Today is Orange Shirt Day. We read a story called "Shi-shi-etko" by Nicola I. Campbell. The story is about a little girl getting ready to go to a residential school and all the things she will remember about her family and culture. She goes on adventures with her different family members and collects memories of what is important to her. We talked about what it would feel like to have our culture and our identities taken away from us and the importance of talking about the history of residential schools so that these things never happen again. We then drew our own memory bag and drew pictures of things that are important to us, like pictures of our families, or a special toy.
We extended our learning about seasons today by painting 1 tree in the four different seasons. Students are learning that the seasons happen in a predictable pattern every year and what to expect for the weather. We will also pair our art with some writing about the seasons such as the different season specific activities we like to enjoy. Please remember to wear snow pants and warm outdoor clothes for playing in the snow at recess and lunch! Parent/Teacher Conferences are this Thursday and Friday - please sign up online
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Today we learned a new game called Silent Soccer. We played in the classroom for a fun body break. All you need is a ball! Everyone is spread out across the classroom and passes the ball around without speaking. We tried to see how many passes we could make without dropping the ball. We were able to make 5 passes before dropping it, so we will continue to practice throwing and catching. The main goal of the game is to remain completely silent and only communicate through gestures and eye contact. This was a challenging aspect of the game as we were excited to learn something new. We will continue playing the game and working on all of these skills!
Monday is Orange Shirt Day so please wear an orange shirt to remember and honor Indigenous children. "Orange Shirt Day (September 30th) is a day when we honour the Indigenous children who were sent away to residential schools in Canada and learn more about the history of those schools." (CBC Kids) Click the link to learn more: We've been learning a lot about Terry Fox the past few days. Today we compared Terry Fox (a real life hero) to Superheroes. We found many similarities between the two! Students were encouraged to be like Terry and work hard, be brave, and never give up, even when things are challenging. This afternoon we ran outside to remember Terry and raise money for cancer research. It was cold and rainy, but we were all determined to try our best and keep a positive attitude. After, we talked about how Terry would run in the heavy rain or snow for long periods of time, never giving up. We can work hard and give everything we have even in the face of a challenge. Even though we were cold, we had a great time building community with our class and school, cheering each other on and encouraging each other to not give up. Healthy Hunger Fun Lunches/Snacks are back! Your Parent Association is pleased to once again offer parents the opportunity to purchase a lunch or snack for their students once or twice per month. The funds raised go to supporting you school through Parent Association initiatives. Please log into www.healthyhunger.ca
Healthy Hunger If you do not already have an account, please register. ff you do, log in and add your students again and attached them to their teacher. Payment is required at time of ordering. Any questions, please use the help button on the healthy hunger website. Friday snacks are available to all students in the school. The lunch option is only available to those students at school over the lunch hour, including kindergarten students at Topp Kids. Friday October 18th JUGO JUICE snack at recess time Thursday October 24th SUBWAY lunch Friday November 15th KERNELS popcorn snack at recess Thursday November 21st EDO JAPAN lunch We built superheroes in math today with snap cubes! The students had fun creating different popular superheroes as well as coming up with their own. We experimented with different shapes and colours until we were happy with our designs. Tomorrow we will extend our math by creating bar graphs to represent the different colours we used to make our heroes. The Terry Fox Run will take place on Thursday, September 26. We will begin with a short assembly at 1:30pm followed by the run out on our field. Students are encouraged to bring in Toonies for Terry to donate to The Terry Fox Foundation in support of cancer research. Please come dressed for the weather!
Today in science we made slime! We started by measuring out glue into our own individual cups. Then we chose colors and mixed in food coloring. Next we added shaving cream and continued mixing until it was fully combined with the glue. The last step was adding a small amount of water mixed with borax. Some turned out great, while others we had to play with for a bit to get the right consistency. We learned that putting too much shaving cream in it didn't make good slime. With this new knowledge, we will try again next week to try and make the perfect slime! We also played sight word bingo for the first time. Bingo is a good way to get your child engaged in sight words in a fun way! Students joined in to create sentences with the sight word that was chosen. There is no school tomorrow. Enjoy your long weekend! Ms. Pfeifer Today we learned about different places that make up a community, like hospitals, police stations, houses, and apartments. We brainstormed a list of important buildings in a community and talked about the different communities that we belonged to. We started to discuss rights and responsibilities and what our responsibilities are in the various communities that we belong to. Talk to your child about the 3 Rs:
We also used a new online reading program today called Epic Books! I will be sending more information home soon about reading with your child, but in the meantime you can check out epic books. Follow these instructions to log on:
Today in room 8 we started a project about the 4 seasons we have in Calgary. Students thought about each season and the different activities that they like to enjoy. We wrote down what our favorite activity to do in each season and drew a picture to go along with it. This was the first part in creating a lap book all about seasonal changes and knowing what clothes are appropriate to wear depending on what the weather is like.
We also got to use the gym for the first time today and enjoyed playing on the brand new floors! We learned a new game called Tiki Ball. The object of the game is to knock balls off of pylons and keep your balls from getting knocked over. Ask your child for more information on how the game works! Ms. Pfeifer Today we learned some new games during our literacy time: Spot It and Pop! Spot it works on building vocabulary and helps develop focus and visual perception skills. We played “Pop! Sight Words” to work on foundational reading skills. The game moves quickly as to improve fluency and vocabulary. We had a lot of fun learning these new games and are excited to teach our families the games tomorrow at curriculum night! We continued to learn about what makes up a neighbourhood and learn our address. We explored on google maps again but this time students went on a scavenger hunt to find different parts that make up a community. Tomorrow is curriculum night from 4-7pm. Please sign up online. There is also a welcome back BBQ that starts at 5:30pm. I hope to see you all there! Ms. Pfeifer Today we continued to learn about being kind to others to make help make them feel happy and to have a full bucket. We also made our own buckets by folding paper and decorating them. We will have a year round project of bucket filling where we will write kind things about others and put them in their buckets. In literacy we did some word work by playing a game. Students took turns rolling alphabet dice to get a random letter. Then they would have to name the letter, what sound it makes, and write down a word that starts with that letter. Here is a link to a letter dice so you can try this game at home with your child http://letterdice.iphonemarks.com
We talked more about the 4 different seasons today and identified what the weather is like in each of them. Students then picked their favourite season and drew a picture of what a tree would look like in that season. We will continue to work on this throughout the week. Ms. Pfeifer Today in room 8 we started doing work on what it means to be kind to others and how we can show each other respect. We read the book "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids" by Carol McCloud and learned that when we are kind to others and say nice things it fills their invisible bucket as well as fills our own, and helps us all work well together and be happy. We are working on a list of things we could do to fill someone’s bucket: We will continue to work on what it means to fill someones' bucket to build a safe, welcoming, and respectful classroom and school. In math we stared working on addition by rolling dice to get numbers to use as an equation. We used manipulatives to add the two numbers together. We also started a unit in social studies, learning about our neighbourhoods. We each typed in our addresses in google maps and explored around our houses and neighbourhood to learn what kind of buildings are near us and what exactly makes up a community.
Ms. Pfeifer |
AuthorI am originally from Saskatchewan but now call Calgary home. My background is in inclusive education and I am passionate about supporting students who are exceptionally abled. I love getting out to the mountains, hiking, and taking in all the beautiful sights. I also love traveling which took me to Vietnam last fall to teach English for 3 months. Archives
March 2020
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