To honour and recognize Orange Shirt Day, we read the book Our Orange Hearts by Phyllis Webstad, which tells her personal story of having her orange shirt taken away. As a class, we discussed how every child should feel at school and wrote our feeling words on heart-shaped pieces of paper. There were many insightful answers, such as we should feel safe at school, we should feel loved at school, and we should feel inspired at school.
We followed a directed drawing lesson to learn how to draw fall gnomes. After this art activity, we wrote about what we would do if we were fall gnomes. There were a variety of stories, ranging from protecting the garden to gathering pumpkins to hosting parties with other fall gnomes. Each story was creative and imaginative!
On September 15, we celebrated International Dot Day! We read the book The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds and created our own dot designs. We each received a circle template, which we filled with a radial symmetry design using oil pastels. Then we painted over the oil pastels with watercolours and noticed that the oil pastels resisted the watercolours, creating a beautiful resist effect! The Dot is such a wonderful book that encourages us to try new or challenging things, explore our creativity, and have confidence in our abilities. It shows us that with a little imagination and courage, we can turn anything into something creative!
Following our school motto, ‘Be kind to yourself, be kind to each other, and be kind to this place,’ we created kindness cacti! These bright and unique plants are a fun, visual reminder to practice kindness every day.
