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....
Thank you to our three volunteers who joined us today at the National Music Center. Despite the last-minute change in plans once we arrived at the Center the students had a great time visiting the exhibits and getting having the opportunity to hear the amazing organ demonstration. The children shared some terrific comments and we had a great discussion about our own individual experiences and theories regarding how different instruments make a sound. The children were also very intrigued by the concept of movies that were once created in black and white without sound. Many ideas were shared about activities that they would like to as a follow up to our visit. Some of which were; making their own musical instruments, creating a story in a story workshop and adding a soundtrack to it. " I know that a violin makes sounds by strumming or plucking the strings because I take violin lessons" "A piano is played when you hit the strings and the strings vibrate" ...
As we continue to explore the history of Calgary the students were given some wonderful old photographs. Their job was to work together as a class and decide where they feel the photographs fit in on our timeline. When asked what were some clues that helped them decide the final location on our timeline they indicate the following; "If the picture is in color it must not be from that long ago" "I can tell by looking at the cars because we know they cars came to Calgary after the horse and buggies" "I can tell by looking at the powerlines because Calgary did not have electricity a long long time ago". " I knew by looking at the people's old fashioned clothes" "I knew that the Calgary tower was built for Canada's birthday but not it's birthday that long ago". "Calgary did not always have the stampeded so that must have been after Fort Calgary was built" "When we watched the video I learned that they only...