Happy Halloween!!!!

We has a super spooky and fun day today!

The class estimated the number of seeds in our pumpkin.  This is tricky as there are a lot of seeds in a pumpkin.  It helped us investigate big numbers in the 100s.  We used our place value cards to remind us how to organize our ideas.  For example if I guessed 125 seeds, that I can't write 10025, but that the 20 needs to go in the tens column and the 5 in the ones column. These conservations start us thinking about standard notation: 120 seeds... versus . expanded notation 100 + 20 + 5. 
With teamwork the kids counted out seeds in groups of 10 and put them in stackable cups....(we had so many we ran out of cups! ) We ended up with 374 seeds.  Nathaniel had the closest estimate of 333 seeds!  We discussed that when we estimate, we don't expect to get the exact number. 
Try doing some estimating of how much halloween candy you get.  It can help to count out a group of ten as a referent first.  I sometimes cover the referent (group of ten) with my hands then, use my hands to help me eyeball it.  Try writing down your guess, then count out your candy in groups of 10.  See how close you get!  How many more or less did you have than your estimate?

The class voted to make our pumpkin into a cat.  Come to the Halloween Dance and you can vote on the best pumpkin!!! It will be a great time.

Check out the Halloween art the kids did with their buddies in Mrs. Ross' class.

Have a safe and fun night tonight!

Pumpkin Math

Tomorrow is Halloween and many students are gearing up for it. Today we explored different gourds and a pumpkin by making comparisons and measuring. Tomorrow students will work together to carve our pumpkin so it will be on display for our Family Dance on Friday (this week!).
Tomorrow students are also invited to wear a costume and participate in our whole school parade! We can't wait to see all the costumes!

Community Walk

Today we had our first community walk of the year. Students identified important landmarks, signs, and safety information as we strolled through the community. Each child had the chance to take pictures of some of the important things we saw. For example - a sign to indicate a crosswalk; a community service, like the bank; public art to beautify our neighbourhood. Talk to your child about what he/she saw and how you have or don't have these things in the community you live in!

MAPSS Event

We are almost 2 weeks away from the Movie Event "The Grinch" and ticket requests and coming along nicely.  Please click on the links below to purchase your ticket!

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/the-grinch-landmark-country-hills-tickets-51181230438

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/the-grinch-landmark-shawnessy-tickets-51180220417

Emphasis and Contrast in leaf art

IRIS

Today students worked with buddies to add learning goals and strategies to IRIS. They have also been working during work period to add photos of work they are proud of. Please take some time to go onto IRIS and see the work they are sharing.
We will be sharing this website and information at conferences on Thursday so we are encouraging parents to bring students to the conferences.

After a couple weeks working with scoops and balls, students used their skills and these materials to create a new game. Each group shared their game, it's name and how to play. It was an exciting gym class!

Family Needs

 

As we wrap up our unit on our family community, we discussed the needs of all families. Students identified their role in their family and we discussed how all families have needs. Students represented their learning through drawing pictures and writing words in their learning journal, describing why and how they need their own family.

Autumn leaves are falling down....

Today we were busy being scientists, looking for evidence of Autumn. We compared our picture (first image above) and our notes from our "Late Summer Tree" data.  Children used their senses to explore Discovery Gardens for changes.  Everyone sketched our class tree, then we used ipad to take pictures.  Some of our observations came from what we DIDN'T see or notice.  For example, none of our class found any evidence of insects today while we found many during our summer investigation.  Likewise, we only found a few droopy flowers.  We talked a lot about description works and how powerful they are in our writing.  ie.  Droopy, wilted grass .  Crunchy, brown leaves

Other important words we discussed were qualifying words.

Only a few, some, many, most, almost all, every/all :  are important words to help us explain that we find variation in nature and that our observations are not always absolute.  Ex.  Only a few trees still had their leaves on the branches. 

We thought of our poem Autumn Leaves Are Falling Down.... and the description of the yellow, red orange, and brown leaves.  We collected and sorted leaves by their colour but found most of the leaves in Discovery Garden were brown or black and showed many signs of decomposition.

Look for evidence of fall this weekend!

Shades and Tints

Today in Science we created monochromatic pictures of pumpkins using tints and shades.  We discovered adding white made the orange colour get lighter and lighter while adding black created darker and dark shades.  We used the variety of oranges to create our pumpkin picture. We will go back in next week and outline our lines in black pastel.   We noticed we needed to add a lot of white to change the tint.  When the orange got lighter it looked like a peach colour.  We discovered that black is quite powerful and that just a tiny bit changed the shade very quickly.  As we added black, the orange colour looked like brown.

Comparing Families

Today we talked about family celebrations and how each family has their own traditions for special celebrations. Students also brainstormed the celebrations that they participate in with their families and we created a graph. Have a conversation with your child/family tonight about your special celebrations, maybe we forgot some today!

 
After discussing celebrations, student got into pairs and compared and contrasted their families. We talked about celebrations, activities we do together, people in our family, etc. Talk tonight about how you family is similar/different to others in the class.

Outdoor Phys. Ed.

Today we took advantage of this beautiful fall weather (finally!) and we participated in some outdoor activities. We've introduced the scoops and balls and students are working on picking up the ball and passing the ball. We've learned 3 ways to pick up a ball and 2 ways to pass, ask your child about these skills!

Young Rembrandts

 
Young Rembrandts Presentation - "Founded in 1988 by Bette Fetter, Young Rembrandts has become a recognized leader in art education. What began as one person, working with children in her home, has developed into an international franchise business with franchisees who teach drawing to thousands of students every week." - https://www.youngrembrandts.com/our-story.aspx


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Today we had the opportunity to work with artists from Young Rembrandts. Students learned more about drawing and had the opportunity to follow a guided drawing lesson from one of the artists. All students listened well and created a cartoon drawing of a kitten.

 

We Scare Hunger!

WE SCARE HUNGER!

NO ONE SHOULD GO HUNGRY, BUT IN CANADA 1 in 7 CHILDREN GO TO SCHOOL HUNGRY.  36% OF FOOD BANK USERS IN CANADA ARE CHILDREN AND YOUTH!

THIS HALLOWEEN, BE HUNGER HEROES

Take action this Halloween to collect non-perishable food items at school and in your community to help stop hunger before it strikes.

Starting on Monday October 15^th, the Me to We club will begin to collect non-perishable food items. We will continue to collect non-perishable food items until November 9^th. All food items will be donated to the Calgary food bank to help hungry Calgarians. 

Classroom Challenge: Which classroom can collect the most non-perishable items?

As teachers collect donated goods from students during October 15^th to November 15^th, they will tally the amount collected. The class to collect the most food items will have their class picture proudly displayed on the Me to We club’s Hall of Fame display case for everyone to see!

School Challenge: Can the school raise a total of 800 non-perishable food items?

Many food banks ask for the following non-perishable items:

o   Rice

o   Flour

o   Pasta

o   Canned fish and meat (Tuna, salmon, corned beef and chicken)

o   Stew and soup

o   Canned or dried beans

o   Canned fruit and vegetables

o   100% fruit juice

o   Canned or powdered milk

o   Cereals

o   Tomato sauce

o   Peanut butter

o   Baby products (formula, diapers, baby food)

Thanks for your support,

The CJP Me To We Club

Library

Today we had a chance to visit the library and sign out one book to take home. This year, we've taken a flexible approach to our library times. Students will be given the opportunity to return their library book and get a new one at their leisure. In our Montessori classroom, we foster independence and therefore, if students are done reading their library book they will be given a chance to independently go the library during our work period - Monday - Thursday between 1:35 - 2:05. So please encourage your child to return his/her library book when you're done with it. The more we explore new books the better readers we become. Let's foster a love of reading!

How do colours help us?

We had a great start to our day with tag games, Learning Commons, Music and reading!

Montessori period was busy with lots of math games, writing and work in our Learning Journals describing our sorting groups we made yesterday.

After celebrating Leyah's birthday, our class looked at pictures of different ways colours help give us information.  We discovered that colours can help us know many things:
-identify variations of fruits (red delicious apple vs. golden delicious apple, lemon/lime)
-tell if foods are ready to eat (a green banana is not ready, brown is over ripe, but yellow is perfect)
-foods of certain colours contain certain vitamins ie. orange veggies have carotenoids
-animals use bright colour to show they are poisonous
-leaves change colours in autumn
-flags use colours to identify signals or countries
-boats have lights to starboard and port sides
-our class notebooks can be identified by their colour
-money can be recognized by its colour

We discovered that red is an important colour.  Red catches peoples' eye and grabs our attention. Artists use red to show emphasis in paintings and safety equipment often is red or bright orange to be very visible:
-fire hydrants, stop signs, signal lights
-protective safety vests, life jackets, fire trucks
Red also shows heat like on a hot element or on a fire.

Look around your house and community.  How are colours used to help us get information?  We will share some ideas next Wednesday.

Sorting and more

We explored primary, secondary and tertiary this morning by constructing colour wheels using playdough.  The children started with primary colours, dividing them up into three balls and mixing them to create secondary colours.  Even though most of the students were well versed in how to create secondary colours, like mixing yellow and blue to make green, we still had many ohhhs and ahhhhhs as the playdough magically became new colours.  Making the tertiary colours (mixing of primary and secondary colours together) reminded students there are more than one blue or green.  Just go to the paint store and you can see there are many shades of each colour.  We discovered this on Orange Shirt Day when people said my shirt was more red than orange.....I responded that it was reddy-orange or orangy-red.  While people said Alyssa's shirt was yellow, to which she responded it was a yellowy-orange. 

During Montessori period, children named the planets we created during our First Great Lesson and did some interesting writing about the characteristics of their individual planets.  Since it was a holiday on Monday, our weekly word lists went home today.  On the 1st day of the week the children write them on Montessori paper.  Please look at the above example with your child to see if they are using the lines correctly to help them form their letters.  The lines are on both sides so you can do some extra practice at home.  Remember always start letters at the top and go down. When printing with your children, ask the child where they are going to start when forming letters. 

In math, we have furthered our discussion on characteristics to sorting items in a set.  Today students worked with a variety of manipulatives to sort a set into two groups.  We discussed problem solving ideas if their sorting attribute did not fit into two groups.  For example, Nowellia and Leyah were sorting pom-poms and wanted to sort by colour but there were purple, pink, light pink and white balls. 

1.  pink and not pink
2.  pink and white (put the others that didn't fit (purple) back into the container)
3.  choose a different attribute like big and small that fit into two groups

Talk about sorting at home.  How are things sorted in your kitchen?

Montessori Work Period

                 

Students have been working very hard to get started with the routine of our Montessori work period. This month, students started tracking the choices they make. Each day they should be making a variety of learning choices, such as work with language materials and math materials, exploration of science concepts and practicing writing skills. Every one in room 2 has been focused and working hard to improve their skills. Ask your child what his/her favourite lesson has been so far? Which lessons are they excited for? How are they going to continue to improve their reading, writing, and math skills, each day?

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