Last week, we found our hidden aspen forest. It is such a magical, place rich with inspiration. The thin, light, and bare trees are in such contrast to the coniferous forests we are familiar with near our school. During our first mindful walk there, we came up with lines for new poems and shared them aloud with the forest and each other. On our next journey, we brought paper and pencils to start writing the lines and drawing the contours of the trees. What other places do you feel inspired to write and create art?

We have been exploring patterns in Div. 6! Where can we find them outside? After learning about fibonnaci numbers, we found them everywhere! Where else can you find patterns around us?

This year, our class has connected with the grade 3/4/5 students at East Kensington Outdoor Learning Elementary School in South Surrey! A few weeks ago we sent our very first story box to share some of the stories of our place! We wrote fall poems using various styles and techniques and bound them in our very first class book! We created maps of our favourite places, and designed games to share our learning this year! We packaged seeds and bulbs to share about our process of planting and careful observations. We shared about our math and the ways we use our imaginations to create stories in place. We even took a photo of our rainbow crosswalk to show how much we value being kind, welcoming, and inclusive. Tell you family about what you created for our story box!

We are so excited that the students at East Kensington sent their treasure box to us too! On November 24th we started opening each special item that was carefully wrapped in twine. We have learned so much about the place that our new friends are from! They shared many special items, stories, maps, and photos with us. We were surprised and delighted to see that we have so many learnings and interests in common! Can you tell your family about the special items we received, and the shared interests and activities we have?

We were so inspired by each other! We look forward to building our next story box for winter! What do you want to include?

We are very excited to be reading the novel Wishtree by Katherine Applegate.

In the novel, we learned how our narrator the Northern Red Oak, “Red,” got their name. We wondered, what are the stories of our names?

Red describes themself a community, with many inhabitants in the hollows of their trunk. As we read outside, we explored our forest looking for some hollows, homes, and inhabitants!

Afterwards we also read the story Wild in the City by Jan Thornhill.

While you are out in the evenings take a moment to be silent and see if you can spot any wildlife near your home. Who do we share our community with? What does “home” mean to you?

Dear Families,

We are so excited to be starting a project all about our amazing families. Each class member will be getting one great, big page to write, draw, and show photos of our families! We brainstormed some topics we might want to include on our pages. Who is in our family? What places are we from? What celebrations, cultures, traditions, and foods do we have? Everyone has such different, unique, beautiful families and we are going to spend December sharing about them and getting to know our community better!

This weekend, you could start having conversations about your family. Are there any photos or drawings or stories we could include in our sharing book?

If you haven’t already, it is time to harvest your microgreens growing at home! You can even reuse your plastic containers to plant more! Div. 6 co-wrote this post about microgreens.

Last week, we planted microgreens and it has been really cool to watch them grow. Microgreens only take 14 days to grow and when you start off they need a dark place. After 4-5 days, they need sun or light for 16 hours a day. After they grow, they turn into micro versions of the plant – it is in the name: MICRO greens. We need water for them, but we don’t really need soil. They can grow in coconut skin. We planted some at home and some for school. There are many different types of microgreens. We wonder which one will grow the tallest!

On Thursday and Friday this week we are harvesting and taking home our class microgreens!

Several weeks ago, we took our math learning outside to explore groups of 1000 and begin our number sense unit. We were surprised at how long it took us… and then how small the amount looked! Last week, we connected our learning to a photo of a beaver dam that Ms. Carley found at the Burn’s Bog! It looked so similar to when we collected groups of 1000 sticks! With each photo at the bog, we got more information for our estimations of how many sticks were in the photo. Our understanding of number sense, place value, ordering, comparing, adding, and subtracting has come a long way!

After estimating how many sticks were in the dam, we solved a wordless story problem about the beaver who might have built that dam. The next day, we were inspired to create our own story problems and came up with stories that had all sorts of math operations. Some were about addition, time, division, measurement, patterns, and more! Where can math live inside stories?

Recently, we have been talking about Remembrance Day. We talked to our families about our connections to war and peace. As a class, we created this blog post to share with our families about our experiences.

Poppies are a powerful symbol of Remembrance Day. We made poppy art by painting the poppies, drawing the stems, and then outlining them with sharpies. Finally, we cut and glued them onto our poem paper with buttons.

We also started a new tradition of planting poppies in the fall and saving seeds in the summer. We used our careful observation skills and new tools to create “up close” drawings and considered how poppies spread their seeds. After making paper pots, we planted some of our seeds indoors. We are going to plant the rest outdoors.

On Tuesday, November 10th, we wore poppies and had an assembly with a moment of silence.

We remembered the soldiers that fought for us. We remembered the loss and the love. We remembered the sacrifice. We considered things that are important to protect.

Wishing you all love and peace this Remembrance Day. Thank you for sharing your stories with each other and our class.

This week, Division 6 inquired about trees. We learned two ways that we can group trees, as evergreen or broadleaf. We explored the importance of species diversity and focused our learning on one very important native evergreen, the Douglas Fir. Outside, we looked for clues to figure out which trees were Douglas Firs, and looked closely at the different parts of a tree to identify them. We looked at leaves, buds and cones, and even found a worm that had made a home inside a cone! Today, we came up with 247 new wonders about trees! What a fantastic week.

– Ms. Devon

People celebrate in so many ways and for so many reasons. In the fall, we are met with celebrations and remembrances of life, of love, of harvest. This year, Div. 6 learned about Día de Muertos, the Day of the Dead, which was celebrated on November 1st-November 2nd. Does your family have any celebrations in the fall?