Innovative Inventors: The Crayon Man

Today, we learned about the inventor of Crayola crayons. Edwin Binney was a fantastic, successful innovator because he worked hard, listened to others, and always wanted to solve problems. He heard many children complain that the old style of crayons weren’t bright enough, were too bulky, and too expensive. So, with his team, Edwin created a new kind of crayon… the Crayola crayon!

Over the next few weeks, we will be learning about innovators and inventors like Edwin Binney, Leonardo Da Vinci, and many more!

Check out the video below to see how Crayola crayons are made today!

STEM Challenge: Da Vinci & Parachutes

After our very successful catapult STEM challenge (pictures/video to come), our class will be exploring the genius of Leonardo Da Vinci and his amazing flying machines! We will first be examining his blueprint/design for a parachute, and using his journals as inspiration to design our own parachutes!

When we design our parachutes, students may bring up to 2 OPTIONAL MATERIALS from home (ex: paper towel roll, fabric). We have just begun blueprinting our designs, but stay tuned for our results!

Garden Club:

Thank you to all of our Garden Club members! Everyone worked very hard this week preparing the garden for the winter season. We worked to remove weeds, invasive species, and even found some potatoes in the dirt!

Garden Club is on Tuesdays/Thursdays, rain or shine. Please feel free to bring your own gardening gloves, and dress for the weather!

Our New Read Aloud: Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus

This week, we started our new read aloud: Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bowling. This realistic fiction/humour/mystery novel follows Aven, a 13-year-old girl who was born without arms. So far, we’ve learned that Aven has a very strange sense of humour (like telling people she lost her arms wrestling alligators) and has worked her whole life to be self-sufficient. But when she moves to a new school, her classmates either try to help her, avoid her, or stare at her because she is different.

Many people are born with disabilities (and different abilities), just like Aven. Feel free to watch the video below of Sophi, a girl who was also born without arms. She is an amazing, independent, and confident person!

Please remember: not every person who has a disability is the same, and not every disability is one that you can ‘see’. We should treat everyone with respect, understanding, and empathy.

Learning from our Elders

Who is an Elder in your life? It might be a parent, grandparent, coach, teacher, religious leader, family friend, etc. An Elder is someone who has lived longer than us, demonstrates natural leadership, and possesses lots of life experience and knowledge that we can learn from.

Over the next few weeks, we will be thinking of interview questions to ask an Elder in our lives. Whether over Zoom, Skype, a phone call, e-mail, texting, or in person, each student will ask their Elder 3-4 questions. We hope to be able to share what we learn with each other!

My (Ms. Ward) Elder was my grandmother, Lenore, who lived to be 96 years old! I interviewed her a few weeks before she passed away earlier this month.

Feel free to watch the video below, where 100-year-olds were interviewed about how to have a happy life!

 

Identity and Flags

Today, we learned that many countries, cities, and communities use flags to represent their unique identities. Canada has a flag that includes red and white, with a maple leaf in the center. The LGBT+ community uses a rainbow flag to represent their identities. We read about the creation of the rainbow flag and the life of Harvey Milk. Then, we created our own flags that will be used when we make our own ‘micronations’!

What symbols, colours, plants, animals, etc. would you use to represent your identity?

Van Gogh Inspired Sunflowers

I am so impressed with our Van Gogh inspired sunflowers so far! We used oil pastels to create layered, detailed sunflowers. Just like Van Gogh used colours like yellow, blue, and orange to represent how he felt and how he saw the world, we used colours creatively to craft these pieces of Art!

Acknowledging Indigenous Veterans: Code Talkers

Have you ever heard of a ‘code talker’? Code talkers were a ‘secret weapon’, a group of Indigenous soldiers that translated American and Canadian messages into different Indigenous languages (ex: Cree), then sent the message to another code talker who would translate it back into English. This way, when the message was sent, if any soldiers on the opposing side were listening in they could not decode the message!

Though these brave Indigenous soldiers were very crucial to keeping important messages safe, they rarely receive any mention in history textbooks or acknowledgement during Remembrance Day ceremonies! Hopefully, but learning more about the important role Indigenous soldiers played in Canadian history we will be able to honour and respect their sacrifices.

If the World was a Village of 100 People:

After watching this video, we discussed our reactions to some of the facts. Why do so many people across the globe have so little access to healthcare and medicine? Why are girls and women more likely to be illiterate than men/boys? Why do so many people not have a safe, clean source of drinking water?

And, most interestingly perhaps, would the results of this survey be different now in 2020 due to COVID-19?

As we continue examining sociology on a local and global scale, it is important for us to acknowledge how many people still do not have access to resources (such as clean water, education, and food security) as well as human rights (such as voting and freedom of religion) that many Canadians do.

While we can learn a lot from videos, statistics, and maps, it is always important to practice critical thinking and ask “why” and “what source is this from”!