This Week's Learning - Jan 25-28

 It has been a very wintery week, but we have managed to do some great learning both inside and outside.  Here is what we have been up to:

In Math, students are becoming more confident with using counters and some beginning strategies to work on calculating addition sums.  We have been using manipulatives to help ensure our accuracy and next week we will begin using other strategies to help us become quicker in finding our answers.  We have also been working hard on using tally marks to help us to skip count quickly by 5's.  Students used this work to help them record their counting collections in their Math books.

In Science, we continued with our learning about animals in Winter.  Our focus this week was on Hibernation.  Many students knew that bears hibernate in winter, but they were surprised to find out that frogs, snakes, bats, ladybugs, and ground squirrels also hibernate.  We talked about how hibernating animals have a slower heart beat, a slower breathing rate, and a lower body temperature.

In Gym, we wrapped up our unit on Yoga.  We are fortunate to have our gym in the mornings and having a quiet time to breath, stretch, and pay attention to our bodies was a great way to start our days.  

Despite the cold weather, we still managed to get outside every day for a fresh air break.  We even got to go out for a longer period and try out the school snowshoes.  We hope to do this activity again next week.  Thank you so much for making sure that your child came to school every day dressed for the weather.

Students have had a great time practicing their fairytale storytelling with their peers.  A few students volunteered to tell their story to the whole class and we looked at our criteria to see if our storytellers were using all the skills on our chart.  We will practice for the next few days and then students will have a chance to do a final recording of their story.  We are excited to share these recordings with you later in February.  If you have a chance to practice over the weekend, students are working to use the following skills in their storytelling:

-Use actions

-make your voice go up and down

-have an expressive face

-use different voices for different characters,

-when the story repeats, tell it the same way

We are so excited to be celebrating our second annual Carnaval de Tuscany! This event helps us learn about and celebrate French-Canadian culture right here in Tuscany. 

On Thursday, February 4, we will be having a virtual kickoff ceremony starring the incredible musical talents of Folklofolie. We are also hoping to catch a glimpse of Bonhomme, the Carnaval mascot. Carnaval will wrap up on Wednesday, February 10 with a final outdoor parade to see everyone's ice sculptures and window decorations. Students and staff are invited to wear their flannel shirts, Metis sashes, toques, and jeans for the week of Carnaval to show our French-Canadian spirit!

We will be engaging outdoor activities during the week such as snowshoeing and "dog sledding." Make sure your child is dressed for the weather so they can enjoy our time outside.

On Monday, February 8, students will be working together as a class to build an ice sculpture. For this day, we are asking students to bring in at least two 2L milk cartons that have been washed, filled with water, and frozen to be used as 'bricks' for building our ice sculpture. You can add a few drops of food colouring for a special effect. If you don't have any 2L milk cartons you can use 1L juice cartons, juice boxes, ice cubes or anything else that has FLAT sides. Please do not use plastic milk jugs or anything with rounded sides!! Please start freezing your ice blocks as soon as possible, as it takes a good 5 days to freeze solid.

IMPORTANT: Please send all ice blocks to school "unwrapped." To unwrap your ice block, make a cut down the middle of one side of the milk/juice and peel away the cardboard.

Please send the ice blocks to school unwrapped and in a bag on the morning of Monday, February 8. I will have a large tub outside the log playground labeled with my name. Students can drop off their ice blocks in the tub before coming inside. I will also freeze a few extra blocks for kids just in case someone turns up empty handed.

Thank you so much for your support with this fun design activity. We look forward to a great week of Carnaval and can't wait to see the creative structures the students build!

Upcoming

Monday February 1 - Home Reading Exchange

Thursday February 4 - Start of Carnival - Home Reading Exchange

Friday February 5 - Library Exchange

Our Work This Week - January 18-22

All of the students have settled well into our routine and we are into some great new learning.  Here is what we have been up to:

In Math, we are working to really understand the concept of addition - what it means and how it works.  Students are learning standard notation so that they can record their work with accuracy.  Some students need to work with hands on materials such as counters or block.  Other students are using their fingers or the number lines on their desks.  I will be working with groups of students at various levels and will design tasks appropriate to where the students are at with their understanding of addition.

In Language Arts, we have been learning about what makes an effective storyteller.  Last week, each student chose a fairy tale that they want to learn to tell.  I recorded their first attempt at their story on Monday and then we spent the week learning the story well and creating criteria for good storytelling.  We watched a couple of stories told by a professional storyteller, Tony Wilson.  You can watch them by clicking these two links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p9Fw1CsYxA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJl68amc97M

We noticed that a good storyteller:

-uses actions

-makes their voice go up and down

-has an expressive face

-uses different voices for each character

-when the story repeats, they tell it the same way every time

Each student created a story strip to help them remember the story.  They will bring home their story strip today.  Please have them practice their story over the weekend.  They can keep the story strip at home as we will move on to using puppets next week. 

Our gym unit on yoga continued this week.  We have been learning strength poses and balance poses and even tried a little yoga outside in the snow.

In December, students participated in an activity to celebrate our unique talents and personalities and how we all belong to our school community.  This work was done to develop the students' ability to appreciate that people may have physical, emotional, or learning challenges, but that everyone has something to contribute to our community.  Every student in Tuscany School created a fabric art piece that expressed how they are unique.  All of these pieces ave be quilted together to make a Belonging Quilt.  Please watch the video linked here to see how it was done and the amazing final results

With the end of January coming soon, we are looking ahead to the month of February.  We have some information to share with you about upcoming events.

Tuscany School's second annual Carnaval will take place from February 4 to February 10.  For Carnaval, we are hoping to build a creation out of ice blocks.  To assist in the building, we are hoping that each student can bring 2 blocks of ice on Monday February 8th.  We need the blocks to be rectangular in shape in order to make building easier, so we suggest that families use milk cartons (any size) or large juice tetra packs to freeze water into ice.  It can take more than a week to get large cartons frozen solid, so we recommend that you get them in the freezer as soon as possible.  On the day, we would like you to make sure that the ice is out of the carton and brought to school in a plastic bag or reusable shopping bag with your child's name on it.  This will help to ensure that students only use the ice from their own home.

We know that students and parents are already looking forward to Valentine's Day.  Due to Covid 19, we will be doing things a little differently this year.  In order to limit the contact from student homes, we will NOT be having any exchange of paper valentines or treats from home.  We will be making personal messages as well as a collaborative art piece to celebrate the occasion. 

Upcoming

Monday January 25 - Home Reading Exchange

Thursday January 28 - Home Reading Exchange

Friday January 29 - PD Day - No School for Students

Welcome Back in Person! Jan 11-15

 It is so wonderful to be back in the school with all of our students.  The kids are enjoying learning with their friends again.  Here are the things we have been working on:

In Language Arts we began our unit on Creating Stories.  We started our work by exploring storytelling.  This week we read three well known fairy tales: The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and the Three Billy Goats Gruff.  After reading the stories in books, we began practicing retelling the stories.  We then created simple puppets to help us recreate the stories.  We are in the process of recording the students' first attempt at telling their story.  We will spend then next little while learning what good storytellers do to make their stories interesting to the listeners.  

In Math, we are working to help students understand addition and subtraction.  We are happy that students were able to show you how the "Math Train" works during their at home learning.  This will be an ongoing activity to build our skills.  We also explored two open ended math problems and learned how to use a table to help show all our possible answers.

We began our Yoga unit in Phys. Ed. this week.  Our work with Yoga will help students develop awareness of their body and breathing.  It is also a great way to strengthen our core muscles, improve our balance, and develop our flexibility.

Our Science exploration of Seasonal Changes is our focus right now as we learn about how people and animals cope with Winter.  We read a great book, "Over and Under the Snow", and then we created a visual journal page showing people and animals that you can see in winter and then animals that are active or hibernating under the snow where we cannot see them.

Art this week centered around creating through drawing with a variety of materials.  We created a mixed media picture of a snowman on a winter night.  This was done with oil pastels for the snowman and chalk pastels for the snow, stars, and the night sky.  The finished pieces are beautiful!

Upcoming

Monday January 18 - Home Reading Exchange

Thursday January 22 - Home Reading Exchange

Friday January 23 - Library Exchange