Harris- Room 8

 Why do we wear an orange shirt today? This question was the start of  our classroom conversation that we had as a learning community. It was a wonderful surprise to see how much awareness the children had with regards to our past history and the horrific treatment our indigenous community faced. The students expressed many ideas as to why the preservation of a culture is important and how reflecting on our past helps us to do better in the future. 

Thank you so much to Janus Academy for coming into our classroom and sharing with us a little bit more about your program and the students you serve. It was great to learn how we can support and respect each other while appreciating our similarities and differences. 

What role do small, crawling and flying creatures play in supporting the biodiversity in Reader Rock Garden? This was one of many questions that our grade one/two class focused on upon our recent return from Reader Rock Garden. This small garden provided many opportunities to see first hand how plants and animals co-exist and rely on each other for survival. The Tiger Lilly was a perfect example of a flower that flourished in the garden. To understand and appreciate how this flower survives, we first took our time to observe, sketch and paint this flower. We then changed our focus from that of an artist to a botanist and took the flower apart. During this process, the pollen from the flower quickly grabbed our attention as it marked our paper and stained our fingers. Many students were aware that our flower had pollen but did not know what its purpose was. We researched and discovered what pollination was and why it was so important. We also identi

Today we had a wonderful time exploring and learning all about the history of Reader Rock Garden. The weather was perfect as we walked in the footsteps of history and discovers how William Reader collected and planted seeds in this amazing park from as far away as China. We also travelled through time starting in 1874 and learned about significant dates in history that affected the development of our City.  Our tour ended with a walk through the cemetery where we discovered the headstone of many prominent Albertans. Our knowledge gained today will be a wonderful springboard for more in-depth learning during the next few weeks about how our community emerged and grew into a vibrant city. A warm thank you for our parents and grandparents who joined up today. We couldn't take part in these wonderful opportunities without your support. Please let me know if you can join us on our next adventure to Ralph Klein Park on Thursday, Oct. 3rd as we still need several volunteers. 

During the last few days, we have been exploring patterns. In grade one we have been reviewing and extending our understanding of what a pattern is how and creating our own patterns in a variety of different ways. In grade two our knowledge of patterns has expanded to include increasing and decreasing patterns.

On Friday, our class joined Ms. Elder's grade 3/4 class to celebrate International Dot Day. This day was created to encourage people of all ages to harness their creativity. The inspiration behind the event is the children’s book The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. It relates the tale of a teacher who challenges one of his female pupils to take courage in her abilities and from a dot on a page. This book is a great read for anyone who has been afraid to express themselves - from a child in art class to an adult whose fear has shut down a long-held dream, Peter H. Reynolds is there to remind us all to "Make your mark, and see where it takes you." 

We have started off the year using the book " What do you do with a Chance" By Kibi Yamada.           This book allowed us to begin some wonderful conversation to address topics related to having a growth mindset such as; taking risks, facing a challenge, making mistakes and harnessing bravery and courage to overcome our fears and embrace failure. Today we used our knowledge regarding this story and applied it to Terry Fox and his legacy.

Demonstrating how we are reviewing and practicing our letter sounds, creating inventive spelling and using our sight words in grades one and two.  Our grade two class has the task of creating a silly rhyming sentence to represent a specific letter-sound Grade ones are differentiating and recording individual letter sounds to compose a single word. 

A class introductory activity to our Science unit: Small, crawling and flying animals.

Reviewing with our friends in grade one how to create a detailed drawing of a person by singing and looking at the shapes and features in Matman! 

Today the grade 1/2 class started story workshop. Story workshop supports the student's literacy and social-emotional development. They are invited to find and tell stories from their real or imaginary lives using a variety of mediums. Storytelling plays an integral role in language development and strongly supports children to see themselves as storytellers and authors of their own ideas. As the children gain confidence in their roles as storytellers and authors, they begin to express their ideas through written symbols and alphabet letters using inventive spelling. Story workshop supports this process of early writing by immersing children in an environment rich with print and meaningful language while giving them daily opportunities to try out their new skills. Support and encouragement is given to each student's progress with feedback from both teacher and peers while recognizing and celebrating their continued growth. Below is the process that a grade one student demon

Hello and welcome to grade 1/2 room 8. I am so excited to have this communication tool available so that you are able to see what is happening in our classroom. Please feel free to share with me any ideas or suggestions that you may have that you feel you or your child may like to contribute to our learning. This will help to make further connections between home, our community and school. As the year progresses the students will be taking on a greater role in contributing to our blog. Today was a terrific first day. All of the students were super excited to dive right into their learning. Here are a few snapshots. "Together we are better" was the statement we discussed as a springboard to understanding how we can work as an entire classroom community in order to have greater success. The book Swimmy by Leo Lionni was shared and discussed to help us develop a greater understanding of what this means.  Swimmy  Deep  in  the sea lives a happy school of fish. Their wa