Ahoy Div. 5 Families,

It was wonderful to meet you at our Parents as Partners Conferences, and I thank you for making the time to connect and learn about your children.  

In class, we are well on our way, having started our themes on Oceans and Pirates.  Together, we are looking forward to a year of growth and engagement!

Div. 5 Field Trip

Upon our arrival, we were greeted by the resident biologist, Dan.  He appreciated the inquisitiveness, natural curiosity and scientific behaviour of our class (they were good observers and attentive listeners; they were protective of the environment-not disturbing or destroying it, searching for answers from clues, asking questions).  

We spent time in the museum. We learned about the attributes of bird feet, and how they could tell us a lot about the animal they belonged to.  Notice how the white feathers cover the entire foot of the snowy owl to help protect it from the cold.

Barn Owl.  The students learned about the importance of taxidermy to scientists of the past.  Without quality photographs, scientists found it vital to observe animals up close through taxidermy. Some of the animals in this museum go back 100 years.

Spine of a grey whale.

Red-winged blackbird

Evidence of beaver activity.

We climbed the viewing tower to get a full view of the estuary.

The Mouth of the Fraser River Estuary:  Wetland Habitat

From the tower, we came pretty close to a bald eagle.

Some downtime to feed the birds.

Walking back through the forest habitat.

Can you spot the family of 3 Sandhill Cranes on the path?

This is baby Lu.  She is 26 weeks old.  

This is Poxie, another crane, not of the same family.

We ended the day with an excellent lunch time at the warming hut, with a wood burning stove keeping us toasty.   Many thanks to the parent drivers who helped out.  It was a long drive, and we were all grateful that it was a beautiful sunny day.  

On most Wednesdays you’ll find our class outside connecting and extending our learning through exploration of our natural environment and other hands-on activities. Our first Math unit was on patterning, and here we were finding patterns in nature, and building patterns using found items.

Did you know that two thirds of B.C.’s population is located in the area of the Fraser River basin? Div. 5 is hard at work learning about this important local and natural resource. On this sunny Wednesday, we went out to visually show what we have been learning about rivers. In their groups, students added details such as estuaries, and Mount Robson (the headwaters of the Fraser River). They also showed their understanding of how we use rivers by putting in details such as boats and fishermen.

We have been hard at work, and wanted to share some of our learning experiences since September. We started off with a ‘getting to know each other’ activity in which we used modelling clay to express our likes and dislikes. The students followed up this activity with a written summary of their 3D visuals.

The students had a hands-on opportunity to weigh the baby pumpkins with the balance scale.

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• Movement skills and strategies help us learn how to participate in different types of physical activity (B.C. Curriculum).
• Daily participation in physical activity at moderate to vigorous intensity levels benefits all aspects of our well-being.

Circulation Volleyball (From Volleyball Canada Development Model; designed for ages 6-8).  We have been practising this adapted version of volleyball for a while without the nets, and today we were rewarded with the nets being up.  It was game on!  The students rotated with speed and accuracy, and showed off all the strategies they had learned such as placing the ball between two players, or trying to place the ball behind the opposing players.  They had a lot of fun!

Hula Hut (dodgeball)

In this game, the students build hula huts with hoops, and then try to knock down their opponents’ hula huts.  If all three are knocked down on one side, the game is over.  In this game, students strategize to have builders, defense, and offense.  At times, students have to leave their ‘jobs’ to do another because the Hula Huts need to be rebuilt over and over, so that they stay alive.  The students strategize to throw their ball around the defense, and to cooperate effectively to keep their huts up. 

The Blog is finally up and running for Div. 5 2017   

This year our school started out with a beach/ocean theme.  In our class, we have focussed in on Pirates and Oceans.  On a Friday afternoon, I was amazed to see the concentration that the students brought to the task of researching the five zones of the ocean.  Each student used an ipad (thank you PAC for all your fundraising!) to follow their natural curiosity and to try and answer questions that they had identified, such as:  what types of life are there in each zone? what do the fish look like/adaptations?  

This week, the students are working together with Div. 6 (grade 2/3) to build a mural of the ocean zones, and the life within them.  The mural will be in the upper building hallway, and should be up by the week of the 14th.