Happy New Year and welcome back to school! This first week back after an extended break was a full one! Division 9 students demonstrated a lot of responsibility with their academic work and mask wearing. Three cheers for Division 9!
In Math, we worked on revision of addition strategies for two- and three-digit numbers. We practiced breaking apart the numbers into expanded form and Base 10 Blocks and practiced starting with the ones. We made mini posters to demonstrate these strategies. We will finish with review next week before jumping into the much-anticipated multiplication concepts!
In French, we looked at the elements of a story: the setting, characters and events. Students brainstormed the “when” and “where” of many settings, created their own characters, and made lists of potential problems and solutions. On Tuesday, we used our Writer’s Workshop loose parts to create story scenes before writing out a loose plan for plots. On Friday, we played a theatre game called “Person, Place, Problem” where students worked in groups of three and randomly selected cards to give a scenario to act out for the class. There were many silly scenes and lots of laughter as students worked together to tell a story.
For grammar work this week, we worked on identifying singular and plural nouns and articles.
In Science this term, we will be studying landforms, while in Social Studies, we will be learning about the six main cultural groups of Indigenous peoples across the land currently known as Canada. I read the class the story of Sky Woman from the Haudenosaunee people. In the story, Sky Woman falls from the sky world and lands on the back of a giant turtle, carried by birds. Other animals dive to the ocean floor to bring mud up to the surface to cover the turtle, and create Turtle Island, or North America. We looked at a map of North America and added a compass with the cardinal directions and coloured in the water. We will be adding the geographical regions to the map then learning about the peoples who live here. In the photo on the left, students are assembling a puzzle of one of many ways to map Canada: the treaties between the Canadian government and Indigenous peoples. Other map puzzles include provinces and territories, geographical regions, and the six Indigenous cultural groups.
In Art this week, we read the book Ish by Peter H. Reynolds, then made some very “ish-ly” art using blind contour continuous line drawing (not looking at the page while also not lifting the pencil) self portraits. We then painted our bodies with colours that reflect our personalities. Check out some of our portrait-ish creations. 
We listened to this story, Let’s Talk About Race, read by Common today, as one small activity for Black Excellence Day. We will be continuing this learning next week and beyond.
Thank you for all that you are doing to help keep our class healthy during the ongoing pandemic. Students all wore their masks consistently throughout the week. Thank you for keeping your child home when they are feeling unwell. These efforts have kept us learning safely at school, and they are much appreciated.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend!