Today, we discussed why humans grow hair on our heads, faces, and bodies. We read Laxmi’s Mooch, a story about a young girl who learns to accept her facial hair. We discussed how many people may feel pressured to shave parts of their faces or bodies to meet beauty standards or gender stereotypes. Look at this image of Frida Kahlo, an influential artist who was also famous for her bold unibrow.

Our class also discussed why some people choose to remove their facial or body hair, and the methods that people might use (ex: shaving). Whether you choose to grow a moustache, shave your head, or somewhere in between, we need to make sure we keep ourselves safe and that we feel confident in ourselves!

Mr. Murray recently connected the world of maps and cartography to our explorations of storybooks around the world.  We learned that the flat map we have been using to plot our storybooks is actually a distorted projection of the globe!

Have you ever wondered how our spherical world is converted into a flat map?  See the video below for more information!

The video above discusses the way in which the size of different countries around the world can become misrepresented on a flat map.  Mr. Murray explored the following online mapping resource with us to visualize how these changes occur and how our maps may not be telling us the whole truth!

The True Size Of Online Mapping Tool: https://thetruesize.com/

Today our class met our buddy class for the first time! With Ms. Barker’s Grade 1/2 class, we explored how humongous pumpkins can grow! Often, huge pumpkins need a careful combination of sun, water, temperature, and nutrients. Some pumpkins can grow over 500 pounds!

To find out more about extreme pumpkins, click on the article below:

Extreme Pumpkins

Today in garden club we learned about how insects survive over the Winter season. Ms. Starling and Ms. Raven taught us about how many insects can be found in our garden, and the purpose that they all serve.

Then, we went on an ‘insect safari’ to see what we could find in our garden! We saw a centipede, worms, roly-poly/pill bugs, a caterpillar, an ant, and grubs! To find out how insects survive freezing cold weather, check out the video below:

What makes you feel confident? Today, we read a story about the importance of looking and feeling your best. In Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut, a young man shares his experiences getting his hair cut at a barber shop. The author of the story based his book on his experience going to a barber as a child, and he wanted to represent the strength, power, and joy of his racial/cultural identity.

What makes you feel confident? A great new haircut? An outfit that represents your identity? Participating in an activity or sport or Art that you love? Surrounding yourself with people who compliment you?

Yesterday, we discussed what it means to feel conflicted. We might feel conflicted when we have to make a difficult choice, when we have to choose a ‘path’ to take, or when we feel that we wish we could be in two places at once. In the story, Amira feels conflicted when she realizes Eid (an important celebration in Muslim culture) and picture day are on the same day! Amira wants to go with her family to observe the conclusion of Ramadan; she is excited to wear her new shalwar kameez and to hand out bags of candy to her friends at her mosque. However, she is conflicted because she is worried that her classmates won’t remember her if she isn’t in the class photo!

Feeling conflicted is something that many people have experienced before! Sometimes, we might even feel conflicted between our responsibilities and our hobbies (ex: I need to complete my homework, but I really want to watch the soccer game).

Have you ever felt conflicted before?