Our Learning This Week - Feb 22-26

 We had a tremendous time with our learning this week and accomplished so much.  We can't wait to share everything with you.

In Language Arts, we began writing our circle stories that we planned last week.  Students were challenged to find more than one reason that their main character was unhappy for the beginning of the story.  Students are working to add details and descriptive words to their work.

In Math, we practiced our "counting on" strategy for addition and we are all able to successfully use it to calculate addition equations.  We worked this week on adding one and two just by counting quickly in our heads.  Learning these strategies helps us to be quicker with adding number and helps us to develop our mental Math.

As we have been working on friendship skills, Pink Shirt Day was the perfect opportunity to share ways to be kind, support friends, and prevent bullying.  Students all chose a caring message and helped us to create a large pink shirt as a class.  Each child had his or her picture taken with the shirt and we will put these in their visual journals.

In our Social Studies work about belonging to our community, we decided to take advantage of the amazing weather and do a walk around Tuscany.  With the recent snow, we chose to take our snowshoes along and use them to explore some field and forest areas in the green spaces close to our school.  We also went to the ridge path to look out at the view of the mountains, the river, the ski hill and even the downtown.  It prompted some great discussions about what is our community and how can we take care of the special place where we live.

Our Science work has been focused around the signs of winter and how plants, trees, and animals survive in the cold.  Friday is our virtual assembly day and it was room 152's turn to share, so we made a video about how animals cope with winter.  Here is the link to the video for you to enjoy.

In Art this week we explored using plasticine as a medium for making pictures.  We modeled our work after the Canadian author and illustrator Barbara Reid.  Our snowman pictures are already on display in the hallway by our classroom.

I noticed that many families have not yet had a chance to participate in the Celebration of Learning.  Please make time to get into the Google Classroom and get the directions for this activity.  The kids are excited to share their stories with you.

Upcoming

Monday March 1 - Home Reading Exchange   - The start of Read-a-Thon

Thursday March 4 - Home Reading Exchange

Saturday March 6 - Booking for Parent Conferences (Conference dates March 11th and 12th)

Our Work This Week - February 16-19

 We were all very happy to see our friends after the extra long weekend and were eager to dive into our work.  Here is what we got up to this week:

In Language Arts, we have been working on assessing our writing so that we can see what our next steps will be.  Students enjoyed journaling about their weekend and practiced responding to a storytelling video that I made.  They will be able to demonstrate what they know during the Celebration of Learning.  This is now posted on the google classroom.  We hope that everyone will have time to participate in this activity some time in the coming week.

In Science we are looking closely at the signs of winter.  We have had lots to notice these past few weeks.  Students are working in their visual journals to record what they know in pictures and in words.  We are also reviewing what animals do in winter in preparation for sharing our work at next week's on-line assembly.  Your child has chosen an animal to share and has 2-4 sentences to learn.  Please help your child practice this over the weekend as I will be filming them next week.  I will create a movie for the assembly and will post it on the blog next week.

In our Math, we have been working on strategies for adding numbers.  This week we have been working on using a number line or a number path to "count on". Students look at equation and decide which is the higher number.  They then start at that number and "count up" with the other number to get to a solution.  In grade one, students are expected to be able to add numbers for values from 0 to 20.  Of course, I am also extending this work for students who have already mastered working with these values.  They are working with the numbers from 0 to 100 with the same strategy.

Of course our big Math event this week was today, our 100th Day of School!  We took 22 minutes with 22 students to see how many paper chain (10 links long) that we could make.  We then counted by 10 to see how many we made all together.  We had 4 chains of 100 and 65 more.  We discovered that we could count to 465!  We had a great time counting everyone's collections that they brought in.  I will quarantine these items over the weekend and return them on Monday.  We also did an amazing art project.  We drew ourselves as we are today and we drew ourselves how we thought we would look at age 100.  The kids had a great time looking at images of seniors and trying to envision what they would look like when they got to be 100.

We finished up our Valentine's art from last week, but we are not leaving this work behind.  I have noticed, as I am sure that all of you have, that some of our students are having some issues with friends.  I have been spending an increasing amount of time dealing with students who say "He is being mean" or "My friend isn't playing with me" or "She is not being fair'.  Social issues seam to be coming up in many classes with a variety of kids, so I know that my students are not alone in needing help to develop socially.  I believe that that a part of this is the limitations that we have put in place due to Covid and how we have had to make changes in how we normally interact with each other.  I will be focusing on social interactions more intentionally in the coming weeks and will post the area of focus on the blog so that you can discus them with your child at home.

This week we talked about how to make sure that others are included in the games that we play.  We did some role playing about how to ask someone to play with us and how to find friends who want to play the game we like.  We also talked about how to tell someone that you don't like this game and could we play something else.  We can either choose who we play with or what game we want to play, but we can't do both.  Our friends have the right to choose a different game if they want.  We also worked on the ideas that just because our friend doesn't want to play with us right now, it doesn't mean that he or she is not our friend.

The building of friendship skills goes hand in hand with empathy.  I plan to do a number of activities around these concepts in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

Upcoming

February 19 - 26 - Celebration of Learning available in the google classroom

Monday February 22 - Home Reading Exchange

Wednesday February 23 - Neighbourhood walk in the afternoon

Thursday February 24 - Home Reading Exchange and Pink Shirt Day

Friday February 25 - Library Exchange

Our Short, but Busy Week - Feb 8-10

 We had a very eventful week with our wrap up for Carnaval.  Sadly, we were not able to get outside as much as we would have liked, but we did make it out for just a few minutes every day.  Thank you so much for making sure that your children were dressed and ready to participate.

We learned about the traditional voyageur sashes called the Ceinture Flechee. 

The traditional one from Quebec dates back more than 300 years and is red with

colourful weavings.  There is also an Alberta sash that is blue with red and white

woven in.  Students created their own patterned paper sash.

Of course, students were very excited about the building with ice blocks.

  Thank you so much for all your work creating blocks of ice and making sure

that they made it to the school so that we could build with them.  We made the

base and Ms. Hamm's class added onto it to make a great structure. 

kids sitting in front, some sitting behind, and some standing back. 

We will go out next week and add some more snow and water so that our

structure is more sturdy.

Because it has been so cold, we decided that we should do some

procedural writing about "How to Get Ready to Go Outside in Winter. 

First we acted it out, then we drew our pictures, and then we did our

step by step writing.

For our Valentine's activity, we read stories about kindness and friendship. 

Students chose a special word to be the frame around their heart and then

created a picture demonstrating the word.  We are learning how to use speech

bubbles to help communicate our ideas.  We did not quite finish this, so we

will be working on it next week.

We have been counting the days of school as a way to explore the numbers

from one to one hundred.  Next Friday, February 19th will be our 100th Day of School.

 As part of our celebration for the 100th day of school, we would like each student to

bring a collection of small items.  We are asking for them to create a collection of 50 to 90 objects.

They can record the size of their collection in their show and share journal. 

It will need to be at school no later than Tuesday, February 16th so that we can

quarantine the items prior to our 100th day activities. On the 100th day of school

(Friday February 19), they will trade their collection with someone else in class. 

The challenge will be to accurately count the collection and then figure out how

many more they would need to get to 100.  Here are some ideas of small things

your child could use to create their collection.

(Please do not use edibles as someone might be tempted to change

the number of objects in the collection;-)

-lego pieces

-paper clips

-coins

-buttons

-small toys

-cards

-markers or pencils

Please ensure that the collection is in a Ziploc bag labelled with your child’s name.

In addition to our counting collection challenge, we are encouraging

students to participate in some Math challenges at home and bring one

into class to share.  Please look at the bingo card below and choose which

activities you would like to try with your child.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful long weekend and a very Happy Family Day!

Upcoming

February 11-15 - No School for Students (Teacher's Convention and Family Day)

Tuesday February 16 - Home Reading Exchange - 100th Day Collections due

Thursday February 18 - Home Reading Exchange

Friday February 19 - 100th Day of School - Bring projects to share - Library Exchange

Carnaval and Other Things - February 1-5

 Our second annual Carnaval De Tuscany has gotten off to a great start!  We have been busy celebrating our winter culture by participating in a variety of outdoor activities.  We have also been immersing ourselves in French Canadian culture through language, music, and art experiences.  Here are some details about our work:

For our Phys. Ed, we have been doing some great outdoor experiences including, Scoots, Snowshoes and some sliding.  We also started our skipping unit in the gym.

In Science, we continued to learn about how animals adapt to the cold of winter.  We learned about what animals in our neighbourhood are still active in winter and what they do in order to survive. Students recorded their favourite active winter animal to record and wrote in their own words what adaptations the animals have or behaviors that they use to be successful in our cold climate.

Students have had a great time learning about some of the traditions associated with winter Carnaval.  We played the musical spoons, and made our effigies of Bonhomme.  We thoroughly enjoyed the music of Folklofolie and have been listening to a variety of french music in class.  

Our writing this week was centered around recording information in Science and on reflecting on our personal experience of snowshoeing.  Students are becoming much more confident in their ability to write complete sentences and are working to be more descriptive in their work.

Upcoming

Monday February 8 - Palais du Glass - Please bring your ice blocks in the morning and leave them on the north side of the outdoor classroom near the sign for my class - Home Reading exchange

Wednesday February 10 - Wear Red and Read - Students are encouraged to wear red or pink clothing and to bring a favourite book from home to share with the class - Students are not to bring paper valentines to school - we will be creating positive messages to display at school

Thursday -Friday - February 11 & 12 - Teacher's Convention - No school for students

Monday February 15 - Family Day - No School for Students

Friday February 19 - 100th Day of School!

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