Theme

The Indigenous Seven Sacred Teachings

The seven sacred teachings (honesty, respect, love, courage/bravery, truth, humility, wisdom) are closely connected to the Tribes Agreements and help us with our core competencies. The descriptions are from Monique Gray Smith’s book called, Speaking our Truth.

Growing Caterpillars

The caterpillars arrived on Fri., Apr. 12. Here is how much they have grown during the week of Apr. 15-19.

The Importance of Digital Citizenship

   

Working with the iPad

Art (Tulips) – Apr. 15, 2024

We learned to draw a potted tulip from Art hub for Kids. https://youtu.be/zY1269CaCFk

Capoeira

Week of Apr. 8-12

Art – Apr. 8, 2024

  We made hyacinths this week for art. We will teach our Grand Buddies next month.

Forest Walk – Apr. 5, 2024

It was a beautiful day for our forest walk. We saw a lot of changes since last month.

Force

Weaving – Mar. 15, 2024

This was a continuation from our last forest walk. We used the ivy twigs to learn the weaving process. We used a basic loom to learn the basic weaving process.

Seton Villa – Mar. 8, 2024

Yetsa’s Sweater by Sylvia Olson

Life Cycle

Ms. Dervari began teaching the class about the life cycle of the butterfly. This is what we have learned so far.

Forest Walk – Mar. 1, 2024

Leap Day with our Grand Buddies – Feb. 29, 2024

Spring Art – Feb. 28, 2024

Art inspired by Alma Woodsey Thomas – Feb. 26, 2024

Grid Pictures (Listening and Following Instructions)

  We made a picture listening and following the instructions.

Seton Villa – Feb. 9, 2024

We visited our Grand Buddies today and made heart buddies with them.

Art – Feb. 5, 2024

In preparation to teach our Grand Buddies, we made heart buddies.

Art Representing Us

We made representations of ourselves in preparation for our Autism/Diversity Awareness month, which will be in April.

Forest Walk – Feb. 2, 2024

Snow Art – Jan. 22, 2022

We drew and coloured a tree. Then we used white paint to put dots on our picture to represent the snow.

Seton Villa – Jan. 19, 2024

This month with our Grand Buddies, we made snowmen. We had snow the past two days so this was perfect timing. Someone had even made a small snowman on the balcony.

Winter Art

We cut out paper snowflakes on Jan. 8, 2024.

We made snowman using shaving cream and glue with Div. 11 on Jan. 12, 2024 as we did not go on our monthly forest walk.

Winter Solstice

December 21 is the first day of winter and is known as the Winter Solstice as it is the shortest day of the year. From here the days get longer until the Summer Solstice.

Term 2 Goals

We began term 2 a couple of weeks ago, but we have all now finished setting our goals for term 2.

Water

We have been learning about water and the water cycle. We had a guest speaker from Metro Vancouver who taught us about where our water comes from. We learned that in Burnaby, we get our water from the Seymour Watershed.

Trees – Dec. 4,2023

 

Forest Walk – Dec.1, 2023

Core Competencies

We talked about the six categories of the core competencies. These are the things that helps us to learn and show our learning. These are necessary components to help us get the most from every learning opportunity that comes our way.

Water – Let it Rain

We talked about how water vapours are in the clouds, but as the clouds get more moisture, it begain to rain. We did a science experiment using water, shaving cream, and coloured water.

Seton Villa – Nov. 17, 2023

Buddy Art – Nov. 16, 2023

Based on the book, If You Find a Leaf by Aimee Siguro, we used the pressed leaves to make a picture. It took talking with our buddies and planning what picture to make.

Buddy Art/Nature Artwork with Div. 11 (Nov. 16, 2023)

Water

During the week of Nov. 14, we began a new unit on water. Here is what we already know about water and what we wonder about water. We also began an experiment called Water in a bag. We talked in our table groups about what we think (predict) may happen.

Water In the Bag

 Nov. 14

Nov. 23: Water droplets have collected on the bag.

Nutrition

This week, we ended our nutrition unit by thinking about all the things we learned. We discussed our ideas with our table groups and wrote in our learning logs. Then we came back together and compiled our ideas together. The black pen ran out of ink so I switched to a red marker.

Staircase of Learning

This week, we talked about how it is better to be on the ‘staircase of learning’ rather than on a pedestal. Someone who is on a pedestal thinks that they are the best at doing something and do not have a growth mindset. However, the issue with being at the top of that pedestal is that there is only one direction to go, which is down. Being on the staircase of learning is being, which is actually a never-ending staircase that continues as we get better at doing things. There is always room for improvement. The great part of being on the staircase is that we can always go back down a step or two if we feel that we need a bit of review. Also, on the staircase of learning, the steps require a bit of work to get over so it is not about doing things easily. It requires work and time to overcome each step. Someone with a growth mindset has a staircase for each thing they do and each one of us has our own set where we are at different levels depending on what skill we are working on.

Poppies – Nov. 6, 2023

Today in art, we made poppies as a symbol of remembrance for Remembrance Day. We read a story called, A Poppy to Remember by Heather Patterson.

What is Peace? (response to Wallace Edwards’ book)

After reading the book, What is Peace? by Wallace Edward, we talked about what peace meant to them. Here is what they said.

Forest Walk – Nov. 3, 2023

We went on our forest walk and looked at the fall colours. This month, we collected leaves with our buddies so we can press them to retain the colours. We will be making pictures incorporating the pressed leaves.

States of matter – Chemical Change

We took whipping cream (liquid) and applied energy (shaking) and made butter.

Mrs. Ballarin’s class is also doing states of matter. They took corn starch and mixed it with water. They make ooblick. Although it appears to be a liquid, it feels like a solid when we touch it.

Foods to Limit

As part of our nutrition unit, we talked about foods to limit. They are known as this because they are food that should be eaten in limited amounts and periodically. They are foods that are not healthy for us due to the amount of unhealthy ingredients such as sugar. We did an experiment with Coke and eggshells. We soaked the eggs on Monday and looked at what happened to the eggs on Friday.

Monday

Friday

Autumn Leaves – Oct. 30,2023

We coloured leaves thinking about all the autumn colours we see. We cut out the different leaves and glued them to one of the autumn coloured papers.

Seton Villa – Oct. 27, 2023

Our walk to Seton Villa was beautiful. It was a frosty morning so we saw beautiful colours and hints of a frosty day. The view from Seton Villa was also spectacular.

Integrity

We spelled integrity using all the phonemic awareness lesson and talked about how integrity is doing the right thing even when others are not watching. This is something that we value and guide us in deciding whether we want to spend time with people or not. This goes hand in hand with trust.

Nutrition

As part of our nutrition unit, we looked at some foods that were used, and continue to be used as dyes. We looked at carrot, blueberries, tumeric, and beets. These are what we saw.

Coast Salish Art

We had an art lesson with an Indigenous Artist/Author, Andrea Fritz. We did this activity with Division 11. She shared her story called, Otter Doesn’t Know, and taught us to draw a salmon using the basic Coast Salish shapes.

Fall Leaf Art (Oct. 23, 2023)

We did some leaf prints with the beautiful leaves we found outside.

Importance of Water

We learned that the Earth is mostly water. However, only about 1% of it is drinkable, and that is primarily due to the fact that we live in a temperate rain forest and get rain.

Halloween Cat

In preparation for our trip to Seton Villa, the students learned to draw a Halloween cat that they will teach our Grand Buddies to draw.

Apple Sauce (physical and chemical change)

We learned that physical change is a change in appearance. We learned that chemical change is a complete change of a material. The chemical change of apples was caused by heat and it changed from a solid to a liquid. We recorded our observations our paper.

Colours of Autumn

We colours some leaves with the colours we saw on our forest walk. We also read a book called Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert.

Forest Walk – Oct. 6, 2023

We went on our first forest walk today with Division 11. We saw many signs of autumn and many colours.

After we got back, we did our forest walk journal. It looks like this.

Terry Fox Run – Sept. 29, 2023

After listening to the story, Terry Fox by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara, we brainstormed ideas of what we would do to change the world.

Truth and Reconciliation Day (September 30)

As this year’s Truth and Reconciliation Day is on a Saturday, we recognized the day on September 28. We had an opportunity to listen the the author, David A. Robertson read us one of his stories called, When We Were Alone. After listening to the story, we brainstormed what we learned. We also had some things we still wondered after our time with Mr. Robertson.

Term 1 Goals

Everyone has set their goals for term 1. We will revisit them at the end of term 1 before we set new ones for term 2.

Autumn Equinox

This year, autumn began on September 22 at 11:50 pm. The first day of autumn is known as the Autumn Equinox, because the number of daylight hours is almost equal to the number of darkness.

Invisible Trust Floor

Making good choices is something that needs to be practiced. It requires each of us to be aware of our thoughts and potentially what are words and actions will be. Making good choices sometimes requires bravery and courage if we have begun to make choices that are not wise. After reading Ruthie and the Not So Teeny Tiny Lie, but Laura Rankin, we talked about the invisible trust floor. Similar to the invisible bucket, each and every one of us is on an invisible trust floor with each person we interact with. Our words and actions determines whether we are trustworthy or not as trust is earned and requires work to uphold. If our actions continue to be not made with careful thought, we can find ourselves at the bottom of the pit. There is no ladder or staircase to help us climb out. Only our actions, trustworthy actions, will help us rise back up. However, if that trust is broken, we go straight back down.

Shi Shi Etko by Nicola M. Campbell

We have been talking about how the Indigenous children were required to go the residential schools. After reading the book, we talked about what we would miss if we had to attend residential schools like the Indigenous children did.

Being Myself

Making Good Choices – helpful reminders