Category: Core Competencies

Our grade 1 and 2 students have worked very hard on their re-creation of the water cycle with their partners and were really excited and engaged in their learning. With practice and repetition, they became more and more confident with their explanation of the water cycle and the moving of the sun, clouds, and precipitation at the same time. Not an easy task! We are very proud of how they improved in their communication skills as they worked as partners negotiating their shared vision while exercising their creative thinking and critical thinking skills in order to pull this off! 

Children have had opportunities to share “I can” statements before and after they worked on their shows again and again. Today, they worked on their final reflections. They really understand their strengths! Click here to read all of their “I can” statements.

Enjoy our Water Cycle shows that we made using Puppet Pals! Hint: Might want to pop some popcorn first. Sorry, videos do not play on iPhones or iPads but play fine on Androids and computers.

Tobee & JeanBenoit	Sasha & Charlotte	Farbod & Lucas	Isla & Dustin
Fisher & Myel	Jeffery & Ronan	Manoj & Priscilla	Leo & Riley
Avia & Sonia	Charlotte & Katherine	Gabby, Hanna & Kailan	Owen & Zachary
Olivya & Mehr	Enjoy!	Made with Puppet Pals

Dear students (and parents),

What do you think about your friend’s shows? Please feel free to offer two stars and a wish or write a comment about why you enjoyed working on this project. What are you most proud of? What appreciations might you have for your partner? If you were to do it again, what would you change? Thank you.

Thoroughly enjoy your spring break, everyone! Looking forward to seeing you on April 1st. We have had such a wonderful year so far with you and your child. Thank you for your continued support at home. We appreciate you!

Sincerely, Ms. Chan & Ms. Cowan

Dear Parents,

All the kids seemed extra happy on Valentine’s Day. One student exclaimed, “This is the best day of my life!” 

We hope you have heard all about our Stone Soup making experience. As part of our ADST curriculum, students all had an opportunity to cut various vegetables which they really enjoyed. Great success when no one cuts their finger! We have deemed that they “passed the test” and are all ready to help chop vegetables at home now so feel free to solicit their meal prep skills. Children were encouraged to try different vegetables and give ones they had already made up their mind they didn’t like another chance. We discussed what having a closed mind versus open mind meant. As a result, some discovered they have a new liking for mushrooms! So many of them really enjoyed the vegetable soup, shouting, “This is sooo yummy!”

Core Competency connection:

• I can keep an open mind to try new things.
• I can contribute to my classroom community by helping out.
• I can use tools in a safe manner.

Thank you so much for your contribution to our soup! Your ingredients made it taste simply delicious! And thank you to Manoj’s mom for helping us out in the morning; we appreciate your time. 

Dear students,

What did you think about making our Stone Soup? How did you feel about cutting the vegetables? How do you think making Stone Soup helps to bring people together like in the story we listened to? What is your “I Can” statement? 

We would love to read your reflections on our soup making day!

Thank you, Ms. Chan & Ms. Cowan

Gung Hei Fat Choi! Happy Lunar New Year! We started the day learning about some of the common traditions that are followed during the Lunar New Year like cleaning the house, eating certain lucky foods, leisees (lucky money), lion dances with loud music and ones that even dance on tall poles! Please ask your child about that!

Our story about Sam and the Lucky Money [click on link to listen to the story] taught us about using the strategy of making predictions. As students listened, they were stopped at four different points in the story to make their predictions. This strategy helps us to think ahead, to revise and verify predictions, and make connections to prior knowledge and the text. Feel free to encourage your child to make predictions when reading at home. We also learned about looking for an author’s message. Often, the author has a message or a “big idea” they are trying to tell the reader. After reading a story at home, encourage your child to tell you what the author’s message is. Here, one strong message was to be grateful for what we have.

During Math, we learned how to count and write from one to ten in Cantonese. Students have been practicing their numbers before and after, ten more, and ten less but writing numbers in Chinese was a tricky challenge for some because of the extra “ten” they had to write to represent how many tens there are. This was a great way to reinforce what they have been learning about. They had so much fun and thoroughly enjoyed this!

Math – How you can support at home: Give your child a random number up to 99 (for grade 2’s). You can use a deck of cards and use 1-9 as digits; draw two random cards as the number to use. Ask the following:

• What is the number before and the number after?
• What is the number that is ten less and ten more?
• What is the number that is two more and two less?
• For extra challenge, what is five more and five less?

Core Competency connection:

• I can be open to learning about cultures.
• I can try my best at learning new things and show determination.

A ball of modelling clay was provided to manipulate into an object that can float. After discovering a way of how to make it float, students were tasked with seeing how many teddy bears can sit on the boat before it sank. For such young children, what we were most impressed with was their ability to stay focussed with great determination to succeed and for such a long time. They showed such patience, perseverance, and critical thinking when provided with the challenge to make a dense object float.

The critical thinking skills that were demonstrated throughout were also truly brilliant. Wished every parent could have been there to witness their learning! Some used the inside of a bowl to form their boat. When that didn’t work, they tried it on the outside of the bowl. Other students believed that making sure their boat was dry was important so they used our sponges to dry it off each time. Then in order to try to hold more teddy bears, they exercised further critical thinking skills to experiment with the shape of their boats. The learning was so rich and students were so engaged and motivated. We felt so proud of how they self-regulated their emotions even though some of them weren’t successful until the very end. They kept trying and trying and demonstrated a never give up attitude.

Here were some reflections shared:

• I learned that when I take the clay and fold it up, it float.
• That the same object can sink and float. – Isla
• If you have too much water in the boat, then it will sink. – Sasha
• I learned to “never give up”. – Charlotte T.
• I learned that even if there’s little tiny holes, you will have to block the holes. It can be holes on the side but not on the bottom. – Mehr

Spontaneously, most unexpected student etched “I can think critically” on her floatie. Made us smile!

Core Competencies connection:

• I can show perseverance.
• I can try and try again.
• I can think critically.

Students, what did you think about this critical thinking activity? Please feel free to leave a comment. We would love to hear your thoughts!