have been participating in a Creative Movement unit for the three weeks in December. Together we have learned about a variety of cultural celebrations and dances that are from around the world. Each class will have an opportunity to share what we have been learning during our Caroling Assemblies next week. Below is a list of dates and which class is performing when. We welcome parents and guests to come and share in the magic of the season with us.

• Tuesday, December 13 @ 9:30am 

• Pearson/Stewart
• Brar/Bakkan              

• Thursday, December 15 @ 1:00pm  (Red and Green Day)

• Hargreaves/Sayani
• PM Kindergarten  

• Friday, December 16 @ 8:30am (Pajama Day) 

• Carstairs/Witczak
• AM Kindergarten 
• Steckly/Fraser/Jordan 

Lost & Found

• We have accumulated many lost items in our lost and found.  Please take a moment with your child to make sure none of the items belong to you.  We will be donating any items left over after December 16^th.

Spirit Days

• We will be having 2 Spirit Days next week

• Thursday Dec 15^th Red and Green Day
• Friday Dec 16^th Pajama Day

Last Day of Classes

• Dec 16^th is our last day of classes before Winter Break.  Please note this is an EARLY DISMISSAL FRIDAY which means students will be done school at 11:30 and there will be NO PM Kindergarten that day.  Report Cards will be sent home on this day as well.

The Staff at Ken Taylor would like to wish your family a relaxing Winter Break.

Geesh! This cold snap is really harsh! It's been a tough week for the kids not being able to go outside but they've been really great about it. Luckily they still get gym time daily to let out some of their pent up energy! Tomorrow I'll likely need to do some more movement breaks then normal. With next week being the last week before break and the cold weather snap, their regular routines are a bit off.

Next week we have some fun winter/Christmas activities coming up. We will have some caroling in the gym as well as a few dance performances during each of these assemblies. Parents are definitely welcome to come be a part of/watch these sessions if you'd like. Our class is one of the lucky few who get to perform on 2 separate days. (Mrs. Buonomo says we are all stars!!) Students can bring Santa hats, reindeer antlers, snowman or elf themed accessories for caroling as well.

Tuesday, December 13 @ 9:30am  (Our class is doing a dance this session)

Thursday, December 15 @ 1:00pm 

Friday, December 16 @ 8:30am (Our class is doing a dance this session) 

We also have 2 spirit days next week. 

Thursday, Dec. 15-  red/green day 

Friday, Dec. 16- pajama day - also early dismissal day 

Solving Shoe Sale problem

We read a book called Centipede's 100 Shoes by Tony Ross about a little centipede who stubbed his toe and decided he needed to get shoes to protect his feet.

After having to spend most of the day tying his shoes he decides that maybe he doesn't want the shoes after all so he sells them to other bugs. He sells his shoes to 5 spiders, 4 beetles, 2 woodlice, 1 grasshopper and 2 worms. Our problem for the past 2 days has been to figure out if the author got the right combination of critters right to get rid of all 100 shoes. This allowed us a chance to 

I didn't give any specific procedures that students had to follow to solve the problem because I wanted to see what strategies they could attempt on their own. We laid out lots of manipulatives like blocks, hundreds charts, 10 frames, etc. and students went to work. They were allowed to work with a partner and some students even chose to do it in a small group as well.  

It was awesome to see how students approached the problem. Some used coloured blocks to represent the different animals and their legs, others used a hundreds chart to track their combinations. We will continue to work on this problem and I will attach some pictures of the process!

December 7

BRRRR!!!! Well we've definitely been hit with a wave of winter! On days that are -20 or colder, we have indoor procedures in the morning. This means that when your child comes to school all the doors will be open at 7:45 and students are invited to come into the school and go to their classrooms. It doesn't matter what door they come in so please use the one that is closest to you. A supervisor will be at the doors but they will also be unlocked for you to pull open and for kids to come in. Please if you are later than 8:00 am have your child go through the office doors as no one is at those doors to let students in after 8:00 am. On these days we also stay inside for recess and lunch. In the chance that it warms up and students are able to get a bit of fresh air and exercise, please make sure to have extra warm clothing like hats, mitts, boots, and snow-pants available. As a class we are working on strategies to help keep track of these extra items and keep them organized in our room. Let me know if your kids are missing items that I can help them look for in the lost and found.

In Social Studies, we have started looking at landforms and different types of landscapes across Canada. In completely coincidental timing, we have been looking at the territory of Nunavut this week. Haha! Students have discovered that right now our temperature is very similar to theirs and looking at pictures of the landscape draws a lot of similarities! Today we looked through books as well as pictures and used the thinking routine of "I see, I think, I wonder" in our journals. Students made many inferences based on the pictures such as "it must be cold because there is so much snow there". We also noticed that we didn't see trees or plants in the pictures. After some research we learned that there are few trees and plants because the climate is too cold. It was also identified that because it's mainly rock and ice, the plants don't have soil to grow in. We were excited to see some amazing pictures of icebergs, and snow covered mountains.

We will continue to look at the northern territory and will narrow our focus to the community of Iqaluit.


Parent Council is still looking for a few parents to volunteer as Parent Volunteer Coordinator for each classroom.  If you have received your CBE police clearance and this position would interest you please contact parent council at council's.kennethdtaylor@gmail.com .

On this same note, we will be going to the Glenbow Museum on January 11th for our first field trip. If you would like to volunteer, let me know. If you don't have a police clearance done yet- I believe you still have time. You can email me at ljstewart@cbe.ab.ca Thanks!

November 30

Well the last day of November is almost finished- I can't believe we will be starting the month of December tomorrow!! Please remember to return your learning commons books tomorrow- every Thursday is library exchange day. The books should be kept safe in the large ziploc bag that was provided. Also there is not school on Friday as it is a teacher professional development day.

Today in Science we learned more about liquids. The class was so excited to do an experiment that explored the concept of surface tension. We filled a cup of water up to the very brim (I used food colouring so the students could see better). They thought it was so interesting how the water hovered in a rounded way over the edge without falling over. Next we wanted to know how many paper clips we could drop into the cup without it spilling. We spent a long time counting and ended up with 133 paper clips in our cup!! Then the discussion moved on to talk about variables that would have changed our findings or outcome. Students listed things like the size of the paperclips, the size of the cup (good thing I didn't use a bigger cup!) and how we dropped the paperclips in (like how high or fast we moved our hand in). The class had to document their hypothesis, their observations during the experiment, and the resulting conclusion. Here are some pictures of our science lab.

Before we started- just hovering over the edge a bit 

25 paper clips in- little did we know!

134 paperclips made it spill over- Look there wasn't much room left for the paperclips to go!!

November 29

Popcorn day will be happening again tomorrow!

Also just a reminder that Friday is a PD day so there will be no school. 

Today we spent a good chunk of time talking about recycling, composting, and garbage in general. It was supposed to be a few minutes of review to discuss what items go in our classroom blue, yellow, green, and black bins. However, it turned into a really rich conversation about the effect that our waste etc. has on the environment. Some students were really interested in understanding more about composting- but we couldn't spend any more time digging deeper into that today. I suggested that the students could explore the concept more outside of school by doing some research or finding books on the topic. If you use recycling at home have your son or daughter help you sort between recyclable and refundable items as well as what has to be put in the garbage. At the school we use green bins for organics and the students were fascinated to discover that paper towels and pizza boxes and coffee grinds could be put in the organics bin. Here's a link that could help differentiate what can and can't be recycled. 

http://www.calgary.ca/UEP/WRS/Pages/Recycling-information/Residential-services/Blue-cart-recycling/What-Can-You-Recycle.aspx

 Although it wasn't planned to happen as it did, the discussion also linked nicely back to how citizens needs are met through community. The city of Calgary is responsible for managing the waste of the city and its members help make the decisions as to what should happen with landfills and neighbourhood pick ups (and of course pay for the service through taxes!) We will continue to talk about how different communities such as neighbourhood, municipal (city), provincial, and federal (country) work together to support it's members of that community. 

November 28

Tomorrow November 29 and Wednesday November 30 are POPCORN DAYS!! Bring a toonie and get a bag of yummy popcorn! The money raised will go back into funds for the school playground and other important items needed.

There was also a notice that went home today about the Christmas Market at the school this Saturday. It will include fun for the whole family and opportunities to get a lot of shopping done. Best part is that it supports the school! It runs from 10-3.

To celebrate the month of December and a time that many people are thinking about giving- we started talking today about random acts of kindness. We brainstormed things that we could do here in the classroom and around the school to help our school community- the students came up with ideas such as smiling at others, giving kind compliments, helping someone that is having a tough time with something, holding the door for others, etc. This conversation and learning will continue throughout the month and we will broaden our scope of who we could be kind to and think of other ways to make a positive difference in the lives of others. They were asked to continue to think about things that they could do and also start to focus on how others are being kind to them. We will have a tracking system set up in the classroom so that students can recognize and celebrate their positive effect. Many students are regularly so helpful and friendly that they don't realize how much they do to make others feel good :)

November 23

In Social Studies we have been working on learning about different communities that we are members of. Students were asked to do a quick review and identify what communities they belong to. Most were able to list that they are part of the Kenneth D. Taylor school community and the neighbourhood of Evanston. However, many of us forgot and struggled to name the other community groups that are larger than our home community. We will continue to work on the vocabulary of city, province, and country and go through examples of how smaller communities are joined together to make larger ones. It's a tricky concept because students are very good at naming places that they know or have heard of but they don't yet understand where they are or the size of them. We will continue to explore these ideas before we narrow our focus on the 3 specific communities in Canada. 

In Science, we discussed different states of matter and tried to figure out how to define solids, liquids, and gases. Students had pretty good background knowledge and could describe some characteristics of each. We used these poems to help us: 

Then we worked in groups to sort pictures of various gases, liquids, and solids into their appropriate categories. Some were really difficult to decide and it was great to hear the discussions that students were having to figure them out. Here are some examples of the lists that they came up with. Once we all had a chance to talk in small groups we joined together as a class and decided what pictures we would include on each poster and why. It was a great introduction to this topic. 

November 22

Tomorrow is Spirit Day! Today we heard a story read by Mr. Dyck called Harold and the Purple Crayon. We learned that Mr. Dyck loves the colour purple because it reminds him of Harold who demonstrates creativity, imagination, and problem solving in this story. We brainstormed as a class what characteristics and virtues we would like to develop in ourselves. Tomorrow they should wear their favourite colour and be ready to describe what that colour represents to them.  For instance, Scotty loves the colour blue and to him it represents dreaming big and following your dreams. Others like the colour blue as well but the colour symbolizes different virtues. We will be reading books and discussing these characteristics over the next few weeks across the school. Here is an example of words that we came up with in our initial brainstorming session.

I can't wait to see the rainbow of colours tomorrow and hear about how the colours make the kids feel. It is also Healthy Hunger Fun Lunch day so those who ordered before Saturday Nov. 19 don't need to bring a lunch tomorrow. There will be another one upcoming in December, Head to the Healthy Hunger website to register for the next date!

Upcoming Info

Important Dates:
Monday- Nov.  21- pointsetta order forms due
Tuesday-Nov.  22- there will be special guests from the Calgary Board of Education throughout the school in the morning taking pictures for the CBE website. Please ensure the purple CBE consent forms are sent back to the school before Tuesday so that they can take pictures of all of our students.
Wednesday-Nov. 23- Spirit Day and Fun Lunch. We will be talking about spirit day tomorrow- students are to wear their favourite colour to school on Wednesday.
Thursday- Nov.  24- Learning Commons books due
Friday- Nov.  25- PD Day, no school

Students have been practicing their decoding skills (being able to read the words) because as we know, if they read the word wrong then it can really impact the meaning of the text and also their understanding. High frequency sight words are words that appear often in books and that students should be able to recognize at first "sight" without having to sound them out or use other word solving strategies. This will greatly enhance their reading experience as they won't have to problem solve each word.  I will be sending home a list this week with the first 200 words, the words your child knows will be highlighted. We are practicing our sight words daily in class using a variety of hands on activities to help solidify them in our memory! However, as we always say "practice makes us better" so students can also work on these words at home if they can.

November 15

In Social Studies we have discussed different communities that we are a part of. We started with their neighbourhood of Evanston, then moved onto their city of Calgary. Now we are exploring the next larger community that we are apart of- Alberta. Students are trying to understand the vocabulary of city, province, country and continent- as they are easily confused. For the next little while we will examine Canada as a whole and then move into specific communities within other provinces. If you could have a conversation with your child about places you have been together around Canada or even just Alberta. It would help if you talk about what those places are like physically (landforms and geography) and what types of activities you did there. This will help refresh their memories and understanding of different places and support them in communicating their experiences with the class.

Picture retakes are tomorrow as well. Hopefully we will be called earlier in the morning before recess so that students who are having their pictures redone will still be in top form for their pictures! :)

November 14

We started our day today with a "Pep Talk" from kid president on youtube. This little guy is a funny, charismatic boy who has had to overcome some significant challenges in his own life. He makes youtube videos about making the world a more positive place and about self improvement. His messages are inspiring and the kids enjoy listening to him speak and can relate to him in a different way than myself :) We discussed his ideas and this led us into setting some personal individual goals for ourselves on what we would like to get better at in the next few weeks (in school!). All of us were able to identify an area that we want to work on until Winter Break. I encouraged the students to narrow their focus and to be really specific so that they can see results and know exactly what they want to change. For example, a goal like improving in reading is too broad and students needed to articulate what specific area in reading they would like to develop. Tomorrow we will start to identify the strategies that will be applied in order to meet those goals. After all, just creating a goal isn't enough if we are not working towards meeting it. Here are a few examples of goals that students came up with:
"My goal is to get better at writing by not putting capitals in the middle of my words"
"My goal is to write more sentences and add details"
"I would like to improve on my spelling by sounding out the words as I go"
"A goal I have for November and December is to get better at using mental math to add numbers"

There was also a purple form that went home today. It is a consent form for pictures and work to be published. We will have having a photographer come to our school to take some pictures for the CBE photo bank.  These pictures may be used for CBE website along with other CBE documents. 

The difference between this form and the blue ones which were sent home at the beginning of the year is this form is good for 5 years where as the blue form is only valid for the current school year. Please return them with your child as soon as possible. Also if you do not consent can you clearly mark that on the form and send it back in so that I can track who does not want this. Thanks so much!

Upcoming Dates:
Tues. Nov. 15- photo orders are due either online or
Wed. Nov. 16- picture retakes- please send the order sheet back with retakes box checked off or a note letting me know you want your child to get retakes.
Thur. Nov. 17- Learning Commons books back to school

November 10 (posted on Nov. 12)

Our students did such an amazing job both performing their song and as respectful citizens during our first Remembrance Day ceremony. Thank you to those of you who were able to attend. Before our ceremony we took a look at some pictures that were captured during the first and second world wars of soldiers in their trenches and talked about how difficult it must have been for those men and women to be in the middle of that battle. What really seemed to impact students was the pictures of the soldiers saying goodbye to their loved ones and children. I believe it helped remind the class that they were normal people like us that had families and were loved, as it can be easy to hear the numbers of lives lost and lose that perspective. Everyone received a poppy today for the ceremony and to wear throughout the day to show our respect. It was very difficult for us to all keep our poppies on our shirts but students made every effort and attempt to ensure their poppy was on and kept in good condition.

If students forgot to bring their learning commons books back they can bring them on Monday and they will have a chance to go to the library to get a new one. If they sign out a book on Monday or Tuesday they can have out until Thursday November 17 or the following Thursday.

Other important upcoming dates:
November 15- deadline for photo orders or sheets letting us know about retakes
November 16- picture retake day
November 18- early Friday dismissal -11:30 am
November 21- pointsetta orders due
November 23- Subway fun lunch- order online Healthy Hunger by Nov. 19

Just a reminder that tomorrow is the last day for the Veterans Food Drive collection. If you have any non-perishable food items that you could donate please send them with your child.

We will also have a Remembrance Day ceremony tomorrow at 9:30 am. We have talked to the students about this being a serious and important ceremony that honours those who have made the ultimate sacrifice to keep Canada a democratic and safe place to live. There will be no school on Friday, November 11.

In Math this week we have been focusing on developing our number sense. At the beginning of every math session we start with a number talk. This is a short 5-10 minute routine that we will continue to do all year. The number talk helps us improve our ability to communicate what we are thinking as well as develop our mental math strategies. The students have enjoyed it so far and have engaged successfully in looking at ten frames. They examined dot patterns on a ten frame and had to quickly subitize (see the number as a group quickly without having to count one by one). When the dot's are not all clumped together it naturally leads into addition of the two sections. Some students were able to identify concepts such as doubles (the same number added to itself) when they noticed the patterns on the frame were the same on both sides.

We will continue to work with ten frames tomorrow and a bit next week as they start to represent numbers up to 20 with them. These tools are great for representing numbers as well because they allow students to recognize the "ten-ness" in numbers and can support their knowledge of place value, addition, and spatial awareness.

November 7

This week we are learning about the importance of recognizing Remembrance Day. It is often a difficult concept for students to grasp as World War I took place more than 100 years ago and the number 65 000 (number of lives lost) is hard for them to fully understand. Many questions came out of our discussion today and I was impressed by the maturity that students demonstrated when talking about such a serious topic. Some of the students' questions will be explored further this week such as "where did World War 1 and World War II happen?" and "What countries are Canadian troops working in/helping right now?" The class asked other deep questions that show their curiosity and desire to understand more about Canada's role in military and peacekeeping operations throughout history. However, these questions are not easily answered and cover complex issues. Students asked "Why do wars start?", "What does freedom mean?" and "Why does Canada go to other countries to fight in wars there?". We will continue to work through some of these ideas this week before our ceremony on Thursday.

Ask your child "Why does a Poppy symbolize Remembrance Day?"

November 4

Hello there! I apologize that I have not been blogging much this week! I unfortunately caught a bug of some sort and was too ill to be at the school Wednesday and Thursday. Thankfully I was feeling much better this morning and was happy to be back at school with everyone! Today we did some catch up to complete a few tasks such as their Evanston neighbourhood community work and their One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab animal combinations up to 20 legs. The students really enjoyed working on our Playground project this afternoon. They worked in small groups to explore playground catalogues and find different examples of equipment that would fit under a variety of categories. The types of activities that they were trying to find equipment for were: swinging, climbing, spinning, sliding, and imagination. Our next steps will be to figure out the benefits and negatives of each type of equipment from the perspective of safety and interest of key users.

School pictures went home in students' backpacks today. They can be ordered online by using the specific student codes or you can return payment and order form in the attached envelope. The due date is November 15th to get them sent to the school, otherwise there is a charge for shipping after that date. If you would like your child to have retakes please send the form back with the "retakes" box checked off so that I can ensure they are sent for their picture retakes on that day.

We are collecting non-perishable food items that will be donated to Veterans from November 7-10. If you have any unopened food that you wish to be given to the Veterans Food Drive please send them to the school with your child next week. There will be no school on Friday, November 11 in honour of Remembrance Day. We will be recognizing and paying tribute to veterans on Thursday, November 10 with a special ceremony in the gym. Students will all receive poppies to wear on this day.

November 1

Well it was a very long day for all of us but we survived! Everyone did a really good job today considering how tired some of them were after all of their exciting Halloween activities on a Monday!

In Math we have been using a book called One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab to explore representing numbers and our math thinking in different ways. It's also a good entry into using pictures, words, and numbers to solve problems.  In this book we use animals with different amounts of feet/legs and combine them together to find out how many feet are on the beach.

We started off by creating combinations of feet up to 10. Students were required to complete a chart in their visual journals with a column for the animal combinations, a column for the number sentence/equation that matches their pictures, and the total number of legs. Students had to be careful to make sure their equation matched their animal pictures/names. For instance somebody had a spider (8 feet) and a person (2 feet) but their number equation was 1+9=10 which doesn't match. We also found that we had to go back and actually count the feet on our animals because we were sometimes off with our calculations. We had some smaller cut out pictures of the animals that we could utilize as manipulatives to help ensure we counted correctly.

Tomorrow some of us will move onto creating combinations that have 20 feet and others will continue to build our understanding and comfort with 10. I also plan to modify the chart that they create to make it easier for the students to document their work. One column will be for "Words/Names", one column for "Pictures", and one for "Number Sentences"

Halloween!!

Wow!! I'm amazed at how great the students were today! Sometimes Halloween can bring out the super sillies and students can have a hard time doing or thinking about anything other than the festivities to come. Today the students in Room 106 were so well behaved (all day!!) and worked hard on their learning too! We started doing some storytelling/writing and thought we'd mix it up with some spooky characters and scary settings to keep everyone on their toes! Students decided who their main character will be, what time of day the story is happening, and where it will take place. Tomorrow we will continue to work on developing an appropriate problem for our story that the main character is having. This is in connection to our work in guided reading on our comprehension. We are focusing on the retelling strategy to ensure we understand the story elements

This afternoon after our fun costume parade, we once again paired Math and Art up! We reviewed the concepts of symmetry and worked to create symmetrical jack-o-lanterns. Students also explored the artistic concepts of positive and negative space. They had to draw half of a pumpkin shape, an eye and a mouth to cut out. It was more difficult than it seems as they had to cut their shapes out very carefully to glue them onto the other side of the pumpkin so that both sides were the same. The kids persevered despite the difficulty and finished the job. Here are a few examples.

October 28

Check out our Optical Illusion art! I love how Math and Art can be so connected and interwoven. The primary reason I chose this task was to practice identifying and creating 2 dimensional shapes. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how many other math, art and fine motor skills were also practiced by doing this project. Students had to create vertical lines that were spaced 2 cm apart from one another (that proved to be the most complicated part of this assignment and we did it in short steps!) It helped me to realize that we really need to practice using rulers to draw straight lines and skip count by 2's. We also briefly discussed contrasting colours and patterns to help our shapes pop out. It took a few art classes to complete them but the class loved doing them and it is so nice to have our classroom walls covered in bright and bold creations.

October 26

We Love Evanston!!

Room 106 has spent some time this week talking about the amazing neighbourhood of Evanston in our exploration of different communities that we are a part of! The students were so excited to check out Evanston on Google maps to see familiar areas and how the streets are all interconnected. Then we attempted to use the google maps webpage to access Google Earth (we are just waiting for the Google Earth application to be installed on our computers). What we discovered was that the website was a tad outdated, in fact our school was just a big empty field! It was a great way for the students to see how quickly a community can change. The aerial view allowed us to see important landmarks in the community and services that make life a bit more enjoyable for the residents of this awesome neighbourhood.

Today, the class wrote about what they like the most about living in Evanston- here are just a few of their entries:
"My favourite thing about living in Evanston is that there are lots of shops nearby"- Ryker
"I love living in Evanston because there is a new school close to us that I can learn at"- Sisi
"The thing I like the most about Evanston is all my friendly neighbours"- Morgan
"Living in Evanston is good because there is a lot of fresh air and nature"- Manav
"I like Evanston because there are playgrounds"- Malalai


We will continue to look at different types of maps and discuss how the big community -City of Calgary is made up of many smaller communities like Evanston. Looking at ways that Calgary is unique and special will also be the focus for the next little while. Students will see how the community was first established and will learn about some key factors that have shaped the city.

Oct. 24

Today we started new word work groups! We are so lucky in that our administration team- Mr. Dyck and Mrs. Tuttle, our resource teacher- Mrs. Rempel, and a few education assistants -Mrs. Brewster and Mrs. Saidi, will be working with the Grade 2 teachers in small groups to target specific spelling and vowel patterns. These groups will continue for the next 6 weeks to allow for significant growth in both reading and writing.

Here's what the groups are focused on:
Mrs. Rempel and Ms. Saidi- Letter recognition and sounds
Mrs. Sayani- Initial and Final Consonants, Blends (bl, gr etc) and Digraphs (th, ch etc)
Mrs. Jordan- Short Vowels
Mrs. Stewart- Affricates (dr, j, tr)
Mr. Dyck, Mrs. Tuttle, and Mrs. Brewster- Final consonant blends, digraphs and R controlled vowels

Tomorrow is Picture Day! We will be doing individual photos as well as a class picture. If you have any specific requests for the photographer or myself to help make sure the pictures go the way you would like, just let me know and I will do my best.

Post from Friday! Oops

I'm so sorry that this post is way overdue! I thought I had pressed publish for my blog on Friday but apparently I did not. Sorry! I'm still growing in my technology skills. We had a really exciting Friday!  We started on the Empathize phase of the Design Thinking Process for our playground design project. We welcomed three experts into our class that we had the chance to learn about and interview.  We welcomed Margie, who is one of our school council members that helps with the fundraising of our playground, Tanya, who is the representative for Blue Imp Playground Manufacturing, and Mr. Dyck, who is our school principal. Each expert provided us with a different perspective on the process of planning and building our playground. 

Margie provided us with the money perspective and some questions we had for her were:

• Can we help raise money?
• Can we raise money by doing something like a Terry Fox Run? 
• Can we sell cards at Christmas?

With Tanya, we were interested in finding out more about the design process and materials of our future playground. Some questions we had were:

• What type of materials are best for playgrounds in Canada?
• How much space would we need for a playground?
• Are the pieces of equipment different in a city park than a CBE school. 

Our focus with Mr. Dyck was on the safety of our school and students when designing a playground. Some of our questions were:

• Is there someone who checks the equipment and what do they check?
• What equipment is too dangerous?
• How will you help us keep safe?

Our next phase will be starting to design and plan the parts of our playground that we want at Ken Taylor School. Stay tuned...

Coming Up:

• Mrs. Jordan away Tuesday morning at a Learning Leader meeting. 
• Photo Day Tuesday (ours will be in the afternoon when I am back)

Reading Comprehension Strategy

What happened in your story?
For the past few days we have been working on the reading comprehension strategy of "Retelling the story". This is proving to be quite difficult for many of us so we will be slowing it down and working through it together. Students can retell when they are reading a fictional text at their independent reading level, which they all are with their guided reading books. Retelling helps readers to think about what is happening in the story and to assess their and others' understanding of the story. It is important to not recall and list every detail that happens in the story but rather the main, important events. We have started with the framework of a High 5 Story Recall to help them remember what to include. There are also words that we can start our sentences with to make sure we don't repeatedly say "and then" "and then". Here is the visual that we will be using for the next little bit while we practice this strategy.

Beginning readers can just use the First (beginning), Next (middle), and Then (ending) sentence prompts to get started as it can be overwhelming to do more than that. As students are reading with Raz kids and their Learning Commons books they could practice retelling out loud in words or writing a response journal.

3D Shapes

In Math we have been exploring 3D shapes and looking at what 2D shapes can be found within 3D shapes. When you really start looking, you can find both 2D and 3D shapes EVERYWHERE!! Check out your house and your neighbourhood to see if you can find them! The vocabulary we are using for 2D shapes is that they have "sides" and "vertices" (vertex if there is just one-they will learn about angles in later grades). 3D shapes have "edges", "faces" (also known as surfaces) and "vertices". Today we did a few different stations to help us better understand these shapes and practice identifying the differences between them. We used playdoh, toothpicks and marshmellows, and pictures of real things in our world to sort into groups. 

A Cone!