FogThe fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
– Carl Sandburg, 1916
Our class wreath for Remembrance Day is based on Wassily Kandinsky’s work Squares with Coloured Circles (Farbstudie – Quadrate und konzentrische Ringe), 1913. Even though this piece could be considered Kandinsky’s most famous creation, it was not originally intended to be an entire composition. It was a study of how colours interacted with each other in various combinations. Kandinksy was a synesthete–he could hear colours, and see sounds. Colour tells its own story to each person, and to Kandinsky, colour meant more than just a visual component of a picture.
Division 3 chose colours that represent a word, feeling, or idea about Remembrance Day. We removed form and image in order to allow the colours alone to tell the story. Some colours speak of sorrow and loss, others speak of hope, and others tell of the journey through the darkness and into the light.
In September students learned how to write numbers in binary (a base-2 number system). Today students learned that letters can also be coded in binary! Each student mapped out their names on grid paper, chose their colours, and beaded their names into a bracelet.
Here is a message for you, Division 3. Let’s see if you can decode it!
1001000 1000001 1010000 1010000 1011001 1001000 1000001 1001100 1001100 1001111 1010111 1000101 1000101 1001110
Students in Division 3 worked in teams to do a building challenge where they were tasked with building the tallest tower possible in ten minutes. Each group received an envelope containing toothpicks, string, tape, spaghetti, and mini-marshmallows to build with. This is a common ADST challenge that many of the students have done before… but what they didn’t know was that each envelope had different amounts of supplies. Some had lots of marshmallows but very little spaghetti, some had lots of spaghetti but few marshmallows, and so forth.
They had different amounts of supplies because this was actually a Social Studies exploration where students would examine the how the distribution of the world’s wealth and resources are inequitable. In this task students:
How should a classroom space feel?
What kinds of things can make it a productive space? A caring space? A safe space?
How can we all contribute to building community in our classroom?
What are your roles as a student? What are the teacher’s roles?
These are all questions we have started exploring as we reflect on our class agreements.
At the very start of the year, we brainstormed various roles and responsibilities expected from students and teachers. Several themes emerged from this discussion, and these themes are our Class Agreements. The agreements are:
These agreements don’t happen automatically–they take work and collaboration on the part of each individual student and teacher. Because these themes can be quite broad, students worked in small groups to create Y-charts to describe what each of these agreements would “Look like,” “Sound like,” and “Feel like.” After the first round, we reflected on what each agreement meant, and what each group wrote–we discussed how we could be more specific with our descriptions. Then groups worked on adding ideas to two more Y-charts.
A couple of things I noticed during this group work:
Monday was our first Roots2Grow session with Pablo in our school garden. Our focus for this session was “Care for Self, Care for Others, and Care for the Land.”
First we looked at the Medicine Wheel, which symbolizes life in a continuous natural cycle. The Medicine Wheel represents the four directions, the four seasons, the four elements, and all of humanity. People are part of the Earth, just as are the plants, animals, air, water, and rocks around us. It is important that we establish healthy relationships with all of these parts.
Gardening is a living process that responds to the natural cycle. The school garden is a small ecosystem that will succeed if we watch and take cues from the natural world. We do not need to be “perfect” gardeners (who is “perfect” anyway?!), but we can grow as gardeners simply by learning from what we are doing and what we have done in the past.
Our world is currently in a state of environmental crisis caused by past human actions. We must learn to care for ourselves, care for others, and care for our land in order to develop practices and take action to conserve and restore our natural resources.
Pablo reviewed the expectations for the garden, and then we got to work harvesting quite a few different types of vegetables!
We collected:
Which veggie was your favourite?
Did you do anything with it (like add it to some cooking or put in a smoothie)?
Original artwork by Hawlii Pichette
Much of our work this week has centred on honouring the first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation in Canada, and it is important to note that truth and reconciliation is an ongoing process that requires reflection and action.
Many students already had a lot of background knowledge about residential schools and are continuing to learn challenging truths of Canada’s past. Reconciliation starts with a willingness to listen and learn in order to restore positive relationships for affected communities.
The Honorable Justice Murray Sinclair, chairperson of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said that “education is what got us into this mess, and education is what will get us out of it.” On Thursday September 30, I hope you can take some time to learn and reflect. Here are some links to support you in your truth and reconciliation journey.
Original Artwork by Hawlii Pichette
What are some actions you plan to take during this first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation (and beyond)?
Division 3 has been Speed Stacking! It is a relatively new sport that is based on… that’s right… stacking cups!
Sport stacking, also known as cup stacking or speed stacking, is an individual and team sport that involves stacking 9 or 12 (usually 12) specially designed cups in pre-determined sequences as fast as possible. The cups are specially designed to allow for speedier times, so the sport doesn’t work so well with regular cups. People of all ages and from all over the world compete in sport stacking!
Just as with any sport, there are particular rules that guide speed stacking. Division 3 has been learning these rules, and developing their muscle memory learning the Competition Cycle (3-6-3, 6-6, 1-10-1). One of the rules of cup stacking is that the player must use alternating hands in order to set up each cycle of cups–this action of alternating hands actually strengthen the right and left brain connection!
Division 3 has been really focused on learning the cycle carefully to avoid fumbles and falls. Once students are familiar and fluent with the cycle, they will be developing their speed! It’s important to start with the fundamentals of a sport before adding in speed and power.
So far our fastest time for the whole cycle is 31.75 seconds–I wonder how fast we can go?
This is the class website for Division 3 at UHE! Here you will find posts about what we are doing, helpful links, our “Homework Board,” ePortfolios, and more!
Here are some reminders and information as we enter into our new school year.
Students will be outside during recess and lunch, rain or shine. Encourage your child to become increasingly 
involved with planning for what they need for their time outside. Proper rain gear, and even a change of clothing, can make a big difference in comfort for the rest of the day!
Each day students will write about homework/reminders in their planner. We are learning to determine what we need to record, and how to plan for and organize our goals. After writing in their planners at school, I will initial each planner and add or ask about any details. It is each student’s responsibility to share their planner with an adult at home, and to provide the adult with a pen or pencil to sign.
Please see our online “Homework Board” here.
Students will be required to change their clothing and ensure they have appropriate non-marking footwear for the gym. They can change into t-shirts, sweatshirts, shorts, leggings, or sweatpants–clothing for movement! They will keep their P.E. strip in a cloth bag, and bring it home on weekends to wash.
ScheduleWe are still in the process of finalizing schedules for P.E., Music, Library, etc. Once these are in place, we will be able to fit all the other puzzle pieces together.
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