Big project week!
Dear families,
Xin Nian Kuai Le, Gung Hai Fat Choi, and Happy New Year! However you celebrate I hope the year of the tiger brings you good luck and good health.
We have had a big week of projects– I am so proud of our students in Division 9. It is really difficult to sustain energy and motivation for big projects and they are doing SO well.
Fairy Tales: This week the students have applied their knowledge of Setting & character, Beginning, Middle and End. They are writing amazing stories, using creativity, inventive spelling, risk taking and imagination. I am really impressed with their work, and I think we all have the writing bug.
Growth Mindset: On Monday we used the story of the Three Little Pigs to explore growth and fixed mindset and to build a new home for the pigs with a variety of materials. Students had to design, construct and revise new homes to keep the piggies safe. They tested the strength of their homes by blowing a strong wind at them (with a hair dryer!) We are getting so much better at risk taking and are practising using the vocabulary of growth mindset. Go, Division 9!
Art: Our big project has been working on our mixed-medium dragons to ring in the Lunar New Year. Our Grade 1 & 2 students have built using papier mache, decorated using 2 mediums of paint, created their own fabric using a batik method and designed their own 3D dragons! Amazing. We have some incredible artists in our class.
Math: We have learned our double facts and will expand this week to include doubles plus one. Doubles are a great thing to practice at home because they are just one of those things you have to practice and memorize! Math is about a lot more than knowing calculations– but the memorization of basic facts and the tools of addition strategies make the more complex problem solving much easier and faster.
We have also been doing some problem solving using pattern blocks– trying to build pictures of space objects– rockets, aliens, satelites, etc.- using a limited number of blocks for a challenge. So impressed with our students who use growth mindset to approach these more difficult problems.
Happy New Year all- and until next week…. 🙂