Short Day and Celebration of Learning Tomorrow!

Reminder to all parents that tomorrow is a short day (same schedule and hours as Fridays). 

Please come visit our classroom to explore your child's learning.   You can drop by the classroom between: 

1:30-2:30pm or 4:00-6:00pm

You can also visit the book fair and the music room.  At 6pm, don't forget there will be a speaker in the gym, presented by MAPPS, discussing the topic of anxiety in children.  

We had a great field trip to Fort Calgary.  Have your children tell you about building a log house, training as an NWMP officer, or being in a play about a true historical event.  (Ask them which character they played).  At lunch, we were able to get outside for some fresh air.  Ask which landmarks they saw?

How do animals stay warm?

 


Today we explored books and videos to learn how animals stay warm in cold weather. We talked about polar bears, whales, and penguins. We also did a science experiment where we created our own blubber and submerged our hand in ice cold water. Want to know how? Come see on Thursday at our Celebration of Learning!

Art Felt Residency

Next week, on Tues. Feb. 4, students in room 2 will be participating in our in-school residency. If you are able to volunteer from 1-3:30 on that day, please contact us. We'd love some support to ensure the success of each student!

Important Dates

This is a busy week in room 2!

• Tomorrow is our class photo day for all students. 
• Tomorrow afternoon we are heading to the book fair. 
• Wednesday we are going to Fort Calgary.
• Thursday we welcome families to our classroom for a celebration of learning. This is similar to our student-led conferences we've held in previous years, where students will be able to show you around the room. We will be showcasing science, social studies, and art work. As well as the opportunity to look at all your child' progress this year! Drop by between 1:30 - 2:30 or 4:00 - 6:00. 
• You're also invited to stay afterwards for our Montessori Peace night hosted by MAPSS - information was sent home today in students' communication folders.

Book Fair

We are heading to the book fair on Tuesday, January 28th. Due to our field trip next week, we will only be visiting the book fair once. If you would like to send money with your child, please do so on Tuesday.
The book fair will also be open on Thursday afternoon/evening for our celebration of learning!

How is our school heated?

   

Today we went on a field trip to the basement of our school! Mr. Lam showed us how the boiler works and how the classrooms are heated. We're continue to work on learning about hot/cold temperatures. Talk to your child this weekend about how your home heating system works.

Thinking historically

The children have been listening to stories created by the Glenbow Museum, to explore the people who helped found the beginnings of the City of Calgary.

Each story talks about "possible interactions" between real people living and settling here at the time...similar to a historical fiction. 

These books have helped kids hear stories from different perspectives of : a first nation chief and his family, a missionary, a settler/farmer and the NWMP (North West Mounted Police).   

These books have also helped the children generate many excellent questions.  Like how did Sam Livingston get barb wire to make his fence?  Did he bring it with him when he travelled from the East?  

These books have also helped us develop our inferencing skills.  When reading we are learning that the words on the page do not also give all the information.  Sometimes we need to use our background knowledge, make predictions and draw inferences. 

When reading this page, the children wondered how he was paid.  Did they use money?  If so, where would Sam spend it as there were no stores yet.  Did they trade?  If so, what did they trade.? Many kids thought the NWMP would trade bullets, as Sam Livingston had a gun for hunting and they figured that would be useful.  

We decided we would use the interpreter/historian at Fort Calgary to check our predictions. 

Here is our new CAFE menu, we are using to guide our reading instruction this year.  The used the bottom strategy in the example above.  During our celebration, your child can show you the class CAFE menu, and show you which area they are focusing on.  

Gymnastics unit starting today!

Gymnastics Unit 

Students are participating in our gymnastics unit, starting today - Monday January 20. All classrooms will be following the Heads to Toe, ready to go, guidelines to ensure that all students are dressed appropriately to participant. Please encourage your child to come to school ready to participate in gymnastics everyday till Wednesday, February 12. 

Head to Toe, Ready to Go 

Head – long hair pulled back 

Ears/Throat/Wrist – no jewelry 

Shirt one layer 

Waist – tucked in 

Pants – sporty pants (tight fitting) 

Ankles – ankles showing (rolled up pants) 

Toes – barefeet or shoes (please let us know any issues that require your child to wear shoes instead of barefeet)

Guess Who?

Today we created miniature portraits of ourselves to launch a school-wide project on belonging.  The school will be using these pictures in a collaborative art project to help the children feel a sense of belonging in our school.

 We worked on proportion, being accurate and using realistic colours.

Fancy Friday!....Spirit Day this week

Fancy Friday – January 17 

Our January Spirit Day will be Friday January 17th. All students and staff are encouraged to dress in their “Fancy” clothes. Students and families are welcome to determine what “Fancy” means to them but might include wearing clothes that are too dressy to wear to school on normal days. Perhaps for some this may be a dress, and for others a collared shirt or tie. Maybe it means wearing costume jewelry or clothes that are important to your family’s cultural celebrations. Please remember that students need appropriate indoor footwear for Physical Education and may spend time outdoors as part of their class’ Body Break or with their Explore and Discover activity.

Mrs. Wacker can't wait to dress up!  

Field trip forms coming home this week!

Please go online (powerschool) to pay for our upcoming field trip to Fort Calgary!

What happens when you throw boiling water into -26 degree celcius air?

Ask your child!

We introduced our new science unit today with an experiment that involved throwing boiling water into the air.

We may not be going outside for recess, due to this cold weather, but we did do this experiment outside. Please ensure your child has ALL essential clothing to go outside in this weather - snowpants, coats, mittens, hats, scarves.

Winter Weather

With the very cold winter weather approaching, please remember to dress warmly every day. We will be going outside at all weather temperatures. Students are reminded daily to put on their hats, mittens, scarves etc. If your child is missing something tell them to go to our school lost and found or email us and we can remind them to check.

Have a warm weekend!

Exploring 2D shapes and 3D objects

  

I can describe and construct 2d shapes and 3D objects. 

Students are working on naming 2D and 3D shapes and describing them based on their attributes - side, points, edges, vertices, and faces. They worked through activities today to construct these shapes out of plastecine, on the Montessori peg board, and with geoboards. Ask your child what 2D and 3D shapes they can recall and describe.

Painting landscapes

This morning's message showed a picture of a familiar place.  Children identified this picture as being Calgary, by recognizing landmarks of Calgary's skyline like the Calgary Tower and The Bow.  We also looked at the natural features like the Elbow River and the Bow River.  

The confluence of these two rivers is a significant place in Calgary's history.  It had been a meeting place for the Blackfoot people, then it because the location of Calgary's first building...Fort Calgary.  

We will be visiting Fort Calgary on Wednesday, January 29th, to learn more about our city's history.  

Today we imagined this location, without the bridges, buildings, roads, railways and large trees, back before Fort Calgary was built.  We created landscape pictures featuring the confluence of the Bow and Elbow rivers, and showing how the landscape changes from prairies, to foothills to mountains, looking west from this location.  

We talked about:

-the foreground (bottom of page, close)

-the background (higher up on the page, far away or in the distance)

-horizon lines 

-that objects get smaller and further up the page when they are far away

Third Great Lesson

Today we started up our literacy block again.   Some of the groups have changed.  Ask your child who their reading teacher is!  Children should be bringing home reading books home each night to practice all their new skills.

It appears like many children practiced their doubles facts over the holidays!  Today we used our knowledge of doubles facts to learn a new strategy called doubles plus one. 

We played a whole class game, to learn to identify "neighbour numbers" (numbers with a difference of one).    examples:  5+6,  8+9, 3+4,  7+6

These neighbour numbers are almost doubles, so we can use our doubles facts to help us solve them. 

5+6 can be thought of as 5+ (5+1)

Third Great Lesson: Humans 

Today we explored the Third Great Lessons on how humans have changed and adapted to meet their needs.   Ask your child about the needs of humans?  (oxygen, water, food, shelter, safety, clothing, medicine, art...) Through time what discoveries did humans make to help them survive and thrive.  

Ask them what threats early humans faced?

In the beginning humans used materials found in nature like rocks, sticks, antlers as tools and weapons.  We talked a lot about the problem solving and ingenuity people used to make improvements.  Humans started to combine materials to make better tools. (Like attaching sharp rock to a stick to make a spear). 

Ask your child to think of the pictures in the powerpoint or the objects on display to help them think about the changes humans have experienced over time and what discoveries and improvements they made to their survival strategies. 

Welcome Back!

   

We hope you had a relaxing winter break and look forward to 2020!
We're right back at it! Students were working hard all today. They were able to jump right back into our Montessori work period. We reviewed our expectations and lessons and students were excited to be back in our routine!