This week we learned all about Orange Shirt Day and Truth and Reconciliation. We began by reviewing what it means to be Indigenous and learned about Residential Schools. We learned about Phyllis Webstad's orange shirt story and read various stories from different Indigenous authors. We focused in on the word "reconciliation" and learned more about what this means (trying to make up for our wrong-doings). With our big buddy class we read the story "Trudy's Rock Story." We made our own reconciliation rocks with messages and students were asked to either speak or think about their feelings towards Orange Shirt Day and residential schools before placing the rocks in our school's garden. In the story, Trudy uses rocks to help her process feelings and we wanted to do the same.
Here are some of the stories we read! I will add a Youtube link for Trudy's Rock Story and for When We Were Alone, as it is one of my favourites!
We hope that you can find a way to honour the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation tomorrow in a way that works for your family. We brainstormed many ideas for activities to do with our families tomorrow.
In literacy this week, we reviewed N, B, C and G. We also practiced our read to self, buddy reading, and learned about listen to reading. If you are able, please send headphones for your child to use at school. They will be kept in their cubby to use during listen to reading time. This year we will be using Epic! and we do have a class code but I believe it only works between 7am-3pm, but you are welcome to try it at home - hkh5229. This week we also started doing some "word play" to build students' phonemic awareness. These activities are quick and easy and also work well in the car! (This video is more for adults if you're curious, not for the kids!)
We always love watching the Storybots videos for each letter - here is my favourite one!
In math, the grade 2 students worked hard on some government numeracy assessments. Grade 1 students did some work with teen numbers and grade 2 students began looking at numbers to 100.
We also worked on some tree artwork for the front cover of our sketchbooks!
Upcoming Dates
Friday, September 30th - National Day for Truth and Reconciliation - No School
Our first two days of school in room 11 were great! We enjoyed reading some stories together, getting to know each other and our classroom space, and students enjoyed exploring different work choices together in the classroom. We've also already celebrated two birthdays in the classroom! We had gym outside on Thursday and Friday and are looking forward to joining Ms. Zimmer's class for gym next week! We talked a lot about different expectations at school and why it's important to follow the classroom expectations. I always use my cat, Eli, to show listening expectations on the carpet. A notice from School Council came home today! (At least one was found on the ground so I just wanted to make sure everyone saw) Soft Entry We will be starting "Soft Entry" on Wednesday, September 4th. This means that students can arrive between 8:00-8:10 am, come through the garden doors and walk down to their classrooms. The teachers will be on supervision at the door, in the ...
Hello families, My apologies again about not making a blog post last week! Here's what we got up to this week: We enjoyed spending lots of time with Elder Shirley on Wednesday morning. She walked students through a smudge and talked about some of the sacred medicines. She taught us how to hoop dance and how we can tell a story using our bodies and the hoops. We also enjoyed spending time outside with the hoops and some stuffed animal friends. We performed some hoop dancing for Ms. Zimmer's class and then enjoyed watching Elder Shirley perform some hoop dancing. We also met her mischievous bear friend, Lemon! We're continuing to learn about the Indigenous Seven Sacred Teachings. This week we learned about the teaching of honesty which is represented by the Sabe. Students wrote about a time when they showed honesty. We also read a story called Finn's Little Fibs by Tom Percival and students used loose parts to create a time when they fibbed....
Hello families, Here's our weekly update! In science we have returned to our focus on Earth Systems. We learned a little bit about environmentalism and caring for the Earth. We also learned a bit about extreme weather and the impact it can have on the environment, and looked at different types of landforms! In social studies, we continued our learning about The Seven Sacred Teachings. We learned about the eagle and how it represents love. One comment that resonated with me from Elder Hazel's video is that we are never too busy to be kind, caring and patient. We started working on some scratch art - students will be scratching an eagle feather into the black paint next week! In math, students completed a bit of a summative assessment in measurement to see if we are ready to move on to the next concept. We also started a fun zoo design project that students have been really excited about. We will finish this up next week! In literacy we started ...
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