Category: Exploration

Last Friday we planted our very own pea seeds.

Science:

The purpose of growing and tending to our seedlings is to observe the characteristics of local plants, or in our case vegetable! As scientists, we will take thoughtful, daily observations to closely analyze the subtle, yet always changing features of our seedling. We will collect simple data on our developing pea and discuss the necessary things it needs to not only survive, but to also thrive. Along side growing our peas, we will also plan and conduct an experience to determine if a seed can grow and develop without water, without sunlight and without soil. What are your predictions? 

In our studies of the butterfly, we have focused this week on the following questions. As scientists we listen and observe to information and we select which information is imperative to record in our butterfly journal. We focused our attention on some of the following questions below:

What are some things that a caterpillar eats? Ask your scientist why the butterfly strategically lays its eggs on particular leaves? What are ways that a caterpillar can protect itself? What do butterfly’s eat? NOTHING – trick question, they DRINK instead. So, what do butterfly’s drink by using their proboscis? 

Physical Education:

In basketball, we continue to develop our skill-set in ball handling and keeping control. We presently are developing our ability to dribble with our dominant and non-dominant hand as well as dribble with control a cross over pass. Next up we will be executing group drills that incorporate passing. Prior to starting our basketball drills, we always warm up our bodies with some group games.

Earth Day:

Ta Da! Our stained glass Earths are complete and are now decorating our windows. This quick and easy art activity turned out great! The kids also loved to observe the effect that took place once water was added to our coloured coffee filter. Coming up next we will be focusing our attention on Earth Day, through discussions and brainstorming we will collaboratively come up with ways to reduce our carbon footprint and to portray our ideas in an instructional writing format to inform and teach, members of our community how everyone can make an impact on saving our planet. Stay tuned!

S.E.L. – Social Emotional Learning:

In Social Emotional Learning, we are discussing that various people, places, and things help support us in our daily lives. In each puzzle piece, we wrote down someone, some place or some thing that supports us. It was delightful to read their work and to see what is meaningful and supportive to each individual. Some examples included Nonna and Nonno, walks with Mom, hugs with Dad, music, nature, biking, books + reading, school and animals and so much more!

Social Studies:

Today we combined Social Studies with Science as we conducted an experiment on weathering + erosion. We were given a cookie which was our ‘rock’ and were given three different tools to symbolize weathering. A q-tip represented plants, a toothpick represented animals and water represented the natural elements such as ice, water/ocean etc. Prior to beginning, students made a prediction on which tool they thought would have the greatest impact on the cookie’s weathering + erosion process. We explored the different tools one at a time and at different time intervals, first we tried one minute and then recorded our observations and then tried for 5 minutes, again, recording our observations. We all discovered that over time the ‘rock’ would weather down and erode. Ask you scientist which tool made the greatest impact on the weathering process and why they think so. As scientists we continue to demonstrate our curiosity of the world around us while also explaining and justifying our thinking. It is safe to say we are all a big fan of the exploration process today as it ended in a cookie snack!

Math: 

This week the Gr 2’s finished off their Data unit and have begun their newest unit, Addition + Subtraction. To begin we are working on number sentences. As mathematicians we are working on carefully reading the word problem to determine which operation we will use to correctly answer the question. In conjunction to working on number sentences we are also working on our doubles, and doubles + 1 facts, for example, 4+4= 8 ; 4+5=9. Knowing our doubles facts and doubles +1 will help us tremendously as it will enable us to use our mental math strategies to problem solve these equations quickly in our heads.

Can you answer the following questions below on a separate piece of paper and bring it in to Mrs. Ralph? Good luck!

1. Mrs. Ralph made 13 cookies. Her husband gobbled up 7 of them. How many freshly baked cookies were left?
2. Alfie went to the dog park and there were 8 dogs there altogether (including him), 9 MORE dogs arrived to the dog park, how many dogs were at the dog park altogether?
3. Mrs. Ralph went to the ice cream store. She decided to get 3 scoops of different flavoured ice cream, but then decided on getting 5 MORE scoops! Sadly, as she was eating her ice cream 2 scoops fell off of her cone. How many scoops did she have left? * this one is tricky!! 

Meanwhile, what have the Gr 3’s been up to? …

Gr 3 students continue to explore the world of fractions, recognizing that fraction parts are equal shares or equal-sized portions of a whole or unit. Through various formats of questions and close analyzing, students are beginning to recognize that fractions are numbers that represent an amount or quantity.

Question: If you can, solve this question on a piece of paper, remember to show your thinking and hand it into Mrs. Ralph!

Question #1 Riley and Aiden each have an apple. Riley cuts his into halves and eats one piece. Aiden cuts his into quarters and eats two pieces. Who ate more of their apple?

Question #2 Draw a rectangle, then divide the rectangle into eighths. Be sure each part is the same size. Colour one eighth red. Colour three eighths blue. Colour half of the parts green. Good luck!!

To end our Wednesday, we went outside to enjoy some sunshine and be creative simultaneously. We collaboratively created a Nature Treasure Poke Box!

We continue to explore the various rapid and slow changes that make an impact on the shaping of our land. As you can see from  our posters above, some things that change the Earth quickly include, an exploding volcano, tornado, tsunami, landslide, wildfire, flood and logging. Some examples that change the Earth slowly primarily include weathering and erosion. The link below provides a crash course in defining the terms of weathering and erosion. Warning, in this video she talks very quickly, so make sure to pause it at various points to break down what she is saying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-Iak3Wvh9c

Moving forward we will be examining natural events that affect our ecosystem vs. human activities that affect our ecosystem. Together, with your scientist, can you brainstorm natural events and human activities that could impact our ecosystem – what are some examples that you came up with?

Today in P.E. we began our basketball unit where we will be focusing on learning the proper techniques for fundamental movement skills which include ball handling, dribbling, ball control, passing and shooting. Throughout this unit will we strive on developing our movement concepts and strategies. Movement concepts and strategies include a variety of approaches that will support us achieving the goal of maintaining ball control from our opponent, as well as effectively delivering and receiving a pass from a team member and finally to move safely in a shared space with others.

In Math, the Grade 2s continue to learn about data collection and analyzing their results. We started Monday off with some very challenging word problems. Can you and your family try and solve this word question below? If you can, please show your thinking on a separate piece of paper and hand it into Mrs. Ralph!

Charlie saw 19 butterflies on the long weekend. On Friday he saw 8 butterflies, he saw 3 more butterflies on Sunday than on Saturday. How many butterflies did Charlie see on Saturday and Sunday? **hint** remember to look at the total of butterflies that Charlie saw altogether, draw out your thinking in a graph. Good luck!

While the Grade 2s have been up to their elbows swimming in data word problems, the Grade 3s have begun a new unit in their textbooks, FRACTIONS! I love to connect fractions with food. When we share, we can make equal parts. When we split an orange, it can be divided into 2 equal parts, making a half or 1/2. When we cut a pie or a pizza to share between friends, we can cut it into 6 equal slices. If you can, please show your thinking on separate pieces of paper and hand it into Mrs. Ralph to solve the questions below.

Can you cut out a circle and cut it into two equal parts? Now, can you cut out a rectangle and cut that into 3 equal parts? Finally, can you cut out a square and cut that into 4 equal parts? If you can, please bring it in to show Mrs. Ralph! Good luck!

In preparation for Earth Day, which is on Thursday, April 21, 2021 we began to make ‘stained glass globes.’ Today was just our first day preparing them and they already look beautiful. How do you think we made them? It involves a coffee filter, markers and spray bottle! Stay tuned to see the finished product. As a family, can you discuss the importance of taking care of our environment? What are ways that YOU can reduce the size of your carbon footprint? How can YOU make even a small difference in protecting Mother Earth?

In writing we are beginning to explore a new genre of writing, Instructional Writing. What is the purpose of instructional writing? How are instructions used in our every day life? Some ideas that come to my mind include recipes, instructions to build lego or a robot, IKEA furniture assembly instructions etc. Can you think of other ideas that require instructions?

As a challenge, can you please give Mrs.Ralph explicit and clear instructions on how to grow a plant. Here are some instructional key words that you are encouraged to use in your writing: First, Secondly, Next, Then, Finally. By incorporating these transitional words will signal to your reader that they must move onto their next step. Remember to include in the steps the materials or equipment that you will need. 

Although this week was a shorter week, it was still a full, productive week of joy and learning.

In Social Emotional Learning (SEL) we are exploring a variety of emotions. This calming exercise allowed us to identify various emotions we were feeling and to communicate those feelings through colouring. I enjoyed observing the different colours that the students chose to identify their feelings. For example, some felt that brown represented goofy where as others thought goofy was better represented by yellow or pink. The beauty of this activity, is that it is self expressive, there is no right or wrong answer. However, a telling response was that many students were feeling tired and or calm on Monday afternoon after returning from Spring Break.

In Science, we continue to explore the wonders of butterflies! This week we took an in-depth look at labelling the body parts of a butterfly. Ask your scientist if they remember what the purpose of a proboscis is, hint is that it acts like a straw; can they recall what the three body segments are on the butterfly? Next, we worked on distinguishing the differences between a moth and a butterfly? Have your curious scientist explain to you the differences in how to accurately identify a moth from a butterfly and visa versa.

In our Landforms Unit in Social Studies we continue to examine Landforms, but are now taking an in-depth look and analyzing how the land can be changed by environmental factors. On Thursday and Friday we discussed at length how the Earth experiences both rapid and slow changes. We continue to discuss and explore the various environmental factors that can influence a rapid change on Earth’s land, some examples include a volcano, tsunami, wildfire, earthquake and landslide. Can you think of more examples that causes a quick and rapid change to the land? We have just begun to look at the definitions of Weathering and Erosion and trying to distinguish the differences between these two words. Currently we are describing the process of weathering as making a mess. A mess is created from the weathering process because large rocks are broken down into smaller pieces. Erosion follows Weathering, as Erosion cleans up Weathering’s mess. Erosion will take away the broken down pieces of smaller rocks. Stay tuned as we continue to explore these new terms and definitions.

In P.E. we continue to practice our ability to demonstrate safe, fair play, leadership and good sportsmanship in a variety of individual and group games and activities. On Friday we played a variety of physical distant games that incorporated a variety of fundamental movement skills. These games also relied upon our listening skills and stressed the importance of playing cooperatively. Movement Master was a big hit in Division 7 today and I believe it will make a regular occurrence in our rotation of games. Since Movement Master relied upon so many gross motor movements, the students were easily able to monitor their physical exertion levels.

Finally to end our week we splashed a bit of colour on our walls with our chalk pastel tulips to represent that Spring is here as well as exploring the use of shape and line to create our unique and creative Funky Bunnies to line our hallway.

Spring is upon us! The sun is shining, the sky is blue and on March 20th we can officially welcome Spring!

This was yet another busy week in Division 7.

We are immersed in our study of Butterflies. We learned all about the anatomy of the caterpillar. Ask your young scientist if they remember the difference between the true legs, thoracic legs and prolegs (**hint, some legs are used for holding food, some legs will remain for when the larva becomes a butterfly and some legs are used for climbing). Your scientist is encouraged to tell you all about the following wonders: have you ever wondered how a caterpillar can climb in a vertical position? What is an adaptation that the caterpillar has that allows them to move in such a way? How can a caterpillar protect itself? Are some caterpillars cute and fuzzy just for appearance or is there another reason for why they have bristles? As scientists, we learned new vocabulary pertaining to the caterpillar, one interesting word is spiracles! Spiracles are the external openings that allow for gas exchange (respiration), it is the organ that allows the caterpillar to breathe. One interesting fact that we were astonished with is the number of eyes that a caterpillar has, not just two like we thought, but they in fact have 12 eyes! YES, 12!! However, most are so tiny in size that you can not even see them.

This week we really enjoyed exploring the various landforms that make up our world. We began by making a landforms flapbook that consisted of various layers of landforms. Next, I was set on the students creating a dinosaur landform. My intention was to draw a dinosaur that incorporated the various landforms that we have discovered thus far, this consisted of a river, lake, bay, peninsula, mountain, valley, hill, plain, island and ocean. However, my ‘plan’ was quickly thrown to the wayside as the students expressed that hope to instill their own creativity into the assignment and rather than create a dinosaur, similar to my example, they wanted to create their own unique animal. I was all for this plan, however, the only requirement was that they must include all the landforms, and boy were the students up for the challenge. They were the teacher and I was the student in this lesson as I was blown away with their creativity and originality with this activity. I now am enjoying landform dragons, robots, humans, godzillas, a stegosaurus and so much more!

We continue to learn and practice our Social Thinking skills. As a class we have discussed the importance of being on the group plan compared to being on our own plan. When we are working on the outlined group plan, we are working together and striving to accomplish the same goal, which ultimately makes things smoother and easier for everyone. When one or two people stray to be on their own plan while others are on the group plan it can make things more difficult to accomplish as we are no longer working together. Along with practicing being on the group plan, we continue to demonstrate our ability to show whole body listening. Listening with not only our eyes, but our ears, mouths, hands and feet. When we are actively looking at the speaker we are thinking of the speaker. Our bodies remain cool and calm, and in control, to demonstrate respect to our listener and to show that we are engaged.

Something that many of the students look forward to is Friday! Hip hip hooray for the weekend but also for MATH GAMES! Today we rotated through various math games that again focused on foundational addition and subtraction skills. We continue to practice our ability to recall all the combinations of numbers that add up to ten, known as a fact family, as well as using our knowledge of doubles (i.e., 8+8 = 16) and doubles +1 (i.e., 8+8+1 = 17). Today was another great round of math games, the beautiful combination of learning through fun and games.