What a fabulous community walk we had today! The weather was perfect- not too hot but not cold either! We didn't go too far but it was nice to experience the fresh air and enjoy the beautiful fall colours on our walk. When we arrived at the local park (across the street and down a bit from the school), students worked on sketching the parts of the park in their visual journals. They specifically looked at what 2D and 3D shapes they noticed. Students worked to sketch the shapes that made up a small section of the park. For example, if they were sketching the monkey bars- there would be 4 cylinders to represent the poles holding up the monkey bars, a long cylinder across the top and then 7 rounded shapes that students hang onto to swing. We practiced labelling our pictures to make sure our audience knows what our sketches are.

 A great homework extension would be examine and explore your house and community area to find 2D shapes and 3D shapes around you- they are everywhere!! This will help students discover why shape is important in our daily lives and it will give them practice with identifying and naming them.


This morning we had a really great conversation to spark our inquiry project! As a class we brainstormed what questions have to be asked and answered before the building of a playground can be done. I was amazed at how deeply students were able to think about the steps in the building process. There are many issues that need to be discussed and decided on before and during the design process. Here are a few questions that the class came up with:

"What materials will be used to build the park"- Fofo
"Who all will use this park and how old are they"- Ryker
"What will be in the park to do?" -Ava
"How will we make sure it is safe for people to use" Peyton
"Why is a park important to the school and community" -Ethan
"Where will the park go and how big will it be?" Eddie and Arash
"How much money will it cost to build and how will we get that money?" Priscilla and Morgan

This was just a start to our project but everyone had such great discussions about the amount of decisions that go into a park. I can't wait to see where this inquiry leads us!