Les aventures des jeunes

Squirrels Inquiry Project We have been working on a research project about squirrels. We have a wide variety of books in the class from the library. We have been researching the following details about squirrels: their appearance the size of their families and who cares for the babies the materials used to build the nest the food that squirrels gather We have been enjoying many stories about squirrels, just ask about "Those Darn Squirrels." It was a favourite. Starting tomorrow we will begin to write all the things we have learned to accompany a directed drawing art project that we finished yesterday. As part of our research, we have been talking about how squirrels collect food for the winter. Next week we will begin to look at animals who hibernate and what hibernation is since animals do hibernate differently. Math- number sense For counting collections, most students are counting up to 40 items independently. Some students are experimenting counti...

Halloween This past week we have added halloween stories and activities to our usual routine. In the morning we have started with centres to support reading and writing. We have searched the room for halloween vocabulary, sorted halloween objects by syllable and drawn and labelled halloween objects. We drew a haunted house and wrote about the drawing.  We started a project to build a haunted maze. The first step was to practice making mazes with materials in the class. (pictures on Ed Inform) We then spent some time, individually designing a maze. The maze had to have at least 4 turns, 2 or more dead ends and one goal. The students will meet in teams on Thursday and decided on the maze they were going to make. Before they can build their maze on Friday, they all have to have the same drawing of the maze as a blueprint. Then they can begin to build. Forest Our trip to Goldstream was the beginning of our unit about our relationship with the forest and squirrels. Next ...

Family and Healthy Eating Over the last 2 weeks we have started a unit on family and healthy eating. The Thanksgiving weekend gave us the perfect excuse to talk about the relatives we had visited with and the food we ate. After the weekend I asked the students "What did they think they knew about food?" They had several ideas including that it is healthy for them and it helps them grow. So then I asked "What puzzled them about food?" They came up with 2 main questions that we are now exploring. Where does food come from? We are tackling this question first. Earlier in the fall we went to the forest in search of salal berries as there are many salal plants in our neighbouring forest. On Thursday we returned to the forest to look for mushrooms. We set out to count how many we could find and we found over 270! On Friday we returned to the forest as scientists to observe the mushrooms and record what we saw in drawings. We had a fabulous time.   We re...

About my beliefs about our learning community I hope that you find this post enlightening and that it helps explain the cryptic things that children sometimes say at home.  In our class, I try and foster an environment that helps children develop to be critical and creative thinkers. I try to create a physical environment that gives the students different areas to choose to work either with others or on their own. They are welcome to work anywhere in the class. However, if it is a math block, we all work on math or writing block, we all work on writing for the whole block which is a bit different from a Montessori experience. Deep learning and thinking takes time and trial and error. That being said I pay careful attention to the mood of the class and am very mindful of their stamina as little people. When it is time to stretch or move or play outside, that is also a part of the class culture. We leave our work and take a break together. We use a lot of hands on materials...

Welcome back. Welcome to the new school year. We have now spent 6 full days together as a class. I wanted to share some of my learning goals that we have been working on over the last week. We have been talking about being a good friend. We read a book called Stick and Stone,  which is about a stick and stone who become friends. We also worked in small groups to make a playground that both stick and stone would find accessible on which both would be able to play together. We also read a book called "All are Welcome here" and in the coming week we are going to talk about ways in which we can help the kindies and new students feel welcome at our school as well as how we check that they are feeling welcome. A playground for Stick and Stone "A climbing wall on the ground so Stone can play" Being a learner and learning opportunities We have been focusing on the role of the children as learners in the classroom. I have been highlighting the responsibili...

Music The students have been studying Music twice a week with Sunny. Here is a description of a video that she created for you. For the past few weeks in music class, children have been working on the music story called 'Eeba Streeba' by Lee Campbell-Towell.  The author uses the musical theme of a suite called 'The Carnival of the Animals' by Camille Saint-Saens.  Here's video recording of the students dancing and having fun to the music Eeba Streeba. Enjoy watching your children in action. Music video Communication, Creative and Critical Thinking as well as Personal and Social Responsibility These are the 3 core competencies. The Ministry of Education and various stakeholders including Post Secondary institutions and leaders of industry met together to come up with a list of competencies that students will need in the future. These are at the centre of the new curriculum and the heart of education. To read more about them you can click on this link  BC c...

New Countries The children have been working on creating a new country. The content focus was around natural and human-made features. The natural features were to be natural colours while the human-made features could be any colour. We talked about the parts of the body of animals and they created their own animal that is suited to live in their country.  We definitely could have kept working on these projects for many more days. If your child is interested in continuing adding to the project I would ask where is the animal going to find food and how do people get around in your country.  Museum trip Thank you to those parents who are free to join us this week at the museum. The bus is leaving at 8:45 to get us in to Victoria for our 10 am visit time. Please make an effort to be on time on Thursday so we can load the busses.  For those that have indicated that they can join us, you are welcome to meet at the class to arrange carpooling so that you do not ha...