Sharing our Learning in Division 13
On Nov. 1st and 2nd, many people celebrate Dia De Los Muertos, Day of the Dead. A big thanks to Sierra, who shared an amazing presentation, describing her experiences and understandings about this cultural tradition with our class. We read a book with our little buddies called, The Dead Family Dias, and were inspired to create some of our own art.
Wishing Div. 4 a happy and safe Halloween! We are so thankful to Nesters and to our amazing PAC for donating and sourcing pumpkins for our whole school! We created some beautiful jack-o-lanterns with our families this week.
During our garden day this week, we focused on extending the garden season and putting our garden beds to sleep. In the garden, we have covered the beds in hoop houses, so plants can grow. However, we needed to cover the other garden beds in mulch to create safe places for insects over the winter. Div. 4 carefully weeded and cleared the garden beds at the front of the school, hanging the sunflower heads in the forest to provide a delicious snack. We raked and collected leaves, and after jumping in them, we blended them into a delicious and cozy mulch for worms. We discovered that leaves were not just a place for insects however, when we found a toad in our leaf collection! We made sure our froggy friend found a safe place to continue their adventures, and realized that we need to be careful when we are working in the garden to respect the homes of our animal friends.
On Oct. 24th, Laura Bamsey, from the British Columbia Sustainable Energy Association, led us in “Cool It! Climate Leadership Training”. We played games, discussed ideas for making change, and created our very own safe and sustainable cleaning solution.
Here is the link to where you can login to do the carbon quiz and then start the contest! Submit once a week for the next 4 weeks! www.climatecool.org.
Here is a link to online instructions.
Here are some links to activities and resources you might be interested during your challenge!
Local/Organic Food
Find a farmers market
http://www.bcfarmersmarket.org/
Westcoast seeds catalogue https://www.westcoastseeds.com/garden-resources/request-catalogue/
Dirty Dozen https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/dirty_dozen_list.php#.Wl5_X4XxO80 (mentioned in the workshop)
Energy
To recycle lights such as CFLs, LightRecycle https://www.lightrecycle.ca/collection-site-locator/
BC Sustainable Energy Association (bcsea)
https://www.bcsea.org/cool-it/resources
Climate Change
Earth Future
http://www.earthfuture.com/theclimatechallenge/downloads/Teachers_Guide.pdf
Go Bio
Queen of Green Cleaning recipes https://davidsuzuki.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/queen-of-green-green-cleaning-recipes.pdf (mentioned in the workshop)
We love spending time with our little buddies! During our first week, we created skeletons, and last week we had the opportunity to dissect owl pellets! We found so many interesting bones, fur, and feathers, and wondered how they might all connect. The digestion systems of owls are quite amazing!
We have an exciting week ahead of us, and families are welcome to join us!
Please let me know if you are available to attend any of these events, or have other activities you would like to be involved in! We love having our families join us in our learning and exploring.
Div. 4 and 5 have been exploring climate change in our classes. We are looking forward to having a climate workshop on Thursday with the BC Sustainable Energy Association.
Here are links to some of the videos we have been exploring to help us understand and discuss climate change:
Here is where we can sign into our Climate Challenge Accounts: www.climatecool.org
On Thursday, October 17th, Div. 4 had the opportunity to visit the Vancouver Art Gallery for an exhibition called “The Street”. The urban street has been an important source of inspiration for artists since the Renaissance and it continues to be one of the primary locations in which culture is produced in the world today. We explored the street through painting, photography, sculpture and video from the Gallery’s collection, ranging in date from the eighteenth century up to the present. Then we created our own self portraits on the street!
On Friday, we had the incredible opportunity to visit the Burnaby Village Museum for the inaugural Indigenous Learning Week. There, we had the opportunity to learn from Coast Salish elders and knowledge-keepers about the indigenous history of the place we now call Burnaby. We learned about Coast Salish culture through weaving, Coast Salish art, language learning, and exploring the traditional uses of indigenous plants. We are so thankful for this experience. We also want to extend a thank you to all the families that helped make this field experience possible by driving and accompanying us on this adventure!
Click here to read more about Indigenous Learning Week at Burnaby Village museum.
This week in science we’re answering the question: “Who set the first clock?” We made shadow clocks (sundials), learned about telling time by the Sun, and found out how (and why) people first divided the day into hours.
When your child brings the sundial home, you could help set it up in the sun with the north-pointing arrow pointing to north. When you and your child watch the shadow move over the course of the day, you might point out that the shadow moves clockwise around the dial.
That’s no coincidence. The first clockmakers patterned the movement of the clock hands on what people were used to: the shadow clock. And here’s a fun fact: back before there were clocks, people used the word “sunwise” to describe the direction we now call “clockwise.”
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