Dear families,
I could use this blog title every week because every week feels like a fond week! 🙂
I am so grateful to end a lovely week at the Vancouver Aquarium on a beautiful day on our field trip. Deep gratitude to our parents who generously offered their gift of time and effort to supervise a group. We are grateful to Maissa’s mom, Enma’s mom, James L.’s dad, and Senara’s dad for your help! Check out the images of some of the animals and creatures we saw there!
Thank you to the fundraising efforts of our PAC Executive, more than half of the cost of this field trip was covered.
Our next steps will be choosing an animal or creature we would like to learn more about through research.
Happy Mother’s Day to all of our lovely mothers!
We hope you enjoyed your special day!
From Ms. Kapusta: This week, we worked on a special art project: cards for Mother’s Day! We challenged ourselves by making 3D pop up cards using paper, recycled scraps, cardboard, and sharpie. We also challenged ourselves to draw different kinds of flowers. We ended off by writing a special message to our mothers. We also talked about the importance of all caregivers in our lives, including fathers, grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings, etc. as every family is different and unique. We couldn’t be happier with how our cards turned out! You can tell that students put a lot of time and effort into their work and wanted to their best jobs. I hope you all have had a happy Mother’s Day this weekend! Mothers and caregivers, thank you for all that you do for your children.
We are artists. From Ms. Kapusta
April 30:
The students learned about a new Canadian Indigenous artist this week: Norval Morisseau! Norval was also called “Copper Thunderbird” and he was part of the Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek First Nation. We observed some of his different artworks and discussed what we noticed, like his depiction of nature and animals and use of thick black outlines and abstract style. We also compared and contrasted this contemporary Canadian Indigenous artist’s work to some of the Coast Salish art we looked at last week. You can look at some of his work here and ask your child what they learned. We then began our very own Norval Morisseau art! We drew a copper thunderbird in sharpie and tried to emulate Norval’s abstract style through the use of soft shapes, curved lines, and symbols of nature. Next week we will be painting our work! The students were really excited about their copper thunderbirds and we can’t wait to see how they turn out once we add some bright, solid colours!
April 23rd:
This week, we learned about Coast Salish art. Students learned that traditionally Coast Salish people made their own paint, using natural elements like charcoal for black, copper for blue and green, ochre for red, clay for white, and moss for yellow. We also learned about the traditional Coast Salish shapes, including ovoids, trigons, u-shapes, circles, ovals, crescents, and extended crescents. We viewed some traditional and contemporary Coast Salish artworks and discussed how the use of shape and colour (Elements of Art) makes this type of art very identifiable and unique. Lastly, we reviewed the different local Coast Salish animals, including the bear, salmon, eagle, hummingbird, and whale, and their special meanings to Coast Salish people (like how whales symbolize community and family). Taking what we learned, students were given Coast Salish shapes to cut out and make into their own animal collage art. The students had a lot of fun arranging their shapes into different animals and creating backgrounds.
Butterflies are free!
We had a great opportunity to join Ms. Rinaldo’s class on their butterfly release at Willingdon Park on Wednesday. These were painted lady butterflies.
One of the butterflies was not able to survive because the wings did not expand to dry properly so their wings did not develop the way they should have. We did a farewell to honour its life.
On the Trapline
We read a picture book that celebrate Indigenous culture and traditions. Then we had an opportunity to write our own connections to the story.
This is taken from Amazon: The Governor General Award shares a story that honors our connections to our past and our grandfathers and fathers.
A boy and Moshom, his grandpa, take a trip together to visit a place of great meaning to Moshom. A trapline is where people hunt and live off the land, and it was where Moshom grew up. As they embark on their northern journey, the child repeatedly asks his grandfather, “Is this your trapline?” Along the way, the boy finds himself imagining what life was like two generations ago — a life that appears to be both different from and similar to his life now. This is a heartfelt story about memory, imagination and intergenerational connection that perfectly captures the experience of a young child’s wonder as he is introduced to places and stories that hold meaning for his family.
How to support at home: What were some of your stories of spending time with your grandfather or grandmother? Share some fond memories with your child.
“Fond” was one of our new words this week. Many didn’t know what the adjective meant so using this word in your vocabulary this week can help solidify their understanding of the word fond.
We are mathematicians.
This week, we learned about measurement and the relation between centimetres and millimetres. They learned how to convert a measurement from cm to mm.
Then we extended this by learning about perimeter and how to measure it. Please feel free to review perimeter with your child at home. We will continue this week and move into learning about area as well. You are welcome to look for videos on YouTube that can help your child review this new concept.
Word Work
For our work work last week, we practiced past tense and learned that with regular past tense verbs, they ALL end with “ed” even though they have the /d/, /id/, or /t/ sounds.
Wondering Wednesday
We joined Ms. Santorelli’s class and Ms. Tai’s class on our shape search walk. They had so much fun looking and tallying all sorts of shapes in our environment.
This upcoming week
We have Sports Day on Friday! We will be telling students more about what to expect this week. There will be an early dismissal at 12:30 pm. Students on the hot lunch program will receive their hot lunch on this day. Your child is welcome to bring a lunch as well or eat at home after sports day is over. Families are welcome to attend and cheer students on!
Thank you so much for your continued support at home. You are an essential part of our learning and we appreciate you!
With much gratitude, Ms. Chan
We start every morning with a soft start which we call Heart time because they get to fill their heart with things that bring them joy. I love seeing new friendships begin! I remind them to thank the people who brought them joy as they clean up before our morning message and community connection circle time. This is our regular daily routine to start us off just right!
