September 27th - October 1

We are all very proud of the grade 1 and 2 students in both classes who worked so hard learning about Residential Schools, Orange Shirt Day, and Reconciliation and then sharing their learning with the rest of the school via a virtual assembly.  

Literacy:

We have added the letters 'E and 'H this week.  Throughout our letter work, grade 1 students have been focusing on letter names, letter sounds, correct letter formation while printing, and beginning to sound out simple cvc (consonant, vowel, consonant) words.  In grade 2, students have been focusing on mastery of letter formation, blending/segmenting of cvc words, and writing grammatically correct, simple sentences.  

I Can Tell About the Changes in the Seasons / I Can Find Out and Think About How I Am Connected to My World/I Can Sort Based on an Attribute/I Can Use my Senses. 

We have had so many great opportunities to get outside and learn on the land.  It has given us a wonderful opportunity to watch the seasonal changes that come with fall and to also observe first hand some community helpers (volunteers cleaning up the river and people cutting trees from around power lines).

We have been viewing seasonal changes by carefully observing the natural world around us as a guide to understanding how we and those who have come before us are affected by the change in season.  Students are noticing animals and plants as they prepare for the long, cold months of winter and making connections to how these preparations impact survival.  

During our community walk this week, students have made some very astute observations in the differences in the Elbow River during spring and winter.  It was noted that the river was a lot lower than other times they've seen it and that sometimes it was clear enough to see the bottom but at others, it was too 'muddy'. There was also lots of discussion around the flow of the river and how gentle and slow it was in some places and how much faster in others and the reasoning behind it. 

Students have been very interested and all the physical evidence we have been gifted this fall. We spent some time at the end of the week using our senses to explore a collection of artifacts from our land.  In groups, students were engaged in discovering what they already knew about their collections and building on what they wondered about them. Then they spent time sorting their collections based on their own created attributes. We also spent time discussing the indigenous ways of "thanking or being grateful" to the land and "only taking what you need" from the land. Following this students also spent some time collecting  their own fall nature artifacts, and sharing their collections with their peers. We are going to continue working with our nature boards in the upcoming week. 

Reminders:

October 4 - Library Day - bring books back to get new ones

October 7 - Picture Day

October 8 - PD Day - no school