Month: November 2018

Parkcrest School has chosen the book The Six Cedar Trees as a catalyst to incorporate indigenous worldviews and perspectives into our learning. The Six Cedar Trees features the core competencies, each represented by an animal (bear, beaver, orca, raven, salmon and wolf) from the Pacific Northwest Coast. As we explore each animal’s characteristics and habits, we learn about how we can develop the intellectual, personal, and social and emotional proficiencies that we need in order to engage in deep and life-long learning.   Each animal, and the corresponding core competency, will be introduced at a school-wide assembly throughout the year.

The first animal that we have learned about is Wolf.  Wolf is a good communicator.  Wolf reminds us to cooperate, listen with respect and share our ideas.  The children of Division 8 have completed a self-assessment of how they see themselves as a communicator; emerging, developing, proficient or extending.   Please visit your child’s blogfolio to view his/her response.

Recently, all the children of Parkcrest School were invited to answer the question, “What makes a good pet?”  Depending on their experience, some drew pictures and answered orally or used words, most responded in writing.  The purpose of this exercise was to analyse how the teachers could help the children to move forward in their writing.  We noticed that the students needed to add more description and details to justify their thinking.  To see what your child can do independently, please see his/her blogfolio.

Division 8 is beginning an inquiry-based science project on bats.  We are starting with the question, “Would a bat make a good pet?” Instead of giving them the information about bats, the students are responsible for asking questions, giving their ideas and opinions, and investigating and researching the facts.  When the children settle on an answer to the question, “Would a bat make a good pet?”, they will have a richer explanation for their choice.  Stay tuned to see how we are doing.

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Come and see the bulletin board in the hallway.  It’s a hoot! 

Describing the properties of objects is an important learning objective in science.  The little scientists of Division 8  are developing this important scientific skill by using their five senses to develop a detailed description of our class pumpkin.

We described what our pumpkin looked like: orange, round, small, short, rind, stem, ribs.  We shook the pumpkin and heard it rattle.  We took off the lid and looked inside: pulp, seeds, stringy goo.  We smelled the pumpkin:  phew!  We touched the pulp and counted the seeds.   Finally, we cooked the seeds and tasted them: delicious! [metaslider id=4118]

We were surprised by the number of seeds that were in our pumpkin.  We found out that there were 601 seeds inside our small pumpkin.  We learned that if a pumpkin is dark orange and has a lot of ribs, it has been growing longer and will have more seeds.  We also learned that the stem of a pumpkin is called a peduncle.

Ask me to describe our pumpkin for you.