RamsayRowland

April 22-26 This week we centered a good portion of our learning and inquiry around Earth Day and its focus on Planet vs Plastics. We focussed on the concerns over single use plastics and how we as a community can be proactive in this work. We also focussed on the book Thank you Earth, A Love Letter to Our Planet, by April Pulley Sayre. This was a springboard for us to consider all those gifts that Earth provides for us. Students were challenged with developing their own love letter to Earth that was written in letter format with a greeting, body and sign off. The other success criteria we established were to include 1-3 alliterations (words with a repetition of the same sound) with connecting ideas such as  - marvelous monkeys and gigantic giraffes. Students next steps were to create post cards with their letters, a sending address, stamp and pictures. Here is a glimpse at some of their amazing and thoughtful work! We also examined the book, The Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom an

April 15-18 This week we continued with our extension activities centered around the story of Napi and The Rock. This included the students using pictographs to assist them in sequencing and retelling the story. We also have looked at different version of the story including one created in conjunction with the Calgary Philharmonic. Here is a link to that production -  Napi and The Rock .  We also continued our in depth focus on Nova Scotia (landforms, features, weather, activities, resources, occupations etc.) through the lens of resources and occupations. We have been examining the fishing industry and fishing pastimes examining the resources (types of fish, seafood) as well as equipment. Our next step was to learn additional facts about lobsters from different media sources such as books and videos. Students used the iPads to collect and share this information. We then moved into a shared reading activity and a building activity where students were tasked with building lobster traps

April 8-12th Our full week at school was jam packed with lots of learning and opportunities.  Here is a glimpse at our week -  Indigenous Story Telling : We were very fortunate to have been given the opportunity to have Mr. Chris Scout join our school classes on Wednesday. Mr. Scout shared blackfoot oral stories and information with our class. The story he centered our session around is titled, Napi and the Rock. This story is based on the character Napi, a trickster and his encounter with Big Rock (Okotok) which is a rock outside of the town of Okotoks. Students were very engaged to participate in this opportunity and to learn the story. We have extended this oral story work into our classroom with our first step focusing on sequencing and retelling the story. We will share more around this work at a later date.  Literacy - We continue our work around developing our written compositions through activities that promote generating ideas. Over the past week we used a story prompt (pictur

April 2-6 We had a great return to school this week after our March break - it was lovely to reconnect and be back together as a classroom family.  Here is a message from Ms Mandin (music) -  Grades 2-6 In March, our students learned about opera, exploring its rich history and importance in modern entertainment. They learned about and identified different voice types while listening to various singers. We had the privilege of watching a production of "Beauty and the Beast" by Calgary Opera, where students shared their insights and opinions on elements of theater such as costumes, sets, and character portrayal. We were extremely impressed by the vocal performances in “Beauty and the Beast” and found ourselves deeply engaged in the emotional storyline.  Here is a glimpse of our week (sorry I did not take many photos) -  Math - this week we continued with our focus on addition and subtraction and applying this foundational knowledge to solve equations using larger numbers. We wo